A1 Team Lebanon continued with race preparations for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport races in the Algarve today. This morning all the teams took to the track for a final practice session and in the afternoon the qualifying session was held under cloudy skies and a cool track temperature. Daniel Morad, the team’s driver this season, put in a superb Sprint race qualifying lap to start fourth in the first of the two races. A1 Team Lebanon will start 15th for the Feature race.

The team benefited from a final practice session this morning, fine tuning the set up for afternoon qualifying. With a number of red flag stoppages interrupting the session it was difficult for Morad to find a rhythm, but he ran comfortably within the top ten for much of the hour, just slipping to 11th in the last few minutes. This session allows the driver to have a sample lap with the PowerBoost in preparation for the afternoon qualifying session, in which one lap with the extra horsepower is allowed. However, Morad was blocked on his quick lap and while others benefited his quickest lap was not comparable.

The first two flying laps to set the Sprint race grid saw Morad take a provisional third place after the first run, taking to the track early and avoiding a red flag stoppage. With red flags in each of the sessions the team had little time to put in a second flying lap but Morad used his PowerBoost for the second flying lap and drove superbly to take fourth place for the Sprint race.

Morad summed up his day saying, “Fourth is good for the Sprint race. We used our PowerBoost for this race as it’s usually quite difficult to move into the points if you’re not up the front. We’ve also shown that we’re able to make good progress in the Feature as it’s long enough to make up places and there’s two pitstops which, with good strategy can also help us. However we shouldn’t be starting 15th, realistically we should be 8th or 9th, but we were blocked by Netherlands on my final run.”

Billy Karam, A1 Team Lebanon Ambassador added, “The team and Daniel continue to make strong progress and we’re seeing his development each time he’s in the car. He put in a great lap to take the fourth place for the Sprint race, showing plenty of potential for that race tomorrow. We’re disappointed that he wasn’t able to back up his Sprint race qualifying with another strong lap, but you can’t legislate for events such as a rival nation blocking you. We’ll put that behind us now, show our fighting spirit and be looking for two good points finishes.”

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, Algarve race weekend concludes tomorrow with the finale of the weekend, the Sprint and Feature races. The action begins in the morning with the short twenty minutes race which features one mandatory tyre change pitstop. A colourful drivers parade and opening ceremony will entertain the fans prior to the main Feature race, which features two mandatory tyre change pitstops. The 20 nations will line up at 11am for the Sprint race and 3pm for the Feature race.