Lamy gives final spec. car roll-out.

The A1 Grand Prix race car set an impressive pace at Silverstone yesterday [Tuesday] as the A1 technical operations team held a shakedown for the final specification car set to race in the inaugural World Cup of Motorsport............

http://www.crash.net/uk/en/news_view.asp?cid=26&nid=110592

It's all looking very promising.

Here's more -

With its inaugural event scheduled for next September, news from the A1 Grand Prix camp has been scarce of late, but preparations for the first season of the “World Cup of Motorsport” continue steadily. Ttoday, sports car driver Pedro Lamy took the Lola-Zytek A1 machine for a test in Silverstone, England.

Aboard a car still donning the colors of "Team China," last month’s most recent addition to the series lineup, Lamy - likely to steer Team Portugal’s entry in the near future - ended up just two-tenths shy of Vitantonio Liuzzi's 2004 Silverstone F3000 pole lap. Lamy’s run of 1:37.15, however, was obtained in much cooler conditions than Liuzzi’s time, logged last July. Still, this Tuesday's test indicates the A1 car will likely be slower than the GP2 series' Dallara/Renaults which have replaced F3000.

I'm not to familiar with the pace of F3000 or the new GP2 cars, so is this a good pace for the A1 car, and is it where you guys expected it to be?

Sounds pretty good to me and id not mind betting that the car has a lot more to come, and with better drivers behind the wheel will certainly go faster than the F3000 lap record and by quite a margin I would think. Not that theres anything wrong at all with Pedro Lamy, hes a great driver but IMO he is probably past his best. Personally though im expecting the car to be somewhere in between the pace of the World Series by Renault machinery and the Formula GP2 cars.

I'm not to familiar with the pace of F3000 or the new GP2 cars, so is this a good pace for the A1 car, and is it where you guys expected it to be?
For comparison here are the fastest laps from Barcelona's race
2004 F3000 : 1:34.233
2005 GP2 : 1:25.875
That is quite an improvement. Although it should be noted that there was a surface change that possibly allowed a second or two improvement. However Imola still shows a 6 second improvement
Imola FL
2004 F3000: 1:39.847
2005 GPS: 1:33.871

I think this is about were they want to be. There is no direct competition as the series is all about not competing with these. The cars are quick enough, yet they don't seem to be pushing any boundaries by being as quick as the old F3000 cars, which is probably a good thing.