Dario Franchitti, #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone
“The Canadian Club car was pretty good today. There is so little difference here between the top-five drivers. If we can get the car right and do our job a little better it can make all the difference for us this weekend.”
From PaddockTalk.com:
Practice for the Motorola Indy 300 at Infineon Raceway Sears Point got underway today on the 2.26-mile, 12-turn undulating circuit. From the start, top position on the speed charts traded back and forth between Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti, with the Brazilian pipping the Scot in both morning and afternoon sessions to earn the choice of going first or last in tomorrow’s qualifying line.
Castroneves, who had to sit out the first 25 minutes of the two-hour morning test session following a meeting with Brian Barnhart over his antics in Kentucky two weeks ago, quickly rose through the ranks and was quickest, both in the morning session (108.193 mph) and this afternoon (108.158 mph).
“I was driving my butt off out there,” said the ebullient Castroneves. “This place is very challenging; it’s like a roller coaster. We hit the right spot on the setup but tomorrow, the times will improve,” he noted. Although Castroneves thought the track would be “way better this afternoon, it was different. The grip was changing from one end of the car to the other.” His best tour came on the ninth of 12 total laps in the second, quicker group of cars.
Franchitti ended up second in both the morning (107.861 mph) and afternoon (107.971 mph). Hoping his spate of poor luck at Michigan and Kentucky is over for now, the championship leader since he won the Indianapolis 500 in May – only eight points ahead of Scott Dixon – would “prefer the 65-point lead I had” before things stopped going his way.
Although Franchitti hasn’t got a championship yet – and all four of his closest pursuers have made that jump – he is firm on the conviction that he just needs to “have fun and do the best we can as we have all season long. Good luck stops eventually and this has, no question, been the luckiest year of my career.”
Tony Kanaan finished third for the day and improved his position from morning practice, when he experienced a few incidents that included a mid-session spin at the very popular second turn. Kanaan ended up with third this afternoon and for the day, with his 10th of 13 laps at 107.764 mph, nearly half a mile per hour better than his earlier best (107.222 mph). Kanaan is third in points, 52 behind Franchitti.
Last year’s winner here, Marco Andretti came fourth for the afternoon with his afternoon lap of 107.737 mph, using his 12th or 13 laps to make that speed. 2003 IRL champion Scott Dixon came fifth for the day, based on his morning lap of 107.727 mph).
Team 7-Eleven driver Tony Kanaan outsmarted his competitors by conserving as much fuel as possible while still running at the front and claimed his eighth career IndyCar Series victory at Saturday's running of the Indy Japan 300. The win moved Kanaan into second place in the IndyCar Series driver championship, three points out of the lead. The win moves Kanaan into a tie for the fifth-most victories in IndyCar Series history.
"I'm very happy and it feels good to bring the Team 7-Eleven car to victory lane because Dan (Wheldon) was really, really strong. It was fun to have a battle with a friend. It's great to fight clean the way we did throughout the entire race. We passed each other with no problems at all. The Team 7-Eleven crew did a great job today and I'm happy for everyone at Andretti Green Racing."
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