Brazil Takes Dominant First Pole
Brazil took the first pole position in the inaugural A1 Grand Prix series, as Nelson Piquet Jr dominated qualifying
Piquet set the fastest time in two of the first three segments and was confident enough with his aggregate performance to sit out his final attempt. His aggregate two-lap time was 0.3 seconds faster than the next best car of New Zealand.
A1 GP qualifying has been designed to fit into a two-hour broadcasting slot and is broken into four, 15-minute quarters. Each nation is allowed to complete only one flying lap in each of the four sessions. The fastest two are added together to determine the grid positions for the series' sprint race tomorrow, with the grid for the feature race determined by the finishing order of the sprint race.
Piquet's third session time was the fastest lap recorded so far this weekend around the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, with a lap of 1:14.965.
Matt Halliday's New Zealand car qualified a strong second ahead of Alexandre Premat's French entry, who climbed up the leaderboard with strong runs in the later sessions.
Australia will start directly behind its Southern Hemisphere rival in fourth, while Robbie Kerr pleased the home fans with fifth on the grid, despite complaining of not being able to get a clear lap on his fastest runs.
Neel Jani's Switzerland car was sixth just edging out Mexico's Salvador Duran by fifteen hundredths of a second. Duran took a trip through the gravel at Paddock Hill Bend after his third qualifying run.
Canada's Sean McIntosh caused the first fifteen-minute session to be stopped after spinning at Westfield and beaching his car in the gravel.
The Team USA car of GP2 racer Scott Speed was only 17th quickest, having topped the early free practice yesterday.
Final qualifying results:
Pos Team Time 1. Brazil 2:30.789 2. New Zealand 2:31.117 + 0.328 3. France 2:31.206 + 0.417 4. Australia 2:31.388 + 0.599 5. Great Britain 2:31.714 + 0.925 6. Switzerland 2:31.729 + 0.940 7. Mexico 2:32.307 + 1.518 8. Pakistan 2:32.596 + 1.807 9. Malaysia 2:32.632 + 1.843 10. Japan 2:32.689 + 1.900 11. Portugal 2:32.705 + 1.916 12. Ireland 2:32.811 + 2.022 13. Germany 2:32.981 + 2.192 14. Netherlands 2:33.075 + 2.286 15. South Africa 2:33.086 + 2.297 16. Italy 2:33.234 + 2.445 17. Usa 2:33.317 + 2.528 18. Indonesia 2:33.424 + 2.635 19. India 2:34.126 + 3.337 20. Czech Republic 2:34.786 + 3.997 21. Canada 2:36.656 + 5.867 22. Austria 2:36.878 + 6.089 23. Lebanon 2:37.104 + 6.315 24. China 2:38.750 + 7.961 25. Russia 2:41.303 + 10.514
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