For A1 Team Netherlands there is a lot of work to be done tomorrow to get a good result in both races of the A1 Grand Prix in Dubai. After a promising third fastest time in this mornings final free practice session, the team did not reach higher then a nineteenth grid position in qualifying. In the qualifying, which started chaotic when the first session was stopped with a code red after a heavy crash of Team Mexico, Jos Verstappen set an aggregate time of 3’35.074 (1’47.559 & 1’47.516) in the remaining three sessions.
A1 Team Netherlands driver Jos Verstappen had to admit it just did not go at all. Off course Verstappen was disappointed, but also surprised about the difference with the free practice in the morning.
Jos Verstappen; “It’s a big disappointment. In the last session I got understeer in the last sector and this made me go wide. With that I lost about half a second. Otherwise we could possibly have ended up around the 12th place. The starting position for the races off course is not good. Also you are right in the middle of the rumble, so the chance of something happening is obviously very present. But this is racing, off course we will go all out to make the best of it and race as hard as possible”.
According to Seat Holder Jan Lammers stopping the first session, in which A1 Team Netherlands together with 19 other countries could not go out to set a time, had no influence on the end result. There is a lot of work waiting for the team if they want to leave Dubai with some points.
Jan Lammers; “We just missed speed, which took us a bit by surprise. We thought we were on course, but obviously this was not the case. We have to analyse again where we were off. But we are in 19th, we could have been eleventh or twelfth. So, again we got some work to do. We saved our new tyres for the last two sessions, so the first session would not have made a dramatic difference”.
Tomorrow the Sprint race, with rolling start, will kick off at 13.30 hrs local time (10.30 hrs GMT). At 15.00 hrs local time (12.00 hrs GMT) the Feature race will start, in which all teams have one obligatory pitstop.
Press release
A1 Team Netherlands
