Qualifying Report for Round Three of the IndyCar Series at St. Petersburg
source: Max d'Orsonnens
Second driver to go out for his single-lap qualifying run on Saturday
afternoon, Patrick Carpentier drove his Dallara-Toyota around the 14-turn,
2.8968-kilometer St. Petersburg temporary street course in 64.4630 seconds for
an average speed of 161.776 km/h. The time gave him provisional pole but with 17
other drivers to go, it did not take long for the Canadian to lose top spot to
finish 14th overall, the position he will start Sunday's Honda Grand Prix of St.
Petersburg. This is Carpentier's best starting position since his debut in IRL.
Alex Barron stopped the clock at 64.3051 seconds to give him 13th place overall,
one spot ahead of his teammate Carpentier. They will share row seven.
Carpentier's day in Florida started a lot better than Friday, when the Red Bull
Cheever Racing driver managed to earn ninth place in Saturday morning's third
practice session.
''This is not the ideal starting position for this type of track,'' Carpentier
said following his qualifying run. ''It is a bit disappointing, but the team had
to expect such a result after missing most of Friday's practice sessions with
one mechanical failure after another. Friday, we ran 14 laps and this morning
(Saturday) 15. That's 60% less lap time than most of the other drivers. When we
went out this morning, we never tried to set-up the car for qualifying. Instead,
we ran in short race mode to see how the car was handling. Everybody thought it
would be best that way to go since points are gathered in a race. The car feels
fine, and as we saw in the first two races this season, there is always hope for
a good finish on race day.''
Round 3 of the Indy Racing League Series 2005 schedule, is a historic moment as
it is the first-ever IRL race on a street/road course. But with so many teams
and drivers with road course experience and background, nobody looked out of
place in this new environment.
At the conclusion of the single-lap qualifying session there was a 10-minute
break for adjustments for the fastest six qualifiers' cars. Dario Franchitti was
the quickest on the initial session, followed by Helio Castroneves, Tomas Enge,
Bryan Herta, Sam Hornish Jr. and Tony Kanaan. They all took part in the
10-minute Firestone Fast Six Shoot-out designed to give them an opportunity to
better their qualifying position. Three did improve their times and change or
keep their position on the grid.