  News of 20th February 2009Nicolas tops rookie session times! Today, A1 Team France took part in practice for the 2 races in the fifth round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Championship on the Kyalami circuit in the Gauteng province in South Africa. Due to delays because of a logistics problem the cars arrived at the track very early this morning. The organisers decided to revise the timetable to give the teams the most time possible to prepare their cars. The result was a rookie session and a single free practice. Despite the limited track time A1 Team France ran through its technical programme and got the most out of every kilometre covered. Nicolas Prost topped the time sheets in the rookie session. He then had a set of tyres at his disposal that had already been used, so he was unable to match the pace of the cars that went out on new tyres a few minutes later. He set the eleventh time in the free session, a position that gives no cause for worry, because of the special conditions in which the first day unfolded. Olivier Panis, sporting director: “First of all, I’d like to congratulate the whole team who did a great job getting the car ready so quickly. Their professionalism enabled us to run more than our rivals and to collect a lot of very useful information. This morning, Nicolas showed that he was on the pace. The modifications to the set-up that we’re going to make between now and tomorrow will enable us to gain more speed, so we’re pretty optimistic!” Nicolas Prost: “It’s not been an ideal first day, but even so we’re not worried. I was not very well seated in the car as the late arrival of the equipment prevented us from moulding my seat properly before the first practice session. Tomorrow, however, I’ll have a made-tomeasure seat and that’ll make life a whole lot easier! We ran through a range of set-ups that didn’t go off quite as we’d hoped. So we know what we have to do to up the pace in free practice and qualifying tomorrow.”
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