Qualifying Report for the Toyota Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami
source: Max d'Orsonnens
Things did not improve overnight at Cheever Racing with both its drivers faring
poorly in the lone qualifying session held Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Canadian driver Patrick Carpentier qualified his Dallara-Toyota 19th overall,
while his teammate Alex Barron put his car 17th on the grid for Sunday's Toyota
Indy 300 race. At last year's event Barron started second. Carpentier posted the
quickest of his two flying laps during his first attempt, stopping the clock at
25.6194 seconds for an average speed of 335.821 km/h. His quickest lap was
almost seven tenths of a second slower than polesitter Tomas Scheckter of South
Africa. It was the sixth pole of Scheckter's career, but his first since he won
the pole at Michigan International Speedway in 2003.
''I'm flat out all around the track and the car does not want to go any faster,''
said Carpentier, who is making his Indy Racing League IndyCar® Series debut this
weekend. ''The team changed the gears in the transmission, but it did not
improve the speed. The engine does not seem to be giving out all the power it is
supposed to, even though I'm not lifting in the corners. It's very frustrating.
We have another half-hour test session later on Saturday afternoon, and a
one-hour session on Sunday morning. We hope to find what is wrong with the car.
As for the race, anything can happen. It's a 200-lap affair and there is going
to quite a bit of action. Even though, I'm a bit disappointed now, I still feel
confident for the race.''
Scheckter drove his Panther Racing Dallara Chevrolet to the first pole of the
2005 season with a lap time of 24.8518 seconds for an average speed of 346.193
km/h. He will share the front row of the Toyota Indy 300 with Vitor Meira. The
Brazilian rode his Rahal Letterman Racing Panoz Honda to second place with a
time 24.9443 seconds. Row two will be shared by rookie Tomas Enge of the Czech
Republic and Buddy Rice. The Panther Racing driver posted his quick lap around
the 1.5-mile (2.414-km) oval track in 24.9636 seconds to edge Buddy Rice of the
United States by only 0.17 second. Winner of last year's Indy 500, Rice sat on
the pole here in 2004 for Rahal Letterman Racing. Dario Franchitti (24.9931) of
Scotland and Scott Sharp (25.0441) of the United States will share row three.