New Zealand team fastest in final practice

Taupo – It was all change at the top of the timing sheets for the final practice session of the SuperPoints A1GP Taupo, New Zealand with the home team topping the table ahead of Germany and Ireland.

New Zealand (pictured right) moved up from eighth place in the first two official practice sessions, shaving over two seconds off yesterday's overall fastest lap, clearly showing the effect that home crowd support can have on a team. The addition of new engineer, Gary Anderson, appears to be paying off so far for A1 Team Ireland who is now looking set to add to its one championship point scored in Malaysia, with a strong start to this weekend's campaign.

While the likes of Ireland and India are no doubt delighted with their performance here this weekend, earlier championship leader, A1 Team Mexico and Brno race winners Malaysia have found themselves towards the bottom of the table, over one and a half seconds off the pace.

Official Practice Session 3

A1 Team Driver Time
1 New Zealand Jonny Reid 1.14.166
2 Germany Nico Hulkenberg 1.14.258
3 Ireland Richard Lyons 1.14.546
4 India Narain Karthikeyan 1.14.627
5 France Loic Duval 1.14.658
6 Switzerland Sebastien Buemi 1.14.799
7 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 1.14.830
8 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 1.14.887
9 South Africa Alan van der Merwe 1.14.908
10 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 1.15.001
11 USA Ryan Hunter-Reay 1.15.094
12 China Ho-Pin Tung 1.15.095
13 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 1.15.101
14 Singapore Christian Murchison 1.15.305
15 Australia Karl Reindler 1.15.305
16 Canada James Hinchcliffe 1.15.348
17 Mexico Salvador Duran 1.15.570
18 Lebanon Alex Khateeb 1.15.580
19 Malaysia Alex Yoong 1.15.679
20 Indonesia Ananda Mikola 1.15.664
21 Brazil Rafael Matos 1.15.797
22 Pakistan Nur Ali 1.18.904