Post Qualifying Notes And Quotes- Richmond
Jun 28, 2008
Ron McQueeney/IMS
NOTES:
Tony Kanaan wins the PEAK Motor Oil Pole Award presented by Advance Auto Parts. This is Kanaan’s second pole of the season and the 10th of his career. His last pole came at St. Petersburg. Kanaan’s last pole on an oval was last season at Kentucky.
This is the 22nd pole for Andretti Green Racing.
Marco Andretti qualified second, his second front row start of the season. He won the pole at Milwaukee.
This is the 36th time in IndyCar Series history and the third time this season that teammates have started 1-2. Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon shared the front row this season at Kansas and Indianapolis.
This is the seventh time Andretti Green Racing teammates have shared the front row. The last time was at Kentucky in 2007 when Tony Kanaan won the pole and Dario Franchitti was second.
Scott Dixon qualified fourth, his seventh consecutive top-five start, the longest active streak in the IndyCar Series.
Buddy Rice qualified fifth, his best starting position of the season. His previous best was 11th at Homestead-Miami and Motegi. This is his best starting position since fifth at California in 2005.
Bruno Junqueira qualified ninth, the best this season for him and Dale Coyne Racing. His previous best was 15th at Indianapolis and Texas. Those also marked Dale Coyne Racing’s best starts in the IndyCar Series.
Helio Castroneves qualified 18th, ending his streak of 11 consecutive top-10 starts. It was the longest active streak in the IndyCar Series. The record is 32 by Sam Hornish Jr. The last time Castroneves started 18th or lower was at Michigan in 2004 when he started 20th.
QUOTES:
TONY KANAAN (No. 11 Team 7-Eleven, qualified first): “If there was a place that I could choose to start on the pole, it’s this one. I think we did a great job. I have to thank my teammates, Danica, Marco and Hideki. Danica and Hideki came and tested here a few weeks ago, and I think it helped us a lot. Me and Marco worked really well together this morning trying to find a good setup, and it was really good. I’ve been in the front quite a lot, but I haven’t been able to accomplish things in the front. So we start all over again. The car was totally different than it was in the afternoon. But I think that with our experience, we knew what was going to happen. It helped that my teammates all qualified in front of me. It helped that I was one of the latest cars to qualify. The track is cooling off and getting better all the time. It’s a good lead for what I need in the race as well. Hopefully the luck is on my side this weekend. &r dquo;
MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 26 Blockbuster, second): “We really nailed the setup on the Blockbuster car today, especially when you consider that we didn’t get proper runs in practice because we caught traffic each time. It was a great day for Andretti Green Racing, though. It’s good to start up front, especially at this place. Tony (Kanaan) and I both have very good race cars, so I’m excited about tomorrow. ”
GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 06 Hole in the Wall Camps, third): “Everything really came together for us in qualifying. We’ve been struggling here all weekend. Luckily if it was going to come together at one point, it’s good that it’s in qualifying. It would be even better if it came together tomorrow. Obviously it’s important to start up front here because it’s really hard to pass, so we’re pretty happy. We made a bunch of changes. The guys did a good job, because all weekend we’ve been struggling and struggling and just didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t know what to expect in qualifying. I figured we would be close to Justin’s time, but when I went out there, the car was really good. The only thing holding me back from going flat was that I couldn’t get the car to downshift mid-corner. I think that if our gearing was a little bit different, which we will know for next year because we didn’t expect to go this fast obviously, I think we would have had a shot at pole. ”
