19/09/2007
NEWS STORY
Belmayne A1 Team Ireland will depart for the Netherlands in positive mood after another strong showing at the final A1GP World Cup of Motorsport pre-season test at Silverstone today. Ralph Firman set the 11th quickest time round the national circuit with a 48.196s, just 0.387s off the fastest time of the day. The 32 year old will next take to the track at Circuit Park Zandvoort over the weekend of September 29th & 30th as the team aims for a strong start to its 2007/08 campaign.
Ralph set his best time on the third run of the morning, the team then concentrated on longer distance stints and pit stop practices. Ralph's lap times during these runs proved to be very consistent and only minor changes were required to the set up that was reached yesterday afternoon. Despite some light rain, and several delays caused by red flags, the team still completed 88 laps before preparing the car to be shipped out to Zandvoort.
Dave O'Neill, Team Manager: "I'm very happy with the test overall, we've completed a lot of set up work and plenty of laps. The main objectives have been to get Ralph back into the swing of things and carry out pit stop practices as we've got a largely new crew. We've achieved this and also displayed very strong pace, we're in good shape for the first race. "
Ralph Firman: "Another good day for us today, we maybe didn't get the best out of the tyres but I think we should be up at the front at Zandvoort. The car feels really good, we did some long distance running on full tanks and it was very consistent. We were 11th overall today but only a few hundredths off P5 so we can be very encouraged going into the new season."