Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
11/21/2008
Sepang, Malaysia
Round 3 of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport got underway at the Sepang International Circuit Friday, with Great Britain’s Danny Watts ending the day quickest overall in Malaysia.
In hot and humid conditions, Watts’ time of 1:50.038 set on his second flying lap couldn’t be bettered during the hour practice.
“With the extra running I got this morning I was always going to be there or there abouts,” said Watts. “I think looking at the times, the top ten are very close and there’s hardly anything in it. It will be the same story tomorrow so it will be very tight at the top.”
Due to a gearbox problem, A1 Team Switzerland didn’t make it out on track during this morning’s session, but the lack of track time didn’t hinder Neel Jani. Last season, Jani had the perfect weekend claiming both pole positions and converting them into wins, so it was no surprise that after doing only nine laps today, he clocked a time of 1:50.110, just 0.072 adrift of Watts.
A1 Team India’s Narain Karthikeyan’s time of 1:50.187 in the final minutes of the session was, just 0.149sec from pole while Loic Duval took over the wheel of the French car to finish the day fourth quickest. Team USA’s Marco Andretti, making his second series appearance this weekend, was 13th on Friday at 1:51.358.
“I’m looking forward to the race in Malaysia,” Andretti commented. “We should be able to take all the things we learned in China and make some good improvements this next time out. This is still a very new program for the team, but I feel confident that we will show more pace each time out.”
