#21 Giaffone IRL Michigan Friday Practice
Felipe Giaffone #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force Michigan Indy 400 - Friday, July 26, 2002 - Practice Notes/Quotes Michigan Speedway - Brooklyn, Mich. - 2-Mile Tri-Oval Round 11 of 15 on the 2002 Indy Racing League Felipe Giaffone and the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force turned the third-best practice lap of this afternoon's practice session for Sunday's Michigan Indy 400 Indy Racing League event. Giaffone's 32.6190-second (220.720-mph) trip around the 2-mile Michigan Speedway tri-oval was the fourth-fastest lap of the day when combining today's morning and afternoon's practice sessions. He was fourth in the morning session. Rookie Buddy Rice had the fastest lap of the day at 32.4568 seconds (221.833 mph), followed by teammates Tomas Scheckter at 32.5362 seconds (221.292 mph) and Eddie Cheever, Jr., at 32.5448 seconds (221.233 mph). Helio Castroneves was fifth at 32.6853 seconds (220.283 mph). Practice continues Saturday morning with qualifying set for 11 a.m. EDT. Race time Sunday is 3 p.m. EDT with a live broadcast set for ABC-TV. FELIPE GIAFFONE "We're doing race setups. We had a lot of fuel in the car, and I was trying to run as much as I could in the draft. That is where that good lap came from. We're probably not going to contend for the pole in qualifying, but we should be all right for the race. The Infinitis are really fast. But I'm confident about what we have for Sunday, and that's what matters the most. The car is very good in traffic. Even though we didn't test here, we started the first practice in the morning with a very good setup. It was basically our race setup from Fontana. Actually, our setup was even better than it was at Fontana, so that is good for Sunday. In the afternoon, there was much more traffic because everyone was out there at the same time. But my car was good with all that traffic. It's a very long race at 400 miles, so, fortunately, qualifying is not quite so important as it is at a lot of other tracks."