France fastest in dry third practice
Team France jumped straight to the top of the timesheets in the first dry practice session ahead of tomorrow's eighth round of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations at Sentul, Indonesia
Nicolas Lapierre set the fastest time of the hour-long session on his first flying lap. Lapierre's best of 1m18.527s left him just over a tenth clear of A1 returnee Salvador Duran in the Team Mexico entry.
The Mexican was just one thousandth of a second clear of Team Netherlands driver Jos Verstappen.
Lapierre said: "The car is always well balanced in the dry. If it is dry for qualifying, I will feel very confident; if it is wet, it will be more difficult. The big question-mark this weekend is the weather."
Duran, who missed the previous A1 GP round at Durban last month, said: "I'm happy with my time after not driving for more than a month."
The top six was completed by Stephen Simpson in the South African car, Team GBR's Robbie Kerr and Team New Zealand driver Matt Halliday.
Pos Driver Country Time 1. Nicolas Lapierre France 1:18.527 2. Stephen Simpson South Africa 1:18.633 + 0.106 3. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:18.698 + 0.171 4. Jos Verstappen Netherlands 1:18.699 + 0.172 5. Robbie Kerr Great Britain 1:18.808 + 0.281 6. Matt Halliday New Zealand 1:18.854 + 0.327 7. Ananda Mikola Indonesia 1:18.856 + 0.329 8. Neel Jani Switzerland 1:18.863 + 0.336 9. Sean McIntosh Canada 1:18.990 + 0.463 10. Alvaro Parente Portugal 1:19.045 + 0.518 11. Tomas Enge Czech Republic 1:19.063 + 0.536 12. Ralph Firman Ireland 1:19.165 + 0.638 13. Alex Yoong Malaysia 1:19.169 + 0.642 14. Hayanari Shimoda Japan 1:19.389 + 0.862 15. Timo Scheider Germany 1:19.393 + 0.866 16. Marcus Marshall Australia 1:19.573 + 1.046 17. Basil Shaaban Lebanon 1:19.603 + 1.076 18. Max Busnelli Italy 1:19.615 + 1.088 19. Mathias Lauda Austria 1:19.820 + 1.293 20. C. Fittipaldi Brazil 1:19.945 + 1.418 21. Philip Giebler USA 1:20.010 + 1.483 22. Tengyi Jiang China 1:20.049 + 1.522 23. Armaan Ebrahim India 1:20.767 + 2.240
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