Asian Motor Sports

Nico Hulkenberg continued his command performance today on the 3.93km Eastern Creek circuit for this weekend’s A1 Grand Prix round in Australia. Even with an admitted mistake in the second of the four qualifying segments, Team Germany’s racer in this season’s World Cup of Motorsport, made a comeback and ended the final qualifying session with a hot lap of 1:17.962 to snatch the pole from New Zealand’s Jonny Reid.

“I’m happy to be on the pole position once again. In the first attempt, I didn’t go quite to the limit. I spoiled my second attempt on used tyres when I was a bit too ambitious and run wide onto the grass,” admitted Hulkenberg.

The young racer at the age of 19, ended up with his second pole of the 2006/’07 season with an aggregate time (based on the best two out of the four times) of 2:36.225 and will lead the field of nations to the green flag for the first of two races Sunday morning.

New Zealand has qualified in second position for Sunday’s opening sprint race in round seven of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Sydney.

Kiwi driver Jonny Reid set his two fastest times in the first and fourth runs of the four qualifying segments at Eastern Creek, piloting Black Beauty on to the front row of the grid for the fourth time in five drives this season.

Championship leaders Germany have qualified on pole with Great Britain qualifying third, defending A1GP champions, France, in fourth and Switzerland fifth.

New Zealand is third in the championship, just three points behind second-placed France, and New Zealand’s head of engineering David Sears said the team was thrilled to have qualified ahead of the French.

“It was an exciting qualifying session and the most important thing is that France is two places behind us,” Sears said. “That’s the first major hurdle cleared and now we work hard to collect enough points to overtake them in the championship.”

Sears said the fresh engine the team debuted in the morning’s second Official Practice session, where Reid set the third fastest time behind Germany and Great Britain, performed reliably.

“It certainly didn’t hinder our performance, so overall it’s been another good day at the office and there’s lots of smiling, happy people in our camp.

“Jonny drove well once again and if we perform to our potential as a team tomorrow the smiles should remain.”