A1 Team France came out on top after the first day’s practice on the Eastern Creek circuit near Sydney (Australia).

This performance leaves the team in a very optimistic frame of mind for the rest of the weekend. The  day  began  with  the  two  sessions  for  rookies  with  Jonathan  Cochet  in  the  A1  Team France car, which he soon got to grips with on a drying track. He worked his way through the preparatory phase (bedding in discs, pads etc) and finished in fifth place. Loïc Duval replaced him for the first free practice session.

He arrived directly from Nagoya in Japan where he had been GT testing. He landed in Australia at 11:00 in the morning and reached the circuit at 13:00. An hour later he was behind the wheel of his car, and set the quickest time on only his second flying lap. After getting the weekend off to a flying start the team is confident and hopes to set good performances in timed practice tomorrow.

Olivier  Panis,  sporting  director:  “In  view  of  the  objectives  we’ve  set  ourselves  for  the weekend our Friday has been almost perfect. Technically speaking, we’ve done a lot of work to try and master tyre wear, which is much more critical here than in the last event. For the moment it’s all systems go! Thanks too to Jonathan for his very professional input, which was a great help to us this morning.” Jonathan Cochet, test driver: “I didn’t know the A1GP cars and I found it was like driving an F3000, so I didn’t waste too much time finding my marks. The Eastern Creek circuit is magnificent and I really enjoyed myself this morning. My priority was to prepare the car as best I could for Loïc and begin set-up work for the team. I think we’ve gotten off to a good start.”

Loïc  Duval:  “It’s  been  a  very  productive  day  for  the  whole  team.  Despite  coming  straight from Japan I was on the pace immediately. I set the quickest time early on in the session leaving us plenty of time to concentrate on fine-tuning the set-up. I’m pretty optimistic for the rest of the weekend, and hope to leave Australia having helped A1 Team France to take the lead in the championship.”