Oliver Jarvis and Oliver Turvey gave A1 Team Great Britain a solid start to pre-season testing with Jarvis posting the third quickest time during the opening day of testing at Silverstone.

The pair completed more than 100 laps during the course of the day, with Turvey – who will act as rookie driver this season – taking to the track before handing over to Jarvis for the afternoon. Turvey posted a best time of 1min 12.287secs, despite doing all of his running on old tyres.

"It was great to get back in the A1GP car having last driven it in Shanghai back in April,” he said. “I got a lot more running in the car this morning than before, but unfortunately we only ran on old tyres. However I did get my best time towards the end of the session, even though the tyres were at there worst. Overall I'm pretty pleased - I think I improved a lot with the car and got more confident, which is the main aim.”

Jarvis took over for the afternoon and the 23-year-old was immediately in amongst the front-runners. He topped the afternoon timesheets until a last gasp effort from Team South Africa driver Adrian Zaugg demoted him to second by just 0.075s. Jarvis completed 51 laps as the team worked through a structured programme in preparation for the start of the new A1GP season and now hands over to Robbie Kerr for today's running.

"Overall we're happy with today's test,” he said. “Oliver Turvey drove well in the morning, setting some decent times on old tyres and providing good feedback before handing over to me. We made good progress in the afternoon, and I'm sure we could have set quicker lap times if it weren't for the traffic, particularly in sector three.

“The test is always a good measure of teams' potential competitiveness and it's therefore fantastic to be up at the front, it isn't the all important factor though as all our focus is on Zandvoort and the season ahead."