South Africa breaks test record
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
A1 Team South Africa provided the excitement of the first day of this week’s official A1GP test at Silverstone, Great Britain.
Despite track time that totalled more than six hours, the team’s driver Adrian Zaugg chose the final five minutes to break the A1GP record for the circuit’s International layout.
Zaugg (pictured) went out on new tyres and smashed the previous best around the 2.3-mile track, before bettering it on the subsequent lap. The car is still painted white awaiting the launch of the team's new livery.
His fastest lap was 1m 10.484s – faster than the previous record of 1m 10.509s set by A1 Team Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy at last year’s official test sessions.
‘We were working on the car throughout the day,’ Zaugg said. ‘I thought we could be up there in the top six, as we were just concentrating on the set-up and trying to improve from run to run. Then we fitted new tyres, tried a few laps and it was a pretty good time.’
Nicolas Lapierre, who has won six races in A1GP, was second quickest for A1 Team France, with his time from this morning’s session, just 0.047 seconds off Zaugg’s best.
‘We did a good job today and it is better to be up here than at the back,’ Lapierre said. ‘But this is just a testing session. We are just working out the set-up for the races and giving some more experience to the young drivers to get ready for the first race as well.’
The other teams at the top of the time sheets were ‘locals’ A1 Teams Great Britain and Ireland.
Oliver Jarvis, who has the distinction of giving the British team its maiden victory in Mexico City last year, was third quickest while it was rookie Adam Carroll, who set the fourth fastest time for Ireland.
Jarvis played down the importance of the lap times, despite his strong performance on his late new tyre run.
Jarvis said: ‘When I set the time I realised it probably was not quick enough, as I expected the track to maybe get a little bit quicker. Unfortunately I had a bit of traffic in sector three, but probably every driver out there can say the same thing.
‘Being top of the times is all important, but it is nice to be up the front. It is nice to be in the top three, but tomorrow will be a different day altogether. It will be much stronger so if we end up at the top of the times tomorrow I shall be a much happier person.’
Carroll’s time was set this morning, and it looked for the majority of the day as it if it would hold up and be one of the top three fastest times of the day, however Zaugg and Jarvis’ new tyre runs put paid to that.
Neel Jani was fifth quickest for A1 Team Switzerland ahead of Jeroen Bleekemolen’s sixth place for A1 Team Netherlands. Bleekemolen complained the red flags spoiled his quickest runs.
A1GP Official Test, Day One, 28 August 2007, Silverstone International Circuit
1 SOUTH AFRICA 01m 10.484s
2 FRANCE + 0.047s
3 GREAT BRITAIN + 0.075s
4 IRELAND + 0.183s
5 SWITZERLAND + 0.189s
6 GERMANY + 0.390s
7 INDIA + 0.398s
8 NEW ZEALAND + 0.541s
9 NETHERLANDS + 0.585s
10 MALAYSIA + 0.853s
11 BRAZIL + 0.864s
12 USA + 0.961s
13 AUSTRALIA + 1.094s
14 ITALY + 1.129s
15 PORTUGAL + 1.188s
16 CHINA + 1.389s
17 INDONESIA + 1.536s
18 CZECH REPUBLIC + 1.680s
19 CANADA + 1.742s
20 PAKISTAN + 1.912s
21 LEBANON + 2.007s
22 MEXICO + 2.854s