Team Player's drivers Alex Tagliani and Patrick
Carpentier will respectively start from rows seven and eight for Sunday's
Honda Indy 300 at Surfers Paradise in Australia. Tagliani qualified 14th,
driving around the 4.498-kilometre (2.795-mile) temporary street course in 1
minute 32.300 seconds for an average speed of 175.441 km/h.
"Team Player's has improved
the car a lot for this track since last year but so has everyone else. The team
has worked very hard the last two days but it just hasn't been able to find a
faster set up. We're at the limit of this car. This is not a track that
compliments the Reynard, at least not this year. To make matters worse, we had
some traction control issues during the session. As far as the race is
concerned, I will push as hard as I can and pick up the most points I can get." His teammate Carpentier was next
in 15th place with a lap time of 1
minute 32.367 seconds (175.313 km/h). Carpentier was not happy with the way his
car is handling. "It's obviously not going right when you are two seconds off the pace. We
have that problem since the last race in Miami. The Player's car has no grip and
it's not stable. It just won't stick to the track. It's quite disappointing
because I'm still fighting for a place in the top-3 in the standings. I'm going
to drive aggressively and try to stay out of trouble.''
Cristiano
da Matta was the fastest of the 18 drivers qualifying for round 17 of the CART
FedEx Series. The Brazilian driver captured his seventh pole of the season,
lapping the track in a record time of 1
minute
30.204 seconds (179.517
km/h). Sharing the front row with him will be fellow countryman Bruno Junqueira
who posted his quickest time in 1 minute
30.214 seconds (179.497
km/h). Another Brazilian, Tony Kanaan (1:30.427), will start third alongside
Kenny Bräck (1:30.616) of Sweden. Canadian
Paul Tracy qualified fifth (1:30.731) and will start next to Scott Dixon
(1:30.810) of New-Zealand. The top 11 drivers broke the single lap record set on
Friday by provisional pole sitter Bruno Junqueira. Drivers will return on track Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. local time (8:00 p.m. Eastern Time Saturday) for the race warm-up. The green flag for the Indy Honda 300 will be dropped at midnight Eastern Time Sunday, and race fans can watch the 70-lap race live on The Sport Network (TSN). source: teamplayers.ca
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