A1 Team USA's Indianapolis 500 entry will start the prestigious race from 16th on the grid. source: a1gp.com Buddy Rice, the driver of the number 15 A1 Team USA/Dreyer and Reinbold entry qualified the car successfully on the second of what will be four qualification days. Qualification for the Indy 500, the IRL IndyCar Series' biggest race, is a complex and lengthy process. Only the first 22 positions on the grid are filled on the first weekend of qualifying, with the remaining 11 determined the following weekend. The position is determined by an average of four laps - Rice produced an average of 222.826mph to line-up on the inside of the sixth row. "We would have liked to have been a Pole Day qualifier and been in the top 11, but the middle of the field is OK," said A1 Team USA owner Rick Weidinger. "We had some problems at the end of the week that didn't allow us to fully prepare a qualifying setup. "We spent the opening four days of practice focusing on preparing for the race and we're well on the way to having a car that can compete for the win." Practice restarts on Wednesday before final qualifications this weekend. The race, the 91st running of the event, takes place on Sunday 27 May. Rice said: "We're doing good and I'm really happy with how everything is going. I think I have a real competitive car right now. We haven't really been working on qualifying this week and we concentrated on the race day car. "I've been around here enough to know that we need a good car in traffic. We will work on traffic this coming week." Other A1GP drivers have also qualified for the field in their own entries. A1 Team Australia's Ryan Briscoe will start seventh, A1 Team Great Britain's Darren Manning qualified 15th and A1 Team Brazil's Vitor Meira lines up 19th. Weidinger is writing a diary on his Indy 500
experience. To read it, click here.
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