A1GP news

Dutch happy with first day at Brno

A1 Team Netherlands had a good first day of the A1GP Brno, with the team setting a fourth fastest time in the first official free practice. Jeroen Bleekemolen set a fastest time of 1'46.347.

This morning it was Arie Luyendyk jr who made his debut for A1 Team Netherlands in the Rookie session during an A1GP race weekend. In the first half of 25 minutes Luyendyk jr mainly focussed on bedding in new brakes and started working on the car set up with the team. In the end Arie finished on a combined 15th place on a track which was completely new to him. During the Rookie session the team also discovered that one of the brakepads had broken, causing locked up wheels for Luyendyk.

In the afternoon Jeroen Bleekemolen took over for his first free practice this weekend. The one hour session went without any problems for A1 Team Netherlands and the team was constantly amongst the front runners. Vietoris of Germany had a clear advantage because he already went out in the Rookie session and this enabled him to get the maximum from his new tyres straight away.

Jeroen Bleekemolen was pleased with today's result; "It went very well. The first run was the quickest because then the tyres are still very fresh and the drop off here is quite significant. There Germany had an advantage over us, they already went out this morning with the same driver. We were competitive from the start and also later on in the session, as the tyres were worn we were still there. Every time we went out we improved the car and apart from that first run we were inside the top three when you look at the times. That's just good and I am confident about the weekend. We can still improve the car and things are looking good. Already we are much quicker than last year. We are driving with a totally different set up, now we are there immediately. That was never the case last year."

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