Newman/Haas Racing
MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
PRACTICE NOTES/QUOTES – Thursday, August 11, 2011
SPROTT DRIVER HINCHCLIFFE SEVENTH FASTEST IN PRACTICE FOR THE MOVETHATBLOCK.COM INDY 225 AT NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY; TELEMUNDO DRIVER SERVIA EIGHTH
1st: Dario Franchitti 21.5665 / 171.099 mph
7th: James Hinchcliffe 21.8161 / 169.141 mph
8th: Oriol Servia 21.8200 / 169.111 mph
Oriol Servia, No. 2 Telemundo Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "Right away I said this was a ballsy track. For sure! It's quite interesting; I don't think I have ever been in a similar place. It's like Iowa without the banking. You get to the turns after a long straight and you ask the car to turn a lot in a very short period of time. The G's (G-forces) we go through with there are quite interesting and what we ask from the car and the Firestone's is quite a lot. But it's a lot of fun, honestly. On our side of things, it was actually a very difficult day. For some reason we had a car that was very difficult to drive until the last 40 minutes. We found something that completely changed the Telemundo car and put a smile on my face. It's a lot better and I am very happy how we finished. I think it will be a very difficult race to overtake. Although it's quite wide, it's really only one little, narrow line which is where we run all the time so its gets a lot more rubber. As soon as you go a little lower or higher from there, it's very, very slippery so it will be very difficult to pass people."
FAST FACTS: Will be his FIRST open wheel race here...Servia, a native of Catalonia, Spain, has made 23 starts for NHR which include his first Indy car win (Montreal 2005) and pole (Surfers Paradise, Australia 2005) as well as a total of eight top-three finishes. In 2005, Servia replaced NHR driver Bruno Junqueira, who suffered a season-ending injury at the Indy 500 on May 29, and then went on to finish second to teammate Sebastien Bourdais in the point standings after 11/13 events with the team. Servia returned to NHR in 2009 for four races with a season-best finish of fourth at Twin Ring Motegi... Is FIFTH in series point standings with 268.
James Hinchcliffe, No. 06 Sprott Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "It's a quirky little place; one that you definitely need to take some time to wrap your head around. Its probably one of the most challenging short ovals we go to. Obviously the team came with pretty good cars and Oriol and I made some good headway today. Its always interesting coming to a new place because you drive around in practice but you never quite know how its going to race until the race itself. We'll see how qualifying goes. I think qualifying is going to be important here; track position is going to be key in the race on Sunday. But we've had a good start and are happy to be where we are. We'll just keep chipping away at it."
FAST FACTS: This will be his FIRST Indy car race here...Toronto native Hinchcliffe, 24, finished second in the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights season standings after three wins and four poles. In total he earned eight podium finishes in 13 races...Is ranked 17th with a total of 185 points and is 37 behind Rookie of the Year leader Hildebrand (222) after eight of nine events so far this season (missed St. Pete).
1 WIN, 1 POLE, 3 PODIUMS IN FOUR NEW HAMPSHIRE EVENTS: Newman/Haas Racing competed in CART-sanctioned events here from 1992-1995. The team has earned ONE WIN (Nigel Mansell 1993), ONE POLE (Mansell 1993), TWO FRONT ROW STARTS (2nd – Michael Andretti 1992) and THREE PODIUMS (2nd – Mi. Andretti 1992, 1995).
Tune In... Qualifying will take place from 3-4:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday while the race will be broadcast live on ABC on Sunday, August 14 at 3:30 p.m. EDT. The radio broadcast also will be carried on www.indycar.com. As always, fans can follow the action from every on-track session via the official website of the IZOD IndyCar Series, www.indycar.com.
