Italy sets early pace at Taupo

It was Italian Edoardo Piscopo who set the initial pace at Taupo today when the A1GP cars ran their third practice session after two familiarisation session yesterday.

But in the New Zealand car, Chris van der Drift, was only 11^th fastest, 1.561 seconds off Piscopo’s 1m 15.112s lap time.

The Kiwi says he and the team were trying set-up changes on the car during the extended, one-hour practice session. The crunch comes later today when the cars set qualifying laps for tomorrow’s two races.

Piscopo’s time in the new Ferrari-powered car was five-tenths of a second slower than the fastest lap set last year in the old Zytec-powered A1 car.

Second fastest today was Dutchman Robert Doornbos, ahead of Swiss Neel Jani and American Marco Andretti.

Check back later for stories form qualifying. Stories on the support races are in the Motorsport section of autotrader.co.nz.