A1GP: Alex Takes Malaysia To The Top In Australia

with 20 minutes to go in the final free practice before a final spurt by Brazil...
With 20 minutes to go before the end of the final and third practice session of the A1GP round 3 at the Eastern Creek circuit in Australia, A1 Team Malaysia, piloted by former F1 driver Alex Yoong, leapt to the top of the time sheets with a time of 1m 19.840s followed by Team Great Britain and Portugal 0.031s and 0.046s behind in second and third respectively.
Then Brazil put in a time of 1m 19.476s with 8 minutes to go passing Malaysia for the fastest time but Malaysia remained solidly in second spot followed in tow by Great Britain, Portugal and Germany in fifth. Surprisingly, championship leader France, was placed just outside the top-10 in eleventh position.
With the circuit described by most teams as being bumpy and abrasive, most teams including Malaysia decided not to sacrifice a second set of new tyres to save them for the races.
Alex was true to his words and bettered his top-five prediction when he said after the second practice yesterday (Friday), "Our time this morning wasn't reflective of our performance as we missed out on running in the dry when other teams set their quickest lap. I'm happy with our performance this afternoon. We tried a lot of new things and I think we've learnt something about the car. We weren't going for times today; we were just trying various things on the car and we didn't put on new rubber. I'm optimistic for tomorrow (Saturday, today). I think we can qualify in the top ten, and might even improve on that and sneak into the top five."
This is Malaysia's best ever official practice result and things appear to look good for a front 2 row qualifying in a few hours time.
Good luck Malaysia!
Max Revson
RD 4 EASTERN CREEK - Official Practice 3 (Top 10)
Pos/Team/Driver/on Lap/Time /Gap F/Gap P/kmh/Laps
1 BRA Nelson Piquet 15 1'19.476 - - 178.02
2 MAL Alex Yoong 11 1'19.840 +0.364 +0.364 177.21
3 GB Robbie Kerr 15 1'19.871 +0.395 +0.031 177.11
4 POR Alvaro Parente 14 1'19.886 +0.410 +0.015 177.11
5 GER Adrian Sutil 19 1'19.922 +0.446 +0.036 177.0 23
6 AUS Will Davison 7 1'20.029 +0.553 +0.107 176.82
7 IRE Michael Daveney 14 1'20.185 +0.709 +0.156 176.42
8 ITA Andrea Montermini 21 1'20.325 +0.849 +0.140 176.12
9 NZL Jonny Reid 15 1'20.502 +1.026 +0.177 175.72
10 RSA Stephen Simpson 7 1'20.768 +1.292 +0.266 175.22