SHANGHAI, April 11: A1 Team Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque was in superb form today, topping the time sheets in both of the official free practice sessions in Shanghai, as the penultimate round of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport got underway at the Shanghai International Circuit in cool and cloudy conditions.

Twenty-two year old Albuquerque, who scored an impressive first podium finish on his A1GP debut in Durban seven weeks ago, was the man to beat this afternoon, setting a time of 1m35.223s around the 4.6km Chinese circuit.

Having set the pace early on in this morning’s rookie driver and developing nations session, Portugal’s Albuquerque improved on his lap time by over a second this afternoon, again in the opening minutes of the session, and held the top spot for the remainder of the hour.

The Portuguese car was closely followed by New Zealand’s Jonny Reid, who won the Shanghai Feature race last year and has his sights firmly set on a repeat performance on Sunday.

Filip Salaquarda, who represented his nation in Shanghai last year, was third quickest in the Czech car this afternoon while current title leader Switzerland’s Neel Jani finished fourth fastest overall, just ahead of Germany’s Michael Ammermüller in fifth.

Franck Montagny was impressive on his A1GP debut for France, clocking the fourth fastest time on only his second run in the French car and ending the afternoon seventh overall behind GBR’s Robbie Kerr.

Home nation China’s Congfu (Franky) Cheng, who is not eligible to take part in the rookie sessions, finished the day ninth fastest behind USA’s Jonathan Summerton.—Agencies