Rice 11th And Fisher 15th in Qualifications at Motegi

Motegi, Japan
Apr 20, 2007

Qualifying for the Bridgestone Indy Japan 300 turned out better than expected for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing drivers, Buddy Rice and Sarah Fisher, as both improved their times on the track to qualify for Saturday’s event across the pond in Motegi, Japan. Rice qualified 11th and Fisher qualified 15th.

“Both cars stepped up quite a bit in qualifying and both went significantly faster than we had the whole weekend,” said team co-owner, Dennis Reinbold, whose team has a previous best start at Motegi of 14th and came in 2003. “We are gaining on things with both cars which is really good for us. I think we have two really consistent race cars that will be good to race with for tomorrow. “

The 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner, Rice, wheeled 125 laps during three combined practice sessions over two days under brisk but sunny conditions in Japan. Rice drove his No. 5 Roll Coater/Honda/Dallara to an 11th place qualifying position for the IndyCar Series sole international event. His qualifying run yielded a speed of 202.708 and time of 26.9945 up from his 201.223 speed and 27.1923 time during morning practice.

“We made some pretty big changes for qualifying; I think we’re just behind a little bit here,” said Rice, whose previous best start at Motegi was fifth and came in 2004. “This was definitely a big pick up from our practice times. The car definitely still needs a little bit and there is definitely still more out there. I’m not complaining so we will see what happens. The car is really consistent. We’ve been working on race day set-up so when it comes race time, we will be ok.”

Teammate, Fisher, also improved from her practice times. She qualified her No. 5 AAMCO/Honda/Dallara into the 15th position with a speed of 201.871 and a time of 27.1064. Her best practice time clocked in at a speed of 199.288 and a time of 27.4577 over the course of 121 laps.

“That was definitely a whole lot better than we ran in practice,” said Fisher, whose previous best start at Motegi was 14th and came in 2003. “I think we gained something like four tenths from practice. We’ve been working on getting a solid race car and we’re getting there. On race day, I just want to have a solid race car. We didn’t focus on qualifying today. We didn’t finish the race in 2003 but as long as we have a stable race car to start with it will give us something to spring off of. At Motegi it is so important to have a good race car. The track is such a tough place. A top-10 would be a good result for us especially with our new AAMCO sponsorship. We are very excited about them joining our team and a solid result will give us a nice springboard for Kansas next weekend.”

The Twin Ring Motegi race track was built by Honda and is located about 60 miles northeast of Tokyo. The 1.5-mile egg-shaped oval will be a challenge for DRR’s American drivers. The track boosts difficult corners and is very technical. The techniques on each corner are different; smoothness on one end (big end) and getting up on the wheel on the other end (the narrow end). With Motegi, the drivers must be aggressive and patient at the same time. Rice will make his fifth appearance at the track while Fisher will simply make her second.

The pole was captured by Helio Castroneves, the 2006 Twin Ring Motegi Pole and race winner. Castroneves edged Dan Wheldon with a speed of 205.393 and a time of 26.6416. Andretti Green Racing owned Row 2 with Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick. Sam Hornish, Jr, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Tomas Scheckter, Kosuke Matsuura and Marco Andretti rounded out the top-10 for Saturday’s race.