Asian Motor Sports

The New Zealand A1 Grand Prix team has used the practice day for the 8th Round of the World Cup of Motorsport to acclimatise to Indonesia’s sauna-like conditions and the Sentul Circuit’s slippery surface.

Wet weather throughout the day made setting fast times secondary to adapting to the track and determining wet weather lines.

The New Zealand team completed the most laps, 30, in the morning session with Matt Halliday posting the 10 th fastest time. He cruised through 23 laps in the afternoon session on the same set of tyres, while other teams changed tyres to consign Black Beauty to the 22nd fastest time out of 23 cars.

A1 Team.NZL chief executive Bob McMurray said each team was focused on experimenting and he was comfortable that New Zealand was on the pace and learning fast.

“The track is interesting in that there are lots of different compositions – some high grip and some low grip – and a lot of time was spent determining the best lines to run to keep the car on the road as much as possible,” McMurray said.

“We concentrated on trying to get the right balance to our set-up in the wet and we’re pleased we conserved our allocation of tyres but stayed on the circuit for the most part.

“Matt had one slight ‘off’ into the gravel trap, but there was no damage done. All in all, it was a satisfactory day given there were plenty of red flags with cars careering off the circuit.

“The humidity was so high it felt like we were operating in a teflon-coated sauna.”

McMurray says there’s no predicting what the weather will do for tomorrow’s qualifying sessions, but the New Zealand team is well prepared for a continuation of the wet weather through tomorrow and into Sunday’s two big feature races.

New Zealand is currently fifth on the table, well behind leaders France and Switzerland, but within striking distance of 3rd placed Brazil and 4th placed Great Britain.