Bleekemolen tops final practice

Date published : 21 Feb 2009 - 11:06:31

Jeroen Bleekemolen put the Netherlands at the top of the timesheets in the final A1GP free practice session at Kyalami on Saturday morning.The Dutch driver made the most of his previous experience of the track (he is the only driver to have raced there before) to put in a lap nearly three tenths of a second quicker than anyone else ahead of the afternoon qualifying sessions.Team USA were one of the surprise performers of practice as Marco Andretti made use of a new set of tyres in the closing stages to jump up from the lower end of the order to go second, just ahead of Friday's pace-setters Lebanon with Daniel Morad.Filipe Albuquerque was fourth fastest for Portugal ahead of Nicolas Prost, who rediscovered his form after going the wrong way with setup on Friday afternoon.There had been an early start for some of the teams - as those who missed out on running on Friday due to logistical problems were given extra track time, with the first session starting at 7:40am local time.Two of the teams who shone in those early sessions - China and Great Britain - weren't able to carry their form into the final session, as both suffered offs.Danny Watts damaged to Great Britain car towards the end of the earlier session, and he was then the slowest of the drivers with a timed lap in the main practice.Meanwhile China, who were looking good with Ho-Pin Tung in the additional session, suffered a setback when the GP2 racer crashed at Turn 3, meaning he had to settle for 16th.Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. J.Bleekemolen Netherlands 1:28.128 15 2. Marco Andretti USA 1:28.418 + 0.290 20 3. Daniel Morad Lebanon 1:28.515 + 0.387 9 4. F.Albuquerque Portugal 1:28.618 + 0.490 22 5. Nicolas Prost France 1:28.702 + 0.574 20 6. Clivio Piccione Monaco 1:28.754 + 0.626 17 7. Neel Jani Switzerland 1:29.014 + 0.886 16 8. Adam Carroll Ireland 1:29.083 + 0.955 15 9. Felipe Guimaraes Brazil 1:29.251 + 1.123 2110. John Martin Australia 1:29.295 + 1.167 1811. Earl Bamber New Zealand 1:29.381 + 1.253 1612. Adrian Zaugg South Africa 1:29.475 + 1.347 1713. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:29.543 + 1.415 2114. N.Karthikeyan India 1:29.813 + 1.685 1515. M.Ammermuller Germany 1:29.980 + 1.852 1816. Ho-Pin Tung China 1:29.994 + 1.866 317. Edoardo Piscopo Italy 1:30.031 + 1.903 1418. Danny Watts Great Britain 1:30.250 + 2.122 1219. Zahir Ali Indonesia No time20. Fairuz Fauzy Malaysia No time