Piquet fastest in opening session
Nelson Piquet Jr led the way for Team Brazil in the opening A1 GP practice session for this weekend's fourth round of the championship, at Eastern Creek, Australia
Piquet lapped the 3.93-km track in 1:19.266 but only completed a handful of fastest laps before heavy rain started to fall at the Sydney track, meaning only laps completed in the opening 15 minutes were fast enough to top the timesheets.
Salvador Duran was second fastest despite an early off track excursion in the Mexican car. Series leaders France were not far behind in third, with EuroSpeedway's double winner Nicholas Lapierre returning to driving duties.
The dry running was limited further by an early red flag for sportscar ace Hayanari Shimoda, who went off the track and stranded the Japanese car on the circuit when he spun backwards back onto the track, narrowly missing the Lebanese car of Basil Shaaban.
Shaaban himself caused another red flag at the end of the session, after his car was stranded following a spin.
Other drivers to have moments in the wet included local driver Christian Jones, and the Chinese driver Tengi Jiang.
Pos Team Driver Time Laps 1. Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 1:19.266 18 2. Mexico Salvador Duran 1:20.426 + 1.160 18 3. France Nicolas Lapierre 1:20.627 + 1.361 8 4. Switzerland Neel Jani 1:21.427 + 2.161 12 5. New Zealand Jonny Reid 1:21.540 + 2.274 12 6. Netherlands Jos Verstappen 1:21.626 + 2.360 13 7. Italy Enrico Toccacelo 1:21.654 + 2.388 17 8. Portugal Alvaro Parente 1:21.872 + 2.606 17 9. Canada Sean Mcintosh 1:22.173 + 2.907 15 10. Great Britain Robbie Kerr 1:22.255 + 2.989 17 11. USA Bryan Herta 1:22.299 + 3.033 13 12. South Africa Stephen Simpson 1:22.319 + 3.053 14 13. China Tengyi Jiang 1:22.379 + 3.113 18 14. Ireland Michael Devaney 1:22.428 + 3.162 15 15. Germany Adrian Sutil 1:22.563 + 3.297 16 16. Pakistan Adam Khan 1:22.623 + 3.357 12 17. Malaysia Alex Yoong 1:22.731 + 3.465 14 18. Australia Christian Jones 1:22.895 + 3.629 17 19. Japan Hayanari Shimoda 1:22.906 + 3.640 18 20. Lebanon Basil Shaaban 1:23.377 + 4.111 20 21. Austria Mathias Lauda 1:23.667 + 4.401 18 22. Czech Republic Jan Charouz 1:24.776 + 5.510 17 23. Russia Roman Rusinov 1:24.802 + 5.536 14 24. India Armaan Ebrahim 1:29.531 + 10.265 15
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