Hinchcliffe Takes to New Zealand in Practice (S)
A1GP Round 6 - Friday Practice Hinchcliffe Takes to Taupo in Friday Practice Friday 19 January, 2007 - James Hinchcliffe was back in action for A1 Team Canada Friday with the 20-year-old from Toronto taking to the Taupo Motorsports Park, New Zealand for the first time ahead of Round 6 of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport on Sunday, 21st January. The Canadian wasted little time in learning the brand new 3.5km track as he set the second fastest lap time in the first 25-minute rookie-only session. His progress was soon restricted thanks to a tire graining issue and with just one set of tires at his disposal James ended the morning session ninth overall with a best lap of 1m16.849s. A more competitive set-up for the afternoon's official practice run saw James immediately on the pace and happy with the handling of the 550bhp Canadian entry. Unfortunately an early off, having clipped a curb, saw the rookie spin off-track and into the guard rail. While the damage done to the car was no more than a slightly bent rear wishbone it ended the session prematurely for Hinchcliffe with just six laps recorded. "The rookie session went quite well for us," stated Hinchcliffe reviewing his day. "At the beginning we were quite quick but seemed to wear the tires out a bit too quickly. We made a few changes before the afternoon's session and things were going really well initially. I'd just set one of the quickest times of the session but then I had an off and was done for the day. It's unfortunate but the guys have given me a good car and we'll be looking for more tomorrow heading into qualifying." Official Practice (1 Hour) 1 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 1:15.248 2 India Narain Karthikeyan 1:15.303 3 France Loic Duval 1:15.368 4 Ireland Richard Lyons 1:15.380 5 Germany Nico Hülkenberg 1:15.407 *15 CANADA James Hinchcliffe 1:16.346 Rookie Session (2 x 25 Minute Sessions) 1 France Loic Duval 1:15..601 2 India Narain Karthikeyan 1:16.188 3 Netherlands Renger Van de Zande 1:15.344 4 Switzerland Marcel Fassler 1:16.412 5 Malaysia Fairuz Fauzy 1:16.490 *9 CANADA James Hinchcliffe 1:16.849 Sunday's Sprint race starts at 11am local time (5pm EST Saturday 20th January) with the Feature race starting at 3pm in Taupo (9pm EST Saturday 20th January). SPEED will air all the action from Round 6 of the A1GP Series from New Zealand in Canada as a tape-delayed broadcast on Wednesday 24th January starting at 4pm EST - www.speedtv.com ENDS - www.a1teamcan.com Photo Credit - 'Canada's James Hinchcliffe exits the Taupo pitlane' - Jakob Ebrey Photography 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