source:
crash.net
Veteran IRL driver Scott Sharp had his first chance to get behind the wheel
with his new Delphi Fernandez Racing team, as the entire IRL IndyCar Series
field concluded its first road course test in preparation for the start of the
2005 season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Sharp, who was announced as the driver of the #8 Delphi Panoz-Honda on
Wednesday, posted the eleventh fastest time of the 19-car field as the team took
to the track with the road course chassis configuration for the first time.
"I am really pleased with how things ended after two days," Sharp said following
his first run in an open wheel car on a road course since 1994. "Certainly, we
all want to be fastest but most of the other teams have had at least one, two,
if not three road course tests. Most of the drivers have driven road courses a
lot more recently in open-wheel cars than I have. Obviously, with that, we knew
coming here would be a real learning experience for all of us. I think it went
really well. The goal was to come here and put a lot of laps together and we ran
a lot of laps both days. In the latter half, the engineers and I really started
working well together. We took off almost 1.2 seconds from yesterday and I am
really pleased with that kind of progress. We satisfied all of our goals for
now. We can go think about it, talk about it and get better for the next test.
"Overall, I am just so thrilled to be with Fernandez Racing. They have done a
fabulous job and that goes hand in hand with Honda as well. They were certainly
the package to beat last year. I can't wait for Saturday. I've spent the last
ten years trying to make myself a pretty good oval driver, and I am anxious to
get in with a team that is very strong on the ovals. We will have a little bit
of time to pick it up on the road courses before we go road course racing."