POST-PEAK PERFORMANCE POLE QUALIFYING NOTES:
· This is Dario Franchitti’s third PEAK Performance Pole Award of season and the ninth pole of his career.
· This is Will Power’s second front row start of the year. He started from pole at Long Beach.
· This is Graham Rahal’s sixth top-five start of the season.
· Alex Tagliani qualified a career-best fifth
· Dario Franchitti and Justin Wilson are the only drivers to qualify for Firestone Fast Six in each of the four races this season. Will Power and Graham Rahal have qualified for three of the four. Power has qualified for all three of his road races this season.
POST-PEAK PERFORMANCE POLE QUALIFYING QUOTES:
DARIO FRANCHITTI (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing, PEAK Performance Pole Award winner): “I think I got my first pole here in ‘97, which is an awful long time ago. So that was ‘97. I was trying to remember what I did right back in ‘97 this morning so I could kind of put it to practice with the Target car. Usual story. The guys worked really, really hard to improve the car yesterday. Then with the rain this morning, we didn’t do too much running. And it was good actually with the changes we made in qualifying. The car was good out of the box. The lap that I did in the Fast Six, I came in afterwards and said basically, ‘That’s it. That was a hell of a lap. That was as good of a lap as I’ve driven around here. If they can go quicker, let them have it, because that’s all she’s got.’ I was very happy with the car and the job I did today.”
Click Here to View More ‘Honda Indy Toronto’ Photos
WILL POWER (No. 12 Penske Truck Rentals, qualified second): “My crew just walked in this weekend; the first time they’ve been back since May and same with me. They did a fantastic job. We’re really happy to be second. We would have been a lot happier with first, but second is great. The car has been good since we rolled it off the trailer and the same at Long Beach. I’m just doing my job.”
GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 02 McDonald’s Racing Team, qualified third): “At the end of the day, the McDonald’s car ran extremely well and we made great improvements and it shows what this team can do. We’re happy to be third today.”
JUSTIN WILSON (No. 18 Z-Line Designs, qualified fourth): “I thought it was a reasonable day. Things went quite well. But we weren’t just quite quick enough. We started out quite loose, struggling to get the power down, struggling for grip. We kept working on it, kept making improvements. Quite pleased with what we managed to do on the used reds. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to beat Dario (Franchitti). He was on good form as well as Graham (Rahal) and Will (Power). I’m pretty pleased with fourth. Hopefully we’ll have a trouble-free race and we’ll move forward.”
ALEX TAGLIANI (No. 34 King Tut/Conquest Racing, qualified fifth): “It was a great job for the Conquest Racing team. All of the boys did a fantastic job. We didn’t run as much as we wanted to yesterday. I think we left a couple things on the table by not running a new set of tires on Friday. I think the car was decent. We missed a couple of attempts at the end to improve our lap and be in the top three but it was a great effort from all of the boys.”
RAPHAEL MATOS (No. 2 US Marines Luczo Dragon Racing, qualified ninth): “I’m a little bit frustrated that we didn’t make it into the fastest six. We had a car that could fight for a top five, but I just made a mistake and hit the wall in turn 11. It bent the right toe link and we couldn’t go back out. It just means we have to work harder for tomorrow’s race.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Team Penske, qualified 10th): “I have to say, what an incredible crowd. It’s great to be back here in Toronto. In qualifying, unfortunately, I got caught in a lot of traffic. I lost about three laps there because of traffic in front of me. This is a tough street circuit. We have some different drivers and teams in the Fast Six, so it should be interesting tomorrow in the race. Team Penske will be ready and we will go for it on Sunday.”
RYAN BRISCOE (No. 6 Team Penske, qualified 11th): “It’s tough out there. I just had a difficult time finding the balance on the Team Penske car. It was tough to get the tires to come in, and I just couldn’t get enough grip. We’re starting further back than we’d like but we’ll just have to work a bit harder in the race tomorrow and work our way through the field.”
| 
|