Horto and Scuncio Qualify Second and Third at Barber Motorsports Park

Leeds, April 8, 2011: In the third and final session of the day, J.V. Horto and Martin Scuncio qualified in second and third positions after consistently placing themselves in the top three spots of the time sheets all day. Horto, who will start the race in second position, will also hold claim to the fastest lap time of the day with a time of 1:20.634, proving that he and Scuncio (who won the pole at the St. Petersburg season-opener) are top competitors in the 2011 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear.

J.V. Horto on qualifying: "It was challenging at first because I was in the first group of the split qualifying session, so there was no fastest lap time reference yet. I just had to push as hard as I could, not knowing what lap times the second group would do next. That was one of the hardest things about this qualifying session because you never know how the track could change even in 15 minutes. I'm very happy to have ended up second. We have been fast since the first practice this morning, so this result is great. The race is going to be a different thing, though; the two-day gap from now until the race on Sunday is going to be good for rest, but we don't know how the track is going to have changed by then, so we will keep working hard until race time."

Martin Scuncio on qualifying: "It went really well for me. We had a really consistent car, and that will be important for the race. Now we will just keep working on getting the setup ready for the warm-up and race on Sunday. It's going to be really difficult because the track is going to change a lot in between now and then. The two-day break is going to be tough, but it will also be a good time to rest and prepare for the race. I'm really happy to end up third, and I'm hoping to have a good race on Sunday."

Teammates Tatiana Calderon and Gustavo Menezes matched their career best qualifying positions today with the sixth and tenth fastest lap times. Calderon took the fifth fastest time in both practice sessions this morning, but just missed the same result in qualifying by less than three hundredths of a second. Today was Menezes' first experience on the 2.3-mile road course of Barber Motorsports Park; he missed the pre-season Spring Training on this course at the beginning of March yet still landed in the top half of the field in both official practice sessions and ultimately qualified in tenth position.

Tatiana Calderon on qualifying: "This qualifying session was the best one I've ever had; it was even better than the one in St. Petersburg. We used new tires, and I'm getting so much better at managing the pressure of a short qualifying session which is really helping me. It looked like I was going to end up fifth fastest, but another car went faster than I did at the end. I'm still extremely happy to start sixth because it's going to be a race where I can race at the front with drivers who have a lot of experience. This is a really good result for the team, so I'm really happy."

Gustavo Menezes on qualifying: "I think it went really well for me. I learned a lot in a short amount of time, and having never been at this track before, I didn't expect to do this well. The track had changed a little since practice this morning, so it didn't feel perfect, but we are working hard to get everything ready for the race. The race is the important part. I think tenth is a really solid result for only having had two sessions on this track compared to everyone else, so I'm really happy with how it went."