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Rediff.com  » Sports » India tops A1GP pre-season test

India tops A1GP pre-season test

September 19, 2007 20:27 IST
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A1 Team India stole the show at the final test session at Silverstone in preparation for the new A1GP World Cup. They topped the time sheets early on and dominated for the remainder of the three and half hour session.

India's Narain Kathikeyan, who had limited track time at the last official test due to illness, clocked a sensational 47.809s and broke the lap record for an A1GP car around the National circuit by three tenths of a second. The previous record was held by A1 Team New Zealand driver Jonny Reid, who set the time on the first day of the test.

Karthikeyan's lap time puts him fastest overall at the end of the one and half day test session.

The Indian driver is feeling confident as the team prepares to challenge for its first A1GP race win at Zandvoort next weekend, "We did the majority of our work yesterday and a little bit this morning - we kept improving the car a lot and I think we're going in the right direction. I'm looking forward to the season-opener at Zandvoort - I believe we have a decent car and a good package and we will be front runners that's for sure."

A1 Team India seat holder Yohann Setna said, "Yesterday we felt there was space for improvement and today we have proved it.

"We are very happy with the set-up of the car and very proud of Narain and the entire team that worked together to make this brilliant performance happen. It was a very close race, with the top 18 cars/ nations within 1 second of each other. Team India, with Narain Karthikeyan has set the new A1 GP lap record for Silverstone national circuit !".

The test session was incredibly close with just over a second separating India in the top spot and Mexico in 22nd. 

All 22 teams will now head straight to The Netherlands for the thrilling A1GP season-opener at Zandvoort on September 28-30.

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