A1GP: Flying Reid feels the heat

Brendon Hartley, the 18-year-old European Formula Renault Champion and a bright hope in New Zealand motorsport, takes Black Beauty around the Taupo circuit yesterday. Photo / Paul Estcourt

New Zealand A1GP driver Jonny Reid had a taste of the varying fortunes of the Taupo track yesterday, setting the fastest pace early in the hour's free practice but spinning his car in the sweltering heat.

At the beginning of the session Reid had Black Beauty circulating the quickest. "It was a bit of a tough time," he said. "You might be on a really good lap, but you see dust up ahead as someone has gone off and it makes it really, really tricky as you come through the now dusty part of the track.

"Everyone was very tight on time and we've got some areas we can improve on which is always a positive thing."

The Kiwi team would have liked to have set the quickest time in the first half of practice, but it wasn't to be and they had to settle for fifth fastest with a 1min 17.4sec lap. Canada was quickest at the halfway stage with a 1min 17sec and driver Robert Wickens was the fastest of the rookies.

In the second half of the hour's session, France, Ireland and championship leader Switzerland were swapping fastest times. French driver Loic Duval, who had two second places at Taupo last year, showed he still has fond memories of the track by setting the fastest time of 1min 15.5sec ahead of Ireland and Switzerland.

"It was a good practice for us," said Duval. "The car was very, very fast here last year and we have the data from then as well."

Duval's time was less than a second slower than last year's record lap time - impressive given the corner change at the end of the main track was supposed to slow the cars down considerably.

Reid spent some time in the pits and when he rejoined, Black Beauty was ninth fastest. With only a few minutes left, he managed a slightly quicker lap to finish the session in eighth, with 1min 16.0sec, just under half a second behind France who went fastest.

"We're very close to Team France in time," said Reid. "With a bit of fine tuning it won't take much to get up there."

In this morning's practice, again one hour long, the teams will look to do two things before qualifying. One is to improve the car's performance for the race, the other is not to compromise the set-up for qualifying using new rubber.

"In qualifying you only get one lap," said Reid. "It's a bit like we have here for the New Zealand Grand Prix and here you've got one timed lap and you must get on with the job really quickly."

This afternoon's qualifying session is broken into four 15-minute sessions. Each A1GP car is limited to one flying lap per session, and at the end of the first two sessions the grid is determined.