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Indy Lights - Krohn Still Seventh In Point Standings After Edmonton Doubleheader


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EDMONTON, July 26, 2011: With 106 points up for grabs in the only doubleheader of the season, Saturday and Sunday’s Edmonton Twin 100s were very important to Anders Krohn and his fellow Firestone Indy Lights drivers. Krohn was forced to deal with many different challenges during his first visit to the Edmonton City Centre Airport circuit and he had an up-and-down weekend, so he was content to still be in the same position in the point standings as he was at the beginning of the weekend — seventh — after 13th and sixth-place finishes at Edmonton.

Rain washed out both practice sessions on Friday, which didn’t help anyone learn the reconfigured course that was all new to Krohn in the first place. But all that was put aside when he learned of the terrorist attack that had occurred in his home country, Norway, and he spent the rest of Friday checking on his family and friends in that country and learning more about the tragedy.

On Saturday morning he was fourth in the practice session with a time of 1:26.2051 (92.876 miles per hour), but he was also hit by Stefan Wilson in that session. He ended up sixth in Sunoco qualifying about an hour and a half later with a 1:23.8790 (95.452 miles per hour) for the 2.24-mile, 13-turn airport course. His Belardi Auto Racing/Liberty Engineering Racing Special No. 9 actually ended up fifth in the starting line-up, however, after another competitor’s car failed the post-qualifying tech inspection.

Krohn was totally focused on the task at hand while waiting on the grid for the start of Saturday’s race in his No. 9, which is sponsored by Liberty Engineering, Logi Trans Offshore Express, Trallfa, PM International Suppliers, Allied Building Products, ZAT Graphics, Eagles Canyon Raceway, OMP and Bell Helmets. When the green waved he immediately passed Victor Carbone for fourth place shortly before four cars behind him crashed in Turn 5 on that first lap.

Around lap 10 Krohn realized that one of his car’s Firestone Firehawk tires had been cut by debris and was leaking air. That allowed Carbone to get even closer, and he got the position back on lap 13, right before the second full-course caution waved for Stefan Rzadzinski’s spin in Turn 8.

The restart on lap 16 appeared to go well but at that point Krohn was actually just trying to keep out of the way and see if he could nurse the cut tire home. He and Bruno Andrade went for the same spot on lap 17 and Krohn limped to the pits with not only a flat tire but also a broken suspension piece from the contact. After the Belardi Auto Racing crew made repairs he returned to complete 25 of the 36 laps and place 13th in that race, which was won wire-to-wire by Esteban Guerrieri over Josef Newgarden and Oliver Webb.

“It was unfortunate about the contact, but my race would have been more or less over at that point anyway due to the tire,” Krohn said afterwards.

The good news was that Krohn set the fourth-fastest lap of the race with a time of 1:23.7319, which earned him the fourth starting spot for Sunday’s race.

Peter Dempsey and Gustavo Yacaman got around Krohn on the first lap of Sunday’s race to push him to sixth in the early going, with Carbone right behind him. The latter kept the pressure intense until he finally got around Krohn for sixth place on lap 10. That put Krohn right ahead of Webb, and the two battled furiously for most of the remainder of the race.

Yacaman pitted with mechanical difficulties on lap 14 to move Krohn from seventh to sixth, and he was still in that position at the halfway mark on lap 20. Shortly thereafter the leader, Guerrieri, was black-flagged because a piece of his wing was rubbing his car’s right-front tire, which moved Krohn up to fifth.

Krohn set his fastest lap of the race on lap 23 with a 1:24.4085, although Webb continued to be all over his rear wing. Webb finally got around him on lap 32 to push Krohn back to sixth. Daniel Herrington pressured him late in the race too but Krohn was still in sixth place, 2.4158 seconds behind Webb and 0.3319 of a second ahead of Herrington, when Newgarden won the race over Wilson and Dempsey.

Saturday’s race was televised live on VERSUS.

The next race is Aug. 7 on the street circuit of a city Krohn lists as one of his favorite cities in the world — Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. The complete schedule and more series news can be found on indycar.com/fil.

“It was tough to focus on racing with all that is going on in Norway,” Krohn said Sunday night. “It’s so surreal. We live in a very peaceful country, but suddenly we have a maniac shooting innocent children and teens and bombing buildings. I’m still in disbelief. It’s so sad.

“It was a tough weekend for us, but it doesn’t matter at all when things like that are going on,” he added. “I’m glad my family and friends are OK, but I’m sad for all the families that have been affected by this senseless act. It’s just mind-boggling. It just shouldn’t have happened. I think it’s still too large for me to grasp.

“I’m going back to Norway for about five days the third week of August. It will be good to see everyone. It’s tough when you’re so far away. But like our prime minister said, ‘No one or nothing can bomb us to silence.’

“As far as the racing went, I think we struggled all weekend, but if the tire hadn’t gone down I think we could have been on the podium on Saturday.

“Today we were lacking pace. I don’t think this was our best track as a unit, but we needed a race with no drama and I got one today.

“We have to remember that this year is still a big learning experience for us,” he added. “The Belardi Auto Racing guys have been working so hard. I still have faith that we will get everything to click and be on the podium soon. It’s just a matter of time. I really have to thank everyone at Belardi Auto Racing for all their hard work.

“I also want to mention that one of my sponsors, PM International Suppliers, attended this race and had some special guests here. It was great to have them at the track; it was a lot of fun to have them here.”