Defending race winner Graham Rahal topped the time chart on the first day of practice for the 2009 IndyCar Series season opener. Rahal, 20, who became the youngest winner in major open-wheel racing history when he won the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg a year ago, seems ready to defend his title. He lapped the 14-turn, 1.8-mile circuit in 1 minute, 3.4078 seconds, 102.196 mph in the No. 02 McDonald’s Racing entry to set the pace for the 22-car field.
Dale Coyne Racing’s Justin Wilson, who led 18 laps in last year’s race, was second with a lap at 1:03.5881, 101.906 mph. Dario Franchitti with Target Chip Ganassi Racing was third, E.J. Viso with HVM Racing was fourth and Tony Kanaan with Andretti Green Racing was fifth.
An additional practice session is scheduled for Saturday morning before the three-round PEAK Performance Pole Qualifying session to set the starting grid for Sunday’s race.
Also on Friday, J.R. Hildebrand won his first Firestone Indy Lights pole in qualifying for Race 1 of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Hildebrand recorded a best lap of 1 minute, 7.7704 seconds, 95.617 mph. Junior Strouss, one of 16 rookies in the 27-car field, was second.
Firestone Indy Lights drivers will participate in an additional qualifying session for Race 2 on Saturday morning before the 40-lap Race 1 in the afternoon. Race 2 is scheduled for Sunday.
GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 02 McDonald’s Racing Team, fastest):
“I think for the whole McDonald’s crew it’s been a pretty good day. This morning we came out of the box and we were 10th, and I think some of the guys were a little worked up but we knew that the car was quick. As Justin (Wilson) just said, even in the first session we couldn’t ultimately get our good lap. We got held up a little bit but that doesn’t really matter. In the second session we knew we had a pretty good car. It was all about trying to find some little tweaks that were going to help us in the long run. We ran old tires for quite awhile. We were still right up there in the top five, so we were pretty happy with that. Then we threw the new tires on and obviously things went pretty well. We got caught behind Danica (Patrick), which kind of hurt us a bit b ecause it seemed like you could be three seconds back and still catch her in a lap, so that kind of got me out of my rhythm. I kept having to back up into him (Wilson) and I’m sure that got him out of his rhythm. But we got one good lap in, and obviously we’re pretty happy with that. There’s still a little bit left on the table, but overall for the whole McDonalds team this has been a pretty good day.”
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