Wirdheim impressed with new track

The opening on-track salvos of the very first Chinese Grand Prix were fired on Friday morning as the F1 cars took to the stunning new Shanghai track for first practice. Among them were the three Jaguar Racing cars of Mark Webber, Christian Klien and Bjorn Wirdheim.

Test driver Wirdheim put in 19 laps and was the quickest of the three with 12th fastest time of the session. Klien and Webber completed 15 and 11 laps respectively and were 20th and 21st.

"The track is fantastic," said Wirdheim. "There is a really good flow of corners here and a great variety. I think the racing will be very good indeed. The car performed well, we got through a good amount of our programme. The team's simulations for this brand new track have proved amazingly accurate and this has given us a very good start to the weekend."

Webber had a brief off-circuit moment as he pushed to find the grip level of the track, but was nonetheless quite satisfied. "Obviously the track is still building up its grip and we were chasing that to an extent. It was just about getting some data under our belt and we plan to do a few more laps than that in the afternoon session."

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