STEADY PROGRESS

A1 Team France began preparing for the 2 races on the Brands Hatch circuit in England, the final round of the 2007/2008 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

Nicolas Prost set the 11th-quickest time of the rookie drivers, and then handed over to Franck Montagny for the final run. Franck set the 10th-fastest time only 0.536s off the best time of the day. The gaps between the cars are tiny and the drivers in 2nd to 11th places are grouped in less than 0.4 seconds! In these conditions, the team is feeling quietly optimistic for tomorrow. Thanks to the work carried out today it reckons that it will be among the front-runners in qualifying.

Olivier Panis, sporting director: “Today, we were working on fine-tuning the car’s set-up on a  track  that  Franck  doesn’t  know.  We  still  have  a  little  more  to  do:  above  all  we  have  to improve our performance in the first sector, but overall we’re happy with Friday’s results.”

Franck  Montagny:  “I’m  feeling  pretty  confident  about  tomorrow  as  we  made  a  lot  of progress throughout the day. In addition, I now feel at home in the car. The fact that I don’t know the circuit is an advantage as I haven’t come here with my mind full of F1 settings, and I can adapt to it at the rhythm required by the A1GP car. I think we’ll be able to get into the first five in tomorrow’s qualifying. That’s my aim”

Nicolas Prost: “I used the first session to bed in the brake discs and pads and to learn the circuit. In the second, I began to run through the set-ups and the engineers and me found a few interesting paths to explore. The car wasn’t great in the opening runs, but we managed to improve its handling on each outing. This is the last meeting and I’m staying with the team until Sunday to give it my support.”