Jimenez nets Brasil best qualifying of season in Sepang

A1 Team Brasil scored its best combined qualifying result of the season today as Sergio Jimenez put the A1GP car in seventh and sixth places respectively for tomorrow’s sprint and feature races. Qualifying was held in exceedingly hot and humid conditions at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia for the third round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

The team continued to demonstrate its consistency and performance improvements in this morning’s practice, with Sergio completing 18 laps of testing, finishing the session in eighth place. His time was less than a second from session leaders Team Switzerland, who later went on to blitz feature race qualifying with Neel Jani putting the Swiss car on pole by almost a second.

In segment one of qualifying for the sprint race, Sergio set a lap time of 1:50.326, putting himself in provisional fifth, despite suffering from understeer. The team worked hard to improve the car for the second segment, and Sergio set a time a second faster. However, the rest of the field were also working furiously, and Sergio’s lap put him in seventh fastest overall, putting him on the fourth row for tomorrow’s sprint race.

For tomorrow afternoon’s feature race, Sergio will line up on the third row of the grid after setting an impressive time of 1:49.110 in segment four of qualifying. His previous time in segment three time of 1:50.000 was encouraging as the 23-year-old ran on old tyres.

Sergio Jimenez: "We expected something to need changing after the first qualifying for the sprint race and we were right as we suffered a lot of understeer in the first session. We made some big changes and improved the lap time by a second so we have to be happy with that.

We should really be a couple of places higher, but seventh is not bad. In first qualifying for the feature race, we started very good on old tyres and improved the car a lot. Unfortunately I made a mistake on the middle sector of that lap, but the first sector was the fastest of the session.

We put new tyres on for the final qualifying and the balance changed a bit. I had oversteer in three turns, so I think I could have been fourth, but we know we have a good car for the race and I’m confident we can get a podium here."

Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: "I am pleased that we are showing an improved performance and consistency. I’m very happy with Sergio’s last lap because he had oversteer and still set an impressive lap time. He should be in the top four but because of the time he lost due to that, I am happy to start from sixth.

Sergio is getting more confident, is learning about the car and is working well with the engineers and the team. We have a good synergy and I’m looking forward to two positive races tomorrow."

1. Switzerland 1:48.630

2. France +0.215

3. Great Britain +0.234

7. Brasil +0.746

1. Switzerland 1:47.648

2. Great Britain +0.960

3. Germany +1.088

6. Brasil +1.462

Laps: 18 Position: 8th Fastest Lap: 1:50.167 (+0.991)

- Rebecca Banks-

photos on automobilsport.com under PHOTOS - A1GP Series