Takagi-Giaffone-Luyendyk Indy 500 Practice Day 4
Takagi Charges Ahead as Day 4 of Practice is History at Indy INDIANAPOLIS (Wednesday, May 7, 2003) - Day 4 of practice for this month's 87th Indianapolis 500 saw Tora Takagi lead the way for teammates Felipe Giaffone and Arie Luyendyk as Saturday's Pole Day of qualifying is fast approaching. Takagi and the #12 Pioneer/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force clocked the sixth-fastest lap of the day at 229.347 mph (39.2419 seconds) around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway four-cornered oval layout. The 29-year-old Japanese open-wheel driving veteran has been among the top seven on the timesheets after all four days of practice thus far. He was fastest on Monday, third-fastest on Opening Day Sunday, and seventh on Tuesday. Takagi completed 56 laps during today's rain-interrupted practice session. Giaffone had a chance to run both his primary car and his back-up car today. He reached 227.901 mph (39.4908 seconds) with his #21T Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force, today's 11th-fastest lap. He recorded a lap of 227.564 mph (39.5494 seconds) in his #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing primary car, 13th-fastest on the day. Giaffone completed 28 laps in the backup car and 47 laps in his primary car. Luyendyk and the #20 Meijer/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force turned the 16th-fastest lap of the day at 226.838 mph (39.1759 seconds) during his 64 laps of work today. Fastest overall was Kenny Brack at 231.039 mph (38.9544 seconds), followed by Scott Sharp at 230.110 mph (39.1118 seconds), Gil de Ferran at 229.884 mph (39.1501 seconds), Greg Ray at 229.539 mph (39.2091 seconds) and Tony Kanaan at 229.455 mph (39.2234 seconds). Practice resumes Thursday and Friday with Pole Day qualifying set for Saturday. TORA TAKAGI "Our speed dropped a little bit today but the good thing is that we know why. We learned something on Tuesday that we thought was not going to take us in the right direction, but we weren't sure. So we started the day today in that setup just to make sure, and we were right. So we lost a lot of time changing the car this afternoon and didn't get to run as much as we wanted to. But we are pretty happy with our fast time. The track was slower today than it was yesterday because of the wind, so we are happy that we could run 228 consistently on our own. We have used the same motor since Sunday, so we are going to put in a fresh motor tonight and hopefully things will improve even more tomorrow and Friday." FELIPE GIAFFONE "We're okay, even though we're not quite where we want to be, yet. If we can find just about one more mile an hour, we'll be about where we want to be. The question is how we're going to find it. The track was a little different today, but it didn't make that big of a difference for us, I don't think. That's the way it is here, so you have to be prepared to deal with all kinds of different conditions all the time. We ran our T-car for the first time this week and it's good. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to bring our primary car out here at the end of the session. So we never got a chance to find out exactly where we are today. That's okay. We'll be alright." ARIE LUYENDYK "Well, obviously we're struggling a little bit. I said the same thing yesterday and unfortunately the story hasn't gotten a whole lot better. We're not running too much downforce and yet we're still not getting the kind of speed that we want to around here. We just have to stick with the program and work hard and it will come to us. I'm counting on it." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------