Brazil

The A1GP World Cup of Nations Taupo round kicked off today with two free practice sessions. A1 Team Brasil fielded Raphael Matos in both sessions, and although the first session was a positive start for the team, this afternoon's practice proved more challenging, leaving the team with some work to do to prepare for tomorrow's qualifying.

With Raphael still eligible to participate in the rookie session, the team took advantage of all track time available to the 26-year-old, and he performed well in both 25-minute segments. He improved his times, finishing 8th in the first segment and 7th in the second, just over a second off the pace of Team France's Loic Duval.

After such a promising morning, the team ended the afternoon disappointed after Raphael was only able to finish the session in 14th position. He had run in the top ten for the first half of the session but then suffered a couple of minor spins. He eventually set his fastest time of 1:16.315 on his final lap.

Teams will have the benefit of a final one-hour practice session tomorrow morning before the afternoon's qualifying gets underway.

Raphael Matos: "I think the rookie practice this morning went quite well. In the first segment I was not pushing, I was just learning the track, but in the second part I was able to push and get a feeling for the car. We made some changes for this afternoon's practice and some of them worked and some didn't but I am still learning to work with the team and engineers. We did make some progress this afternoon and I think we learned that we should have gone out a little later in the session, but it was okay. We just need to try to get a good car for qualifying tomorrow."

Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: "I arrived in New Zealand today and I have to say what a wonderful event we have here and what a fantastic job the organizers have done. The track has been put together in a short time and it is very technical, difficult track with fantastic places for spectators and it looks beautiful on the television. This is the kind of event that A1GP deserves - every event should be like this. Looking at the team's performance today, I'm a little disappointed. This morning was quite good but this afternoon we did not perform as well as I expected. We seem to have a problem with the tyres graining a lot so we have to do some work tonight to try to improve for tomorrow."

France

On the 3.5km track in Taupo, which hosts the sixth round of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, Team France rookie driver Loic Duval will make his debut in both the sprint and feature races. Duval completed his program during the rookie practice session where he set the pace right away with the fastest lap of all in 1.16.214. He went even faster on a 1.15.601 in the second session.

The day went well for Duval's first ever visit to the New Zealand circuit and in the afternoon, for the official practice session 2, Loic finished third fastest with 1.15.368 behind Tomas Enge (CZ) and Narain Karthikeyan (India).

Loic Duval explained: "I’m really excited to have come to New Zealand for the first time. What I have seen yesterday from the country was really interesting. The people are really warm and welcoming. The brand new circuit facilities at the renovated track are really excellent although the track is more bumpy than expected. The car is good. Even though I did not know what to expect on the new track, I managed to do a number of good laps even when we were not on new tyres. I went a bit off line and on the gravel in the first part of the rookie session. But I was happy to clock the fast time in the two rookie sessions. I now know what the track is like and how to get the best out of it although it is easy to make a mistake. We worked well with the team and the track went constantly faster. The red flag and the traffic hindered us a bit, but third fastest is satisfying for a Friday. Let’s concentrate on tomorrow because the positions are very close and the level of competition high."

Eric Boullier, Managing Director A 1 Team France commented: "We are quite satisfied with the overall results today. Loic Duval had a very constructive day. The track is difficult and technical. It does not forgive any mistake. The competition is growing with new drivers. We're finalizing our set-up and strategy which will be vital to qualifying and two good races on Sunday on this interesting new track"

Germany