| Jarvis Seals Second Row Mexico Start |
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Mexico City, Saturday 24 March, 2007 – A1 Team Great Britain’s ‘rookie’ racer Oliver Jarvis continued to impress today in Mexico City as he qualified third fastest for tomorrow’s ninth round of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, hosted at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
The front-running pace demonstrated by the British team through Friday’s timed sessions carried seamlessly into Saturday morning’s final practice outing with Jarvis storming to the top of the timesheets courtesy of a hot lap of 1m27.641s around the 2.74-mile track.
Encouraged by the 23-year-old’s form, Great Britain headed into qualifying as one of the favourites to secure pole for Sunday morning’s 20-minute Sprint race. Jarvis, participating in his first A1GP qualifying session having been denied the opportunity back in Round 3 in Beijing due to track issues, proved himself adapt at the one-lap format, immediately banging in a tour of 1m27.101s to set the second fastest time of the first 15-minute segment.
Utilizing the same rubber he followed that up with a 1m27.738s to remain firmly planted in the top-three with half the qualifying session gone. The third session produced another flying lap from the 2005 Formula Renault UK Champion as he set a 1m27.170s to
Alex Yoong snared pole position for A1 Team Malaysia, the former Grand Prix racer producing a stunning aggregate time of 2m53.138s to lead Germany’s Christian Vietoris on the front row. “I’m confident we’ll be in contention tomorrow,” predicted Jarvis after qualifying. “Our pace on old tyres was pretty competitive which bodes well for the races. This is certainly one of the most physical race tracks I’ve ever been to and it’s hard to be consistent with the bumps on track. That said, this was my first attempt at A1GP qualifying and while it was tough to make the extra gains on new tyres I’m pretty pleased with third on the grid, hopefully we can make up a couple of spots tomorrow!" A1GP Round 9 Qualifying – Aggregate time from two fastest laps1 Malaysia Alex Yoong 2:53.1382 Germany Christian Vietoris 2:53.9833 GREAT BRITAIN OLIVER JARVIS 2:54.2714 Mexico Salvador Duran 2:54.7055 France Jean Karl Vernay 2:54.8206 Portugal Alvaro Parente 2:54.865 |
move back up into second overall.