Mexico City: Team Germany Saturday notes

A1 Team Germany on rows seven and two

In the qualifying practice for the eighth round of the A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport, Michael Ammermuller delivered a remarkable performance for Willi Weber's A1 Team Germany: the young driver from Pocking clinched third place on the starting grid for the main race. To the sprint race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, the German will start from position 13.

In the first quarter of the qualifying practice Michael Ammermuller, on new tyres, set a lap time of 1m21.379s which, in the end, amounted to tenth place. In the second trial A1 Team Germany, like the preponderance of the field, only started in the last 90 seconds and, on another new set of tyres, improved by three tenths of a second to 1m21.054s. As some other teams even showed more significant improvements, the German team dropped to grid position 12 for the sprint race.

After this, the race team from David Sears Motorsport decided to make some minor changes to the set-up. As a result, A1 Team Germany managed to set a lap time of 1m21.203s on used tyres in the first trial of the qualifying practice for the main race, which equated to seventh place. In the final outing Michael Ammermuller, on the last fresh set of tyres, improved by nearly six tenths of a second to 1m20.646s, thus moving up to position three on the grid for the main race.

Michael Ammermuller:

"Had we been as quick in the beginning as we were at the end, I'd have secured two very promising grid positions! For the first time, we weren't allowed to have any rookie practice and in the subsequent Free Practice sessions we lost valuable time due to tyre problems. That's why the car wasn't perfect yet at the beginning of the qualifying practice and had too much understeer. Between the second and third qualifying segment the team improved the car by making minor mechanical and aerodynamic changes so significantly that I set the seventh-best time on used tyres. Subsequently, on the new set of tyres, I was as the limit in my last trial -- third place was simply the maximum. The basic problem is that the set-up on this bumpy track is completely different than on any of the other circuits, and this requires some adjustments in thinking."

TV broadcast schedule on Premiere Races: Sunday, 16 March, 9:45 p.m.; Sunday, 17 March, 01:30 a.m. (rerun), 05:00 a.m. (rerun).

-credit: germany