With the team's regular racer, Robert Wickens, jetting to China following a test in Europe, Morad reveled in the opportunity to run in Friday afternoon's session - one where the top ten were covered by less than a second. Wickens assumes driving duties for Canada tomorrow having topped the timesheets in the final day of testing in the World Series by Renault in Spain on Thursday.
"Shanghai's without a doubt one of the smoothest circuits I've been to outside of the U.S.," Morad reflected after his first full day in an A1GP car. "It's really nice out there, the kerbs are really flat and you can use the whole of the track. The rookie session went well and we were fairly competitive.
"This afternoon allowed me to run on a new set of tires for the first time. It was a new experience for me as I didn't expect that they'd be that much better and by the time I'd picked that up I was already halfway around the lap. I then spent the rest of the session preparing the car for when Robert gets in tomorrow. We're definitely heading in the right direction. If I'd been on it a little earlier I think we could have had a better lap time in the afternoon but its all about learning I guess!"
"We've had a good solid day," said Team Manager Simon Cayzer. "We had a new engine to bed in this morning in the rookie session but we also had the opportunity to try a couple of things. This afternoon we limited our running a little bit so that we still had a good set of tires for when Robert gets in the car tomorrow. Daniel has done a good solid job providing us with good feedback on the car. We're very fortunate as the driving styles of both our drivers are very similar so we're confident that the changes that we've made, that Daniel has responded to, will carry over to tomorrow. Overall for Daniel to be tenth this afternoon is pretty good considering it was his first time out on new tires."
Official Practice (1 Hour Session)
1, Portugal, Felipe Albuquerque, 1:35.223
2, New Zealand, Jonny Reid, 1:35.600
3, Czech Republic, Filip Salaquarda, 1:35.609
4, Switzerland, Neel Jani, 1:35.646
5, Germany, Michael Ammermüller, 1:35.657
*10, CANADA, DANIEL MORAD, 1:35.913
Rookie Only Practice (2 x 25 Minute Sessions)
1, Portugal, Felipe Albuquerque, 1:36.575
2, France, Nicolas Prost, 1:36.895
3, Switzerland, Alexandre Imperatori, 1:36.902
4, CANADA, DANIEL MORAD, 1:36.969
5, Italy, Davide Rigon, 1:36.989
Qualifying starts tomorrow, Saturday 12th April, at 2:15pm in China (2:15am EST). Sunday's 20-minute Sprint race starts at 11am local time (11pm EST Saturday) with the 70-minute Feature race starting at 3pm in Shanghai (3am EST Sunday 13th April). Live Feature race streaming will be available via - www.a1gp.com
ENDS - www.a1teamcan.com
Photo Credit: 'Markham's Daniel Morad enjoyed a full day's running for Canada in Shanghai' - Jakob Ebrey Photography
Copyright-free A1 Team Canada images are available for download at www.a1gp-photo.com/can
From A1 Team Canada Media Relations: Stuart Morrison - PR & Media Manager
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