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Doornbos fastest in Algarve practice

Robert Doornbos topped the A1GP free practice times for Team Netherlands as the series ran at the Algarve circuit for the first time

The versatile IndyCar, Superleague and A1GP racer lapped just over four seconds slower than the top Formula 1 winter test time set on the slightly shorter version of the track that is being used this weekend. The layout misses out the full track's first chicane.

Behind the Netherlands car was the impressive New Zealand teenager Earl Bamber, who was just 0.058s shy of the fastest time.

A great late effort moved Team Monaco and Clivio Piccione into third, denying series newcomer Vitantonio Liuzzi a top-three slot on his Team Italy debut.

Filipe Albuquerque was fifth fastest for Team Portugal, despite bringing out the red flags with an early spin, while championship leader Team Switzerland was sixth with Neel Jani.

Another A1 newcomer, Team Germany's Andre Lotterer, slotted in seventh, just ahead of Team France's Nicolas Prost, who had earlier topped the rookie session times.

Team Brazil was forced to miss the session after Bia Figuereido suffered a massive shunt in the rookie session when she crashed head on into the tyres at Turn 1, in an accident similar to the one suffered by Heikki Kovalainen in last year's Spanish Grand Prix. She was fortunately unhurt in the high-speed impact.

Pos  Driver              Team           Time          Gap
 1.  Robert Doornbos     Netherlands    1:31.962
 2.  Earl Bamber         New Zealand    1:32.030   +0.068
 3.  Clivio Piccione     Monaco         1:32.242   +0.280
 4.  Vitantonio Liuzzi   Italy          1:32.568   +0.606
 5.  Filipe Albuquerque  Portugal       1:32.570   +0.608
 6.  Neel Jani           Switzerland    1:32.635   +0.673
 7.  Andre Lotterer      Germany        1:32.762   +0.800
 8.  Nicolas Prost       France         1:32.894   +0.932
 9.  Daniel Morad        Lebanon        1:33.019   +1.057
10.  John Martin         Australia      1:33.221   +1.259
11.  Adrian Zaugg        South Africa   1:33.379   +1.417
12.  Narain Karthikeyan  India          1:33.448   +1.486
13.  Marco Andretti      USA            1:33.500   +1.538
14.  Adam Carroll        Ireland        1:33.732   +1.770
15.  Fairuz Fauzy        Malaysia       1:33.745   +1.783
16.  Ho-Pin Tung         China          1:34.087   +2.125
17.  Zahir Ali           Indonesia      1:35.064   +3.102
18.  Salvador Duran      Mexico         1:56.253  +24.291
19.  Felipe Guimaraes    Brazil         no time
20.  Dan Clarke          Great Britain  no time

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