Newman/Haas Racing
Edmonton Indy – City Centre Airport, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – Saturday, July 23, 2011
TELEMUNDO DRIVER SERVIA TO START EIGHTH IN THE EDMONTON INDY; SPROTT DRIVER HINCHCLIFFE IS THE HIGHEST QUALIFIED ROOKIE AT 10TH
POLE: Takuma Sato 1:18.5165 101.971 mph (Round 3)
8th: Oriol Servia 1:18.7142 101.715 mph (Round 2)
10th: James Hinchcliffe 1:18.9323 101.434 mph (Round 2)
Oriol Servia, No. 2 Telemundo Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "With two minutes to go in qualifying, everybody is trying to put a lap together – I'm trying to put a lap together. I was doing my best. With the sessions being so short, everybody runs at the end. We were both trying to put a lap in with a minute to go. I don't know if he wanted me to just disappear and give him a chance to do it and not me. He was the one behind and he had a chance to slow down the lap before to build a gap and then go for it on the next lap. I understand why he isn't happy, he was trying to do a quick lap but I happened to be trying to do my quick lap too. I understand his frustration, I was frustrated too. I thought we had a better car. The Telemundo car was good earlier but we just couldn't put it together in qualifying. Its tough competition, we're all trying hard. When you can't advance you start the blaming game. The run was good. Eighth is not too bad but this morning we really felt the Telemundo car was ready to be up front and P8 is not where we wanted or hoped. There is a long race tomorrow. It's going to be a survival one again and I think we are pretty good at that."
FAST FACTS: Will be his FIFTH Indy car race here and first since 2008. His highest finish here of second place came here in 2005 -- his only other race here with NHR. He started fourth, led two laps and finished second. He was also ranked fourth in series points at Edmonton and went on to finish second for the year. In total he has three, top-five finishes in four races and has finished no lower than sixth. In 2006, he started fifth and finished fourth for PKV. In 2007, he started 13th and finished sixth for Forsythe. In 2008, he started third and finished fifth for KV Racing in the first IndyCar Series event here. He did not compete here in 2009 and 2010...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 FOURTH in series point standings with 232.
James Hinchcliffe, No. 06 Sprott Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "The first round of qualifying was pretty good for the Sprott team. We were sort of taking stabs at it because we've never run here before and don't know what to expect. And then on top of that, with the yellow that we had you get about four laps to figure out the red Firestone tires. It's a hell of an 'ask.' The car was good; the guys did a really good job guessing on the setup. I came around for my last lap and they told me what time I needed to make in order to get in the top-six and about half way through the lap I clipped the wall coming out of Turn 9 so my heart rate sky rocketed. I was going quicker so I couldn't lift and luckily we held it all together and squeaked in there and ended up third in the session. It was a decent run in Q1. In the second round we were hoping for an improvement but I just felt like we lost a little bit of grip. I don't know if it was the tires or the changes that we made. I'm not quite sure but we didn't feel as strong. I think there might have been a couple more tenths (of a second) in it but if you look at how the times spaced out, I don't think we would have moved up the grid much -- maybe a spot. We made it to Round 2 again and I think our performance is something we can be reasonably happy with. We will just try to pick some people off tomorrow."
FAST FACTS: Set the fastest lap time in the first morning session today which was his first time to set the fastest time in an Indy car session. This will be his SIXTH year to race here (eighth race) and FIRST in the headline Indy car here. He has three poles and four podium finishes here including a win. In 2010, he won the Firestone Indy Lights race from pole and led all 50 laps. In his first Indy Lights race here in 2009, he started and finished fourth. He competed in the Atlantic Series events here from 2006-2008. In the 2008 event, he started from pole and finished third in Race 1 and started fourth and finished third in Race 2. In the 2007 event here he started from pole and finished third in Race 1. In Race 2, he started 15 and finished ninth. In 2006, he started eighth and finished 23rd...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 14th with a total of 158 points and is 35 behind Rookie of the Year leader Hildebrand (193) after seven of eight events so far this season (missed St. Pete).
NEWMAN/HAAS RACING IN EDMONTON: NHR has 2 WINS, 1 POLE and SIX PODIUMS in six races here from 2005-2010. NHR won the inaugural race here in 2005 when Bourdais drove to victory from a 10th place start. Bourdais won again in 2007 from a second place start and set the fastest race lap. In total, the team has earned TWO wins (Bourdais 2007, 2005), ONE pole (Bourdais 2006) and SIX podium finishes (2nd – Bourdais 2006, Servia 2005; 3rd – Wilson 2008, Rahal 2007).
NEXT UP: The Edmonton Indy will be televised live on Versus at 2:00 p.m. ET Sunday. Live timing & scoring of every session can be seen free of charge on www.indycar.com
