A1 Team Canada on Track in Brno Practice (W)

A1 Team Canada on Track in Brno Practice

Official Practice, Round 2/12 - A1GP World Cup of 
Motorsport, Brno, Czech Republic

Brno, Czech Republic (October 06, 2006) - A1 Team 
Canada had a subdued start to Round 2 of the 
2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, hosted at 
the Auto Motodrom, Brno in the Czech Republic, 
6th-8th October, as Vancouver's Sean McIntosh 
(21) and Toronto's James Hinchcliffe (19) both 
spent time behind the wheel of A1 Team Canada's 
entry in Friday practice.

Making his A1GP return, having led the Canadian 
team to victory in his last start in Indonesia 
(Round 8) in the inaugural season of the nation 
versus nation series, Sean McIntosh's run in the 
hour-long practice session yielded little in 
terms of outright pace but allowed the World 
Series by Renault front-runner the opportunity to 
dial back into the 550bhp V8-powered A1GP car.

James Hinchcliffe was left a little frustrated 
with his outing in the earlier rookie session. 
The Champ Car Atlantic Championship race winner, 
who made his competitive debut for A1 Team Canada 
in last weekend's opening round in Holland, 
placing 8th and 13th respectively in the Sprint 
and Feature races, reveled in the sweeping layout 
of the 14 turn, 5.41km Brno circuit but didn't 
quite find a workable set-up to propel the 
Canadian entry further up the running order 
before handing over to McIntosh.

Sean McIntosh:
"We set our fastest lap time pretty late in the 
session. Friday's one of those days where you 
have the chance to see where you're at and go 
from there. We've got some things to work on, I 
haven't been here before where as some of the 
other drivers have and they set their quick times 
on new tires earlier in the session than I was 
able to. We just need to get our heads down and 
work on improving things on the car for tomorrow."

James Hinchcliffe:
"It was a bit of a disappointing session it's 
safe to say.  Obviously we weren't quite up to 
speed and there were a few issues with the car. 
When you go out right away and the car's not 
there it's really hard to find the time in the 
session. I was hoping that Sean would be able to 
be more competitive in the second run to move the 
team on ahead of tomorrow's qualifying. I really 
like the track here at Brno unfortunately it just 
wasn't suiting us in that session."

Official Practice (1-Hour Session)
1	Germany	Niko Hülkenberg	1:46.600
2	Switzerland	Sebastien Buemi	1:47.501
3	France	Nicolas Lapierre	1:47.552
4	Czech Republic	Tomas Enge	1:47.651
5	Great Britain	Robbie Kerr	1:48.152
17	CANADA	SEAN McINTOSH	1:50.261

Rookie Practice (2 x 25-Minute Sessions)
1	France	Loic Duval	1:47.893
2	Great Britain	Oliver Jarvis	1:49.003
3	Germany	Niko Hülkenberg	1:49.542
4	Czech Republic	Jaroslav Janis	1:49.697
5	USA	Jonathan Summerton	1:49.849
8	CANADA	James Hinchcliffe	1:50.441

Qualifying will be held Saturday afternoon to set 
the grid for Sunday's Sprint race. The Sprint 
Race will start at 11 am local time (5 am EST) 
with the Feature starting at 3 pm (9 am EST).

ENDS - www.a1teamcan.com

Copyright free A1 Team Canada images are 
available for download at www.a1gp-photo.com/can
A1 Team Canada Media Relations:  Stuart Morrison - PR & Media Manager
Cell: +1 514 945 3253 / Email: stuart@a1teamcan.com