Dixon’s Quick, Will Make the Pick, at Cali Qualys
Written by Allan Brewer · August 25, 2006
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Photo: Chris Jones IRL
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Euro-Style Qualifying Format for Saturday On Tap
Do you go out first, or go out later?
Building on anticipation that makes him the favorite for Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, Target/Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon posted the fastest speed in practice Friday at the hilly road course in California wine country.
Dixon, who currently holds down fourth place in the IndyCar Series championship point standings, turned a lap of 107.662 mph (76.9073 seconds) in his Number 9 Honda/Panoz on the sinuous 2.26 mile, twelve turn circuit.
“We’ve come here with the attitude of winning the race. I was disappointed this morning that we didn’t get to run on new tires. This afternoon we got a new set, and we had good speed. We’re pretty happy, but there’s still a ways to go to get through qualifying. We can’t hold back anything. We have to win this race.” he said afterwards.
The Grand Prix will be the last of three Indy Racing League events this season contested on a road or street layout. The odds of celebrating a win on this up-and-down, winding-around, difficult track would seem to favor the men who have already claimed a victory off-oval in 2006: Helio Castroneves (St. Petersburg) and Dixon (Watkins Glen).
Indeed, Castroneves was second in combined practice speeds with a best lap of 107.279 mph in his Number 3 Marlboro Team Penske Honda/Dallara. He shrugged his shoulders at his performance, though, clearly not totally happy with the car by saying “We were trying a lot of different things today, because we want to know what’s good and what’s bad, but it’s okay. Tomorrow (Saturday qualifying) is when it counts.”
Rounding out the top-five were Andretti/Green Racing’s Dario Franchitti (106.907 mph), his nineteen year-old rookie teammate Marco Andretti (106.890 mph) and Dixon’s TCGR partner Dan Wheldon (106.718 mph).
“I think the improvements we made to the Klein Tools/Canadian Club car helped some.” said Franchitti in post-practice comments at the end of the second stanza. “We’re still struggling with it, but we’ve made some progress since the first session. We’ll think about it overnight and hopefully go in the right direction with more changes.”
IndyCar Series point leader Sam Hornish Jr. was a middling seventh-fastest with a lap of 106.524 mph. “We’re still looking to get the Marlboro Team Penske car exactly the way we want it. I think we’re close, but we still have a little work to do with getting it comfortable for 80 laps here.” he said.
The common theme of searching for the right set-up in the drivers’ comments reflects the dual difficulties the teams face at this demanding round: the rolling, often steep, topography and the relative unfamiliarity they have with the race course.
One of the more challenging engineering aspects to overcome is the compression and unweighting that occurs repeatedly over the rapid elevation changes characteristic of the Northern California terrain. Compounding the up and down movement of car and driver is the constant turning back and forth, with blind corners and extremely quick entries a staple of any lap around the former Sears Point Raceway.
The IndyCar series has only raced on one previous occasion in Sonoma County, one of the premier grape-growing regions of the world. AGR’s Tony Kanaan was the 2005 race winner at Infineon Raceway, located approximately thirty minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. AJ Foyt Racing’s Ryan Briscoe holds the qualifying record with a lap of 66.4913 seconds, 108.248 mph set on August 27th, 2005.
Dixon’s fast lap allows him to determine if he will be the first car out, or invert the order for Marlboro Pole Qualifying on August 26th.
The combined practice times from Friday determine the qualifying order, with the driver posting the fastest lap time during today’s practices having the option of driving first or last in single-lap qualifying on Saturday.
If that isn’t enough to unsettle the gray matter, the sort-of-familiar qualifying by single-lap is then followed by an F1-like fastest-six-cars ten-minute countdown with best lap time posted from the sextet claiming the race start’s top grid spot.
The next IndyCar Series event is the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at 3:30 PM (EDT) on August 27th at Infineon Raceway. The race will be telecast live by ESPN and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network. A Spanish-language telecast of the race will be carried by ESPN Deportes. The IMS Radio Network broadcast also is carried on XM Satellite Radio channel 145 “IndyCar Racing” and www.indycar.com. The fifth season of Indy Pro Series competition continues with the Sonoma 100 doubleheader on August 26-27th at Infineon Raceway. ESPN2’s coverage of the doubleheader races will be televised at 2 PM (EDT) on August 31st.
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