Britain Top the Times at Silverstone

British driver Robbie Kerr drove the 550bhp A1 GP car around the circuit's National layout in 48.888 seconds, just piping the Brazilian entry driven by GP2's Nelson Piquet Jr by 0.181 seconds.

"We can go quicker," Kerr told Autosport-Atlas. "There is time left in the car and getting a good balance in the car but today was just to see how it works. It is just good to get back in a car after being away for so long.

"We only used our new tyres late in the day. Everyone thinks there is more time to be had tomorrow."

A1 Team Switzerland's car, driven by Neil Jani, finished third, ahead of France with Loic Duval and Alexandre Premat sharing the driving.

Fifteen teams completed laps with the only major problem for the first test being that cars had to line up at the exit of the pitlane because organisers only had one external starter.

Chinese driver Qing Hua Ma caused the only red flag of the day, after he spun having damaged a tyre by going over kerbs at Luffield.

The test at Silverstone continues tomorrow, with IRL driver Tomas Scheckter flying in to join the South African team.

                     Morning        Afternoon
Pos  Country         Time    Laps   Time           Laps
 1.  Great Britain   52.733   4     48.888          57
 2.  Brazil          49.937  30     49.069 + 0.181  67
 3.  Switzerland              0     49.095 + 0.207  35
 4.  France          50.502  11     49.271 + 0.383  41
 5.  Portugal        51.350   9     49.393 + 0.505  68
 6.  Pakistan        52.538   7     49.506 + 0.618  34
 7.  Malaysia                 0     49.634 + 0.746  40
 8.  USA             53.287   6     49.740 + 0.852  48
 9.  South Africa    51.205  17     49.864 + 0.976  42
10.  Lebanon         53.753   4     49.976 + 1.088  58
11.  Australia       55.370   6     50.066 + 1.178  52
12.  Mexico          51.177  13     50.265 + 1.377  44
13.  Netherlands              0     50.377 + 1.489  28
14.  New Zealand     53.663   5     50.610 + 1.722  59
15.  China                    0     55.783 + 6.895  22

Running Drivers in today's testing:

Great Britain  Robbie Kerr,  Alex Lloyd
Brazil         Nelson Piquet Jr., Danilo Dirani, Joao Paulo Oliveiria
Switzerland    Neel Jani
France         Loic Duval, Alexandre Premat, Nicolas Lapierre
Portugal       Pedro Lamy
Pakistan       Adam Kahn
Malaysia       Alex Yoong
USA            Jeff Simmons
South Africa   Stephen Simpson, Thomas Scheckter
Lebanon        Kalil Beschir, Basil Shaaban
Australia      Christian Jones
Mexico         Luis Diaz, Memo Rojas, David Martinez, Salvador Duran
Netherlands    Jos Verstappen, Jeroen Bleekemolen
New Zealand    Jonny Reid, Matt Halliday
China          Qing Hua Ma, Tingyi Jiang

Note: A1 GP did not release the identity of the driver setting the fastest time for each team