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A1GP Press Release
Friday, April 10, 2009
A1
Team New Zealand’s Earl Bamber got his weekend in the Algarve off to a
good start, by topping the timesheets in the opening rookie session.
Bamber lapped the new Autodromo Algarve circuit in 1m 34.147 seconds, as the track dried from morning rain.
France’s
Nicolas Prost was second quickest, half a second behind with a similar
margin back to Switzerland’s Alexandre Imperatori.
The
major talking point of the session was that it was stopped for a
lengthy period after a huge accident befalling Brazilian female Ana
Beatriz.
She
went straight on at the first turn, scrubbing off little speed before
heading into the tyres head first. The safety cell of the A1GP Powered
by Ferrari car stood up well to the crash, and Beatriz was able to walk
from the car unaided, without serious injury.
However,
the rest of the car was badly damaged in the incident and the tyre
barriers took time to repair before the session could restart.
The session was then prematurely ended, after a spin to new USA rookie Robbie Pecorari.
With
teams still exploring the limits of the circuit, the general
expectation is that times are going to continue to tumble in this
afternoon’s practice session.
In
the first morning rookie session there were some additional cars and
drivers on the track. In the case of A1 Team Italy and A1 Team Germany
it was their respective drivers’ lack of experience in the A1GP Powered
by Ferrari car that was the reason for this extra running, as both
Vitantonio Liuzzi and Andre Lotterer are new to the series.
In
the case of A1 Team GBR’s Dan Clarke, while this is his second A1GP
event he has considerably less experience in the car than the other
drivers. Unfortunately due to technical problems Clarke had to sit out
the afternoon session.
A1
Team Pakistan is yet to make its Season Five debut and Portugal was not
a possibility as its driver and seat holder, Adam Khan, is fulfilling
his duties with the Renault F1 team.
| Pos | A1 Team | Driver | Time | Gap |
| 1 |
New Zealand |
Earl Bamber |
1'34.147 |
|
| 2 |
France |
Nicolas Prost |
1'34.676 |
0.529 |
| 3 |
Switzerland |
Alexandre Imperatori |
1'35.240 |
1.093 |
| 4 |
Germany |
André Lotterer |
1'35.472 |
1.325 |
| 5 |
Netherlands |
Dennis Retera |
1'36.730 |
2.583 |
| 6 |
Ireland |
Niall Quinn |
1'37.561 |
3.414 |
| 7 |
USA |
Robbie Pecorari |
1'37.955 |
3.808 |
| 8 |
Malaysia |
Aaron Lim |
1'39.151 |
5.004 |
| 9 |
South Africa |
Cristiano Morgado |
1'39.335 |
5.188 |
| 10 |
Lebanon |
Jimmy Auby |
1'39.999 |
5.852 |
| 11 |
Indonesia |
Zahir Ali |
1'40.007 |
5.860 |
| 12 |
Portugal |
Armando Parente |
1'40.064 |
5.917 |
| 13 |
Brazil |
Ana Beatriz |
1'40.334 |
6.187 |
| 14 |
Italy |
Vitantonio Liuzzi |
1'40.493 |
6.346 |
| 15 |
India |
Parthiva Sureshwaren |
1'41.359 |
7.212 |
| 16 |
Monaco |
Hubertus Bahlsen |
1'42.782 |
8.635 |
| 17 |
Great Britain |
Dan Clarke |
1'47.549 |
13.402 |
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