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South Africa - A1 Team Netherlands set the pace in the
second of today's two free practice sessions in South Africa as round seven of
the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season got underway around the streets
of Durban in hot and humid weather conditions.
Jeroen Bleekemolen recorded the best lap time of the day, a 1m18.738s, around
the 3.28 km circuit, just over half a second off Brazil's lap record. Germany's
Michael Ammermüller, who was an impressive 1.3 seconds quicker than the rest of
the field at the end of the rookie practice session this morning, clocked the
second fastest time of the day.
Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis, who hasn't driven an A1GP car since December
2007, and USA's Jonathan Summerton were on good form this afternoon, setting the
third and fifth fastest lap times respectively. This was particularly impressive
as both nations did not have the benefit of this morning's rookie session.
Switzerland's Neel Jani was sandwiched between GBR and USA in fourth.
Home nation South Africa's Adrian Zaugg pleased his local fans by setting the
sixth fastest time of the day despite limited track time, closely followed by
Australia's John Martin in seventh. Title leaders A1 Team New Zealand and France
had a tough time around the streets of Durban, finishing the session 11th and
15th respectively.
Canada's Robert Wickens only managed 10 minutes of track time and completed
four laps in this afternoon's session, as the team had to repair damage
sustained to the car during this morning's rookie session, when new boy Daniel
Morad, the youngest driver to sign-on this season, was behind the wheel.
With concrete walls surrounding the perimeter of the tight and twisty street
circuit, some of the teams and drivers ran into trouble with session-stopping
incidents. A1 Team Mexico's David Garza had a big accident this morning, hitting
the wall as he exited turn six. Garza was unhurt but the car was so badly
damaged that the Mexican team had to sit out the second session and spend the
afternoon setting up one of A1GP's spare cars for qualifying tomorrow.
The Netherlands' Jeroen Bleekemolen set the fastest time overall today and is
feeling happier with the set up of the Dutch car:
'It was a lot of fun to drive. I love street circuits so it's been going
really well. I won last year in Monaco with the Porsche Supercup and I won with
A1GP in Beijing so I just like racing on these tracks. We have been struggling a
lot with the car the last few races and it's going much better on street
circuits, as it did in the past with Jos Verstaapen, so I think we have a much
better set up for that and it looks like we have a good chance for this weekend.
We just need to work on the normal circuit set up.'
South Africa's Adrian Zaugg, who set the sixth fastest lap this afternoon, is
feeling quietly confident ahead of his home event in Durban this weekend:
'We had problems with rebalancing the tyres today so we just tried to do one
lap at the end which wasn't too bad under the circumstances, so we're looking
alright. It's very competitive and A1GP is getting more and more competitive
with each season and I think the times will stay pretty close all weekend. I'm
pretty confident - we'll see after qualifying on Saturday afternoon but I think
we should be in good shape.'
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