Felipe Guimarães was in action for A1 Team Brazil today as teams hit the track for qualifying for round six of the 2008/09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport at the Portimão circuit in the Algarve, Portugal.

Felipe had his first opportunity to drive the circuit this morning in the final one-hour free practice session before embarking on the afternoon qualifying. He will begin tomorrow morning’s Sprint race from 14th on the grid and from fifth place for the afternoon’s Feature race, after a very strong feature qualifying performance.

Felipe Guimarães: “It’s been a good performance considering we did not run at all yesterday and this morning I only did 11 flying laps in the dry then went straight to qualifying. In the first two qualifying sessions for the Sprint race I had traffic so was not able to put together a clean lap. I had a good first session for the Feature race then on the second I used the push to pass and did a very good lap. The track is physical and difficult because of the blind corners but I learnt it fast this morning and I really like it. I am sure I am going to have a good race tomorrow because we still have some more to come from the car. We only had a limited time to work on the set-up but we’ll find some more for tomorrow. I’m actually a little surprised to qualify in fifth because the weekend did not start well then I had a little spin this morning and then I had traffic in Sprint qualifying. But then everything worked well in the Feature qualifying and came together. In the last race in South Africa I started from eighth and finished second. Here I start fifth so I am aiming for another podium.”

Sprint Race Qualifying
1. Italy 1:30.875
2. Netherlands +0.471
3. Ireland +0.725
14. Brazil +3.110

Feature Race Qualifying
1) Netherlands 1:30.415
2) Ireland +0.281
3) Switzerland +0.463
5) Brazil +0.608

Free Practice 3 – Laps: 14 – Position: 17th – Fastest Lap: 1:33.250 (+3.135)