James Winslow made the most of previous circuit knowledge to give Team GBR a flying start to its Eastern Creek A1 Grand Prix weekend, posting the third fastest time across the two rookie sessions before handing over to regular race pilot Robbie Kerr.
When Kerr then repeated the result in the afternoon's free practice session, Team GBR ended day one in positive mood, convinced that it would be able to banish its Taupo blues in round six of the season.
Fresh from finishing at the top of the timesheets in the morning's Australian F3 practice, Winslow jumped straight into the vastly more powerful A1GP Lola and appeared on course to replicate his performance in the damp opening practice. Towards the end of the first 25-minute segment, as the track began to dry out, the team opted to remain on wet tyres and Winslow only ran limited laps due to radio problems, a combination that dropped him back from a frontrunning position.
However, with a dry track at his disposal for the second segment, the Briton made full use of his previous Eastern Creek experience - gleaned from last year's Australian F3 campaign - to run at the top of the leaderboard on new slick tyres and only losing out to the home team's John Martin and Australian-domiciled Lebanese driver Chris Alajajian in the closing minutes, despite setting his fastest time on the last of his 20 laps.
"I really enjoyed getting back into the A1GP car again," Winslow said of his second outing with Team GBR, "Compared to the F3 car, it has a lot more power and grip so the lines change and it's a different driving style.
"Obviously I would have liked to have finished in P1, where we were to begin with, but I'm happy with P3. It's again been an honour to drive for GBR, and I'm pleased to have done my bit for the team to hopefully give Robbie a good car on Sunday."
![Robbie Kerr - Team GBR [pic credit: A1GP]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/405079.jpg)
