Top-Ten Practice Start Bodes Well for Wickens

Top-Ten Practice Start Bodes Well for Wickens

Sepang, Malaysia (November 23, 2007) - A shortage of practice laps in 
Malaysia this morning failed to prevent A1 Team Canada rookie Robert 
Wickens from cracking the top-ten in this afternoon's official 
practice session at the Sepang International Circuit prior to Round 3 
of the 2007-08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport on Sunday, 25th November.

Wickens, who becomes only the fourth driver to race for A1 Team 
Canada in the nation versus nation series this weekend, had his 
practice time cut short in the morning's 'Rookie-Only' session at the 
5.54km circuit thanks to a problematic steering rack.  Limited to ten 
laps, the 18-year-old from Toronto posted the 12th fastest time of 
the session with a 1m54.695s lap from 20 nations fielding rookies.

This afternoon's hour-long session, with all 22 competing nations 
participating, proved to be more productive for Canada with Wickens, 
the 2006 Formula BMW USA Champion, comfortably running inside the 
top-ten throughout.  His best lap time, a 1m50.909s, ended the 
session eighth quickest with the team looking to maintain that form 
into Saturday's qualifying sessions, Canada having yet to start a 
race this season higher than tenth on the grid.

"Today's been pretty good," reflected Wickens after his first outing 
on the Sepang track.  "We had a problem with the steering rack in the 
rookie session which basically meant I couldn't turn the car so we 
lost a lot of track time.  The team rebounded really well though and 
I'm extremely satisfied to have been running in the top-ten the whole 
of this afternoon's session.

He continued, "We made improvements to the car in the limited time we 
had and despite going out on fresh tires at the start of the session 
I did my fastest lap on the second to last lap of the session which 
shows the improvements we've made.  I'm really looking forward to 
Saturday's practice and qualifying."

A1 Team Canada Team Manager, Simon Cayzer, commented; "We had some 
problems this morning which cost us some time but the second practice 
session went well.  We have some more fine tuning to do but overall 
we're relatively happy with our set-up start.  Robert did a good job 
today despite being quite new to the car and having never driven the 
circuit before, he seems quite a cool, calm customer!"

Official Practice (1 Hour Session)
1, Great Britain, Oliver Jarvis, 1:49.459
2, Switzerland, Neel Jani, 1:49.911
3, France, Loic Duval, 1:50.094
4, New Zealand, Jonny Reid, 1:50.320
5, China, Congfu Cheng, 1:50.471
*8, CANADA, ROBERT WICKENS, 1:50.909

Rookie Practice (2 x 25 Minute Sessions)
1, Great Britain, Oliver Jarvis, 1:52.013
2, Brazil, Sergio Jimenez, 1:52.757
3, Australia, John Martin, 1:52.806
4,. Italy, Edoardo Piscopo,  1:53.161
5, New Zealand, Earl Bamber, 1:53.682
*12, CANADA, ROBERT WICKENS, 1:54.695

Qualifying for Sunday's 20-minute Sprint race and 70-minute Feature 
race starts tomorrow, Saturday 24th November, at 2:15pm in Malaysia 
(1:15am EST).  Live timing - www.a1gp.com

ENDS - www.a1teamcan.com

Photo Credit: 'Robert Wickens makes his competitive debut for A1 Team 
Canada this weekend' - 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
Tel:  +1 514 684 3253 / Cell: +1 514 945 3253 / Email: stuart@sm-pr.com