British ace Justin Wilson’s mobility may have been hampered this week with a torn meniscus in his left knee, however, the RuSPORTS driver showed no ill effects of the injury while in the car today after claiming a front row start for Sunday’s Bavaria Champ Car Grand Prix of Holland.
In tricky conditions, Wilson set the fastest lap in today’s qualifying as the track went from wet to drying, back to wet, then back to drying - the Dutch weather wreaking havoc on the session.
Wilson (#9 CDW Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) strung together two consecutive fast laps to claim the fastest time, followed by Team Australia’s Simon Pagenaud (#15 Aussie Vineyards Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone).
Wilson’s wet weather lap of 1 minute 30.656 seconds, just over a second off the Assen circuits all-time record set by a 2006 Champ Car earlier this month. Young American Graham Rahal (#2 Medi|Zone Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) was third fastest.
Three drivers were penalized during the session, Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) spun early bringing out the red flag, while Will Power (#5 Aussie Vineyards Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) and Tristan Gommendy (#22 Pay By Touch-MegaSpirea Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) both lost their fastest lap for passing the chequered flag twice at the end of the session. With the penalty, Gommendy dropped from third to fourth in the final running order while Power dropped from seventh to eighth.
Spaniard Oriol Servia (#7 Indeck Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) was fifth fastest today with series points leader Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) sitting sixth. Bourdais only ran six laps during the wet session opting to save his tires in case of rain tomorrow or during the race on Sunday.
Quotes From The Top Three Friday Qualifiers
Justin Wilson: “My knee feels a bit better today. Each day it gets a little bit better and frees up a bit. It is not too painful it just limits the amount of motion but fortunately in the racecar my legs are quite bent anyway so that’s not a problem. “The #9 CDW car was fantastic. I’ve got to thank the whole team. They’ve worked hard this weekend and it’s nice to be quick in the wet. We weren’t quite as quick in the dry, but we felt we were in with a shout this weekend. So when it started to rain I thought ‘this should be good’. ”
Simon Pagenaud: “We had a fantastic car from the beginning to the end but it just was that I got blocked in the last two laps. I couldn’t make a lap at the end. It was a bit of a shame because Team Australia gave me a really good car and I can’t thank them enough.
Graham Rahal: “It’s always good to be up front. If it were dry we could have had a better qualifying session. Our Medi|Zone car was definitely very good in the dry but unfortunately it rained. We did show that we had the pace in the rain but obviously we would prefer it to be dry. ”
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