The Brands Hatch thread

[strider]

I'd like to see Duran out there. He knows the circuit and his confidence must have been boosted by his recent win in WSR at Monza. He could well upset the form book if the car's up to scratch.

[Spudgun]

I'm going to make the trip, just for race day though. I'm looking forward to it.

[Sato san]

Ive just drove past Brands Hatch 40 minutes ago , ..... well i stopped and had a look , you have to dont you :-) ........ and its looking superb already !...

All the Nations flags flying in a line it looks really impressive . The Paddock looks full , Team awning etc . It really does have a feel of the old days about it again ...Great stuff ! ...Im looking forward to tomorrow alot now , im going back up there early morning i think if everything works out well ..

Last time seeing A1GP with power oversteer and abit of 4 wheel drift round paddock was such a joy . Hope its as good this year .

[JimW]

Originally Posted by Sato san

Ive just drove past Brands Hatch 40 minutes ago , ..... well i stopped and had a look , you have to dont you :-) ........ and its looking superb already !...

All the Nations flags flying in a line it looks really impressive . The Paddock looks full , Team awning etc . It really does have a feel of the old days about it again ...Great stuff ! ...Im looking forward to tomorrow alot now , im going back up there early morning i think if everything works out well ..

Last time seeing A1GP with power oversteer and abit of 4 wheel drift round paddock was such a joy . Hope its as good this year .

Exactly. It was the feel and enjoyment of the previous meeting which made me so keen to attend this one. Getting up at 0-dark-thirty tomorrow to do it and all.

Regards

Jim

[Stephen Green]

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow the Sato San (Jay)

[Suze]

The weekend kicked off with an event in central London last night (no cars though ) - nothing spectacular happened but does feel like weekend is really here now!

Tony Clements claims it will be sunny....I hope so! Though would be interesting if the rookie sessions today were greasy - certainly wet about 20 miles away and as far as I can see (Crystal Palace).

[cos]

Drivers nominated:

Australia (Ian Dyk*)
Brazil (Bruno Junqueira)
Canada (Sean McIntosh, Kevin Lacroix*)
China (Congfu Cheng*)
Czech Republic (Jan Charouz*)
France (Loic Duval, Jean Karl Vernay*)
Germany (Nico Hulkenberg)
Great Britain (Robbie Kerr, Oliver Jarvis*)
India (Narain Karthikeyan*)
Indonesia (Ananda Mikola, Moreno Soeprapto*)
Ireland (Richard Lyons, John O’Hara*)
Italy (Enrico Toccacelo, Michele Rugolo*)
Lebanon (Allam Khodair*, Khalil Beschir, Alex Khateeb)
Malaysia (Alex Yoong, Aaron Lim*)
Mexico (Juan Pablo Garcia*)
Netherlands (Jeroen Bleekemolen, Renger van der Zande*)
New Zealand (Jonny Reid, Matt Halliday)
Pakistan (Nur Ali*)
Portugal (Alvaro Parente, Joao Urbano*)
South Africa (Adrian Zaugg, Gavin Cronje*)
Switzerland (Sebastien Buemi, Marcel Fassler*)
USA (Jonathan Summerton*)

Singapore have another excuse to miss a race - Murchison has injured his shoulder. Garcia in for Mexico - has he done a A1GP session before?

[strider]

That's a very good entry for the last race of the season. I wasn't expecting France to drop Duval back in the car. He could be a threat.

I'm not sure about Garcia. I think he may have done a Rookie session, but he's very much third choice, so it looks as though Telmex have lost interest.

The latest weather forecast is not as good as before, even suggesting light showers for Sunday.

[spider]

http://www.motorsportvision.co.uk/ne...sp?NewsID=2706

[Kebab]

In the 2nd rookie session USA was actually faster than GBR, I think they're going to be a threat again.

Jarvis was slower in 2nd session than 1st so i hope that doesn't mean they've gone wrong way on setup!

[strider]

Originally Posted by Kebab

In the 2nd rookie session USA was actually faster than GBR, I think they're going to be a threat again.

Jarvis was slower in 2nd session than 1st so i hope that doesn't mean they've gone wrong way on setup!

In a word, tyres!

[Kebab]

Oh right, so Kerr must be a better driver then for immediately going quicker than Jarvis did in the 2nd rookie session :P

Originally Posted by strider

In a word, tyres!

Anyone know what caused the red flag in the practice? Did Kerr throw it off?

[strider]

I thought Jarvis was 0.043s quicker, but it's neither here nor there.

I doubt if Kerr threw it off, although on the live timing he's one of 7 drivers with STOP in the last column. The others have IN. Hope there hasn't been a mass pile-up. Sometimes it's definitely better to be there and know!

[Suze]

According to Sam not all the red flags should've been red flags.....they seem to be putting one out every time someone spins (according to him).

I know the Pakistan car ended up stuck in the gravel somewhere and afterwards when the session restarted the Lebanese car nearly rolled.

[Kebab]

It would be nice if you read my posts, Kerr was significantly quicker than Jarvis was in the SECOND rookie session.

Autosport says Jarvis set his FIRST session time on old tyres ... the track may have got slower as it warmed up? Or the tyres were 'nearly new' rather than 'old'.

Kerr did have a spin, so did Germany according to Autosport.

What was nice to see was that Kerr seemed to be able to do 1m15.1 or 1.m15.2 laps whenever he wanted throughout the session ... so an old tyre time much faster than anyone else managed with old or new(er) tyres.

Anyway, it isn't unusual for teams like NZ and Ger (what happened to NZ?!) to leap up the board when qualifying comes around so keeping fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by strider

I thought Jarvis was 0.043s quicker, but it's neither here nor there.

I doubt if Kerr threw it off, although on the live timing he's one of 7 drivers with STOP in the last column. The others have IN. Hope there hasn't been a mass pile-up. Sometimes it's definitely better to be there and know!

[strider]

Originally Posted by Kebab

It would be nice if you read my posts, Kerr was significantly quicker than Jarvis was in the SECOND rookie session.

Silly me. I should have realised that you were comparing Jarvis's worst session time with Kerr's best session time. I didn't realise that was how it should be done. Strangely enough, nor did the guy at Autosport.com:

Not only was Kerr the man to beat in the afternoon, but his colleague Oliver Jarvis had pulled off a similar performance in the morning rookie session, in which he was six tenths clear of Team USA driver Jonathan Summerton.

Jarvis' time, set on old tyres, was just a fraction quicker than Kerr managed in the afternoon.

You'd better send him an e-mail to point out his error!

[play mate]

Can you 'girls' please stop arguing over which driver is better??

Both Kerr and Jarvis are doing a brilliant job which is the most important thing this weekend. Why can't we be proud that our Country is suceeding at something no matter who is behind the wheel?

Come on Team GBR, some of us are REALLY behind you.

[Paddockman]

Just got back, Kerr threw it into the gravel at Westfield right at the end of the session, one of the red flags was for Ian Dyk who lost it on the bump at Westfield and spun towards inside barrier just creasing the nose.

Great to see the cars powersliding at the exit of Westfield not the quickest way I know but certainly entertaining, Yoong was probably the biggest exponent of this catching a series of very lurid moments, most spectacular indeed.

[Kebab]

Originally Posted by strider

Silly me. I should have realised that you were comparing Jarvis's worst session time with Kerr's best session time. I didn't realise that was how it should be done. Strangely enough, nor did the guy at Autosport.com: You'd better send him an e-mail to point out his error!

Please allow me to correct you further ...

The way it is done by people who know a little about these things is to compare times which are a/ set at the most similar time of the day (not really possible), b/ set when the track is in about the same state (i.e. not with an extra hour of running on it), c/ set when the car is unlikely to have been further tweaked (i.e. right at the beginning of Kerr's practice session and at the end of Jarvis') and d/ set on tyres in roughly the same condition ... again not with 1hrs less or extra running on them.

The only reason it would be wrong to compare Jarvis' SECOND session times with that set by Kerr at the beginning of his practice (on lap 4/5 Kerr did a 1m15.2 I believe) would be if a/ they gave Kerr new tyres (to my knowledge they don't get new tyres) or b/ the fuel loads were dramatically different. As countries like USA did not improve on their time from 1st rookie session I'd say there were no new tyres available to the teams today, except maybe at the start of the day. Jarvis set his fastest lap on 15 out of 15 in sesh 1 - hence autosports 'old tyres' comment. Kerr set his time on lap 14 ... at least 22 laps later on what is fair to assume were the same tyres.

The person at Autosport did not speculate why Jarvis had set a quicker time earlier in the day - it could be down to something a simple as air & track temperature!

I would suggest that patronising people who make educated & considered comments and not reading their posts properly is not the most amicable thing to do in a public forum.

[Asp]

Once you two have quite finished, back to the action, if we may?...

[Jon Lincoln]

I have to say that was a very pleasurable day out. Brands Hatch is looking stunning and for a Friday there was a good crowd.

Despite being to Brands a number of times, today was the first time I walked around the Grand Prix track and believe me, the A1GP cars look fantastic at every part of the track. They may not be the fastest single seaters around but the drivers utilise what they have underneath them and a whole lot more. It's great stuff.

Just looking forward to the rest of the weekend now.

[Sato san]

Totally agree ...

Stephen Green , had a look for you today , but couldnt see you , will certainly look out for you tomorrow .

Originally Posted by JimW

Exactly. It was the feel and enjoyment of the previous meeting which made me so keen to attend this one. Getting up at 0-dark-thirty tomorrow to do it and all.

Regards

Jim

totally worth it isnt it !... I was really impressed with them today , great sessions with great late breaking into Paddock . Very impressive . Im sure tomorrow with be as good . These cars sound so good , its a joy to see something like this on the GP circuit at Brands .

[lovebritF3]

as the day went on all sessions slowed down, well fford and a1 both did, quite odd

[Rockmunky]

I'm hoping i can get along again... Watching the cars screaming down the hill towards Hawthorn is magic...

[cos]

Robbie puts it on pole! Germany 0.129 behind on aggregate, followed by France, Italy, India and Malaysia. NZL 9th, USA 11th, IRL 12th, AUS 18th.