Christian Vietoris has played down the significance of his pace in this week's official pre-season Silverstone test – despite smashing the A1GP record at the British circuit.

The F3 star, who will be A1 Team Germany's main driver this season, drove Silverstone's 2.3-mile International Circuit in 1min 10.005secs, putting himself nearly half a second under than the best time from last year's test at the same venue.

While the performance continued the good form shown by Germany and Nico Hulkenberg in the 2006-07 season, the 18-year old reckons it is too soon to know whether his team will be a pacesetter in the coming campaign.

“Basically, we started on the first day with a good set-up and tried a few things,” he told the official A1GP website, “Then we tried some good solutions to improve the set-up on the next day and I did the lap when I had new tyres on and it was good. There was no traffic and no mistakes and it was just a good lap.

“It's definitely a good start, but it's too early to say whether this is significant. It's just testing and ultimately it doesn't matter because it's just testing. But, at the moment, we are on top, which is good for us - and motivating for me.”

Vietoris will be back in F3 action this weekend, racing in the German series on the support bill for Assen's Champ Car round.