Brazil

Tuka Rocha took the wheel of the A1 Team Brasil car today for the first day of action at the Sentul circuit in Indonesia, for round five of the 2006/07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. The 23-year-old maximised his track time by taking part in both the two 25-minute rookie sessions, as well as this afternoon's one-hour practice session.

Throughout today's practices, Tuka was able to complete 37 laps of testing, and improved his lap-times through the day, finishing this afternoon's one-hour session in ninth place, just five tenths off the pace-setters, Team France.

The team was pleased with Tuka's steady progress during the day, as the crew began the fine-tuning process of the car set-up for the fast and wide nature of the Sentul circuit. The event proves even trickier for teams and drivers due to the high heat and humidity, and frequent afternoon rainstorms, making it essential to be prepared for any kind of weather and track conditions.

Tuka will take part in tomorrow morning's final hour-long practice session before embarking on the afternoon's qualifying.

Tuka Rocha: 'It's good to be back in the car and we have improved the set-up a bit today. We made some changes after the rookie sessions because the car was not good and we were suffering from a lot of understeer. The set-up is a bit better now but I think we went a bit too much the other way, and we still need to work on the car for tomorrow. I think we should be aiming to be in the top ten in tomorrow's sessions. The track is very dirty at the moment and the asphalt is coming away at the last corner, which could be a problem over the weekend, but the track is still very nice and I'm enjoying racing in the hot weather.'

Canada

A1 Team Canada enjoyed a competitive Friday practice session in Indonesia ahead of Sunday's fifth round of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport at the Sentul International Circuit.

James Hinchcliffe posted the seventh fastest time in the rookie-only session on Friday morning, the 20-year-old from Toronto enjoying his first taste of the 4.12km Indonesian track, before Vancouver's Sean McIntosh, winner of last season's A1GP Feature race at Sentul, took over for the rest of the weekend's on-track activities beginning with the afternoon's first official practice session.

McIntosh (21) recorded 24 laps in the hour-long session collecting a fastest time of 1m18.455s to place seventh from the 21-car field of nations, the competition as fierce as ever in A1GP with the top 15 entries all lapping within a second of each other. Great Britain and France traded fastest lap times throughout the day with the French team, piloted by Nicolas Lapierre, eventually scoring top honors with a hot lap of 1m17.992s.

Having scored A1 Team Canada's sole A1GP victory to-date in Indonesia last season, McIntosh declared himself satisfied with the early preparations for the defense of his Feature win. "There's still a bit of work to do but overall it's been a good start to the weekend," he commented. "We definitely had a good set-up today, working towards our best time late in the session. We should be higher up tomorrow as we had one of the fastest cars on-track towards the end of the day!"

James Hinchcliffe was similarly pleased with his run stating, "The rookie session went pretty well as I got to grips with the circuit! There's definitely more to come from the car and Sean should be up to speed pretty quickly given he's raced and won here before."

China

A1 Team China introduces Ho-Pin Tung as the driver for 2006/07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, Sentul Circuit, Indonesia. Ho-Pin is well-kown in German Formula 3 Championship, and he just finished a test in Belgian KTR World Series by Renault Team. There are not many good Chinese Formula car drivers, and now A1 Team China gives more chances to some who would like to win honours and pride to China in A1GP series. Congfu Cheng was the main driver for A1 team China in the last 4 races in Season 2006/07, and when Ho-Pin is here to test, A1 Team China will let him test whole weekend to see his potential in A1 car.

As a German F3 champion, his performance is extractly what Team Engineers expected. His professional behaviour also encourages the whole team to build the car in the best condition. In the Rookie sessions, Ho-Pin did well in his first try in A1 car, and there wad 1.254 seconds gap between the quickest A1 Team France driver. And in the second half of the session, he made it just over one second gap to the leading A1 Team GBR.

A1 Team China engineers made some adjustment to the car during lunch break, Ho-Pin and the Team had their lunch in the garage and spent more time on discussion of the racing data. In the second Official Practice session, A1 Team China used a set of new tyres, Ho-Pin made a mistake in the corner in the flying lap and missed his chance to make the best lap time, but he managed to reduce the gap to the fastest driver within one second.

Ho-Pin Tung: "It is great honour for me to drive for A1 Team China, I really enjoyed today's first touch of A1 car. The driving style is very different from Formula 3, and I think I need a little bit more time to get familiar with this powerful car. I did not get used to the grip of the tyres in the second practice session, and lost my chance to get better lap time, but I am very confident to do better in tomorrow's Qualifying, and all through the weekend."