Nicolas Prost: second place in practice!

Today, A1 Team France took part in the rookie session and the first free practice on the Chengdu circuit in China, which is hosting the second round of the 2008-09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Championship.

Nicolas Prost was on the pace right away. On his first flying lap he was already up among the front-runners, and he finished the rookie session in second place just 1/100s off the best time. In free practice in which all the drivers took part Nico showed the same fighting spirit. He held on to 1st place for a long time despite numerous interruptions and ended the session in 2nd spot. These performances augur well for the rest of the weekend.

Olivier Panis, sporting director: “We managed to put in a lot of good laps today. We seem to be on the pace, which is very encouraging. Tomorrow, we're going to fine tune our set-up even more and Nicolas will use every lap to up his speed. Overall, the first sessions have been positive, and we're tackling the rest of the weekend in a confident frame of mind.”

Nicolas Prost said: “It's been a good day's preparation. We were able to run through our technical programme, and I felt at home in the car right away. The circuit's bumpy and fairly twisty and we seem to have found the right set-up. I was a bit surprised to be at the front, but I mustn't raise my hopes too much, as it's only the first day. The hardest is still to come and I'm looking forward to doing battle in qualifying!”

Official press release of A1 Team France

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