A1 GP: Morning times from Paul Ricard

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=25604

Australia is 5th fastest :)

Salvador Duran on the wheel for Mexico, pretty good time... :rotate:

Excellent time for Álvaro Parente!!!

He's very very fast! If you are following the F3 British Championship, you know that for sure!!!And it's only the 2nd time he's driving it! GO ÁLVARO

Test times (http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=25607) from the whole day. USA fastest with their stars'n'stripes liveried car.

Not bad times, although 9 seconds off roughly what the GP2 cars were doing earlier this year. I hope theres a lot more to come from the A1 GP machines though. :)

Not bad times, although 9 seconds off roughly what the GP2 cars were doing earlier this year.

Are they on the same layout?

Not sure - always difficult to know with Ricard

Highly unlikely that the A1GP cars are on the same track configuration as GP2 used if there is 9 secs difference... unless of course it rained.

They were on the High Tech test track, which suggests it was not one of the faster versions.

The track configuration is different to the GP2 track. There are roughly 300 different configurations available at Paul Ricard ... what a fantastic testing facility.

OK, maqybe not 300 ... I've been told a million times not to exaggerate.

Weather was bright dry warm (28) and sunny. There was the option of using the boost button on the cars - not all teams chose to use it, preferring instead to concentrate on core setups.

USA livery looks good. Piquet and Carrapatosa (sp?) out for Brazil ... not sure of their agenda. Piquet appeared to use the 2 available new sets of tyres in the morning, Carappatosa got the old ones. Keke Rosberg was around.

Not one single breakdown all day, which I continue to find unbelievable! Bodes well.

I think it was Karun Chandhok driving for India? He said the cars were really good to drive, although he hadn't ever driven F three grand. He can out-cool the best of us.

@ Mr Jinx

Karun did race in F3. In 2002, 2003 and 2004.

he raced few races in Nissan World series in 2004 and currently he is racing in Renault world series.

Like u said ..i hope india was one of the teams just playing with setups and not concentrating on laptimes. Because i expected Chandhok to be better

We know Karun. It's early days for everyone. The quickest guys so far are the ones who basically have been sitting in a car every weekend. His terminology was the point of the quote, which was great!

Even with his added time in the car Christian Jones was beaten by Will Power and Will Davison in the times. I really do hope they come to realise Power and Davison are the better choice for the job than Jones.
But im gunning for Davison.

Piquet was quite quick for Brazil, as was Speed.... dialed into these cars very quickly. And gee Yoong is doing (alright) for himself beating Verstappen.

According to a user on the "other" forum if you work out the Speed quoted against the times shown it works out to 2.353 miles, the full circut. Now I dont know 100% for sure but I think the GP2 cars used the full circuit too, just like the F1 teams do. If thats the case the top A1 GP cars are 9.3 seconds slower than the top GP2 cars, at least for now. The A1 GP cars havent had much testing after all, id expect the real differnce to be around 4-5 seconds a lap.

Jones didn't drive - he and hacket are driving tomorrow according to the press release i saw this morning

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=25607

Jones didn't drive - he and hacket are driving tomorrow according to the press release i saw this morning
Ahh thanks for that, makes more sense anyway. Hackett was lucky enough to make it to Europe hadn't even booked his flight by the time he left Philip Island Sunday afternoon.

But i would have rather seen Jones against Davison on the same day, as conditions change from day to day. Because i reckon Davison would have beaten him.

And Yoong faster than Verstappen. Hehehe.

This morning's times are here (http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=25617), although I expect most people will have worked out where to look now. It's good that the gap between the front and the back of the field is getting smaller.

I've heard that some of the cars are currently driving underweight. During a race weekend the minimum weight is to be 695kg (incl driver and camera). Because the cars have only been handed over to the countries on arrival at Paul Ricard and some drivers weight is like a just born baby the minimum weight isn't met. Therefore some countries might look quicker then they actually are...

Ah, 695kg? That goes some way to explaining why the cars are so much slower than GP2 Machines. GP2, like F1 I beleive are 600kg without driver and fuel. I take it the 695kg figure is also without the driver and fuel?

They also have way more drag 'cos of the odd design ...

Oh, and its worth mentioning (as well as the fact that some teams may be testing with an illegal weight) that some teams are using the boost button, while others are not. So on new tyres if they save the boost they can get 2x30seconds of power boost ... which should make quite a difference on a 1m24sec lap!

I believe A1GP is not so far from the GP2 in terms of lap times.

First of all, they are using a different layout of the circuit from the one GP2 used.
Secondly, if we compare the F1 lap times in the same layout (1m.13s...) A1GP is "only" 11s away of it. So I believe they are very close (or even faster) to the GP2 performances.

Theres no way on this planet that a A1 GP car is faster than a GP2 car IMO. GP2 drivers have been quoted as saying that the GP2 cars produce somewhere in the region of 650bhp as opposed to the official 600bhp figure. A1 GP has 520bhp, 550bhp on boost. Okay, A1 GP has big slick tyres and GP2 uses F1 style grooves but the GP2 car has more power and IMO is probably signifcantly better areodynamically. If the A1 GP cars are 2-3 seconds a lap slower than GP2 machines that will be about right IMO, just ahead of the WSR cars.

Its 550bhp with boost, yes. The wheels are also much bigger on an A1 car which may reduce accelleration. It would be an interesting comparison as fresh slicks will offer massive grip (the rears on an A1 car seem huge!). I reckon they're closer than you'd think.