Giaffone-Takagi Fontana Saturday Qualifying

Giaffone Qualifies Eighth, Takagi 11th for Sunday's Toyota Indy 400

 

FONTANA, Calif. (Saturday, Sept. 20, 2003) - Felipe Giaffone and Tora Takagi will start Sunday's Toyota Indy 400 in the fourth and sixth rows, respectively, after single-car qualifying today at California Speedway.

 

Giaffone and the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force turned a fast lap of 32.1052 seconds (224.263 mph) around the 2-mile tri-oval here, good for the eighth spot on the starting grid for Sunday's 400-mile race.

 

Takagi and the #12 Pioneer/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force came in at 32.1426 seconds (224.002 mph) and assumed the 11th position on the grid.

 

Helio Castroneves earned the pole with a fast lap of 31.7521 seconds (226.737 mph) and will be joined on the front row by Kenny Brack, who clocked the second-fastest qualifying lap of 31.8190 seconds (226.280 mph).  Scott Dixon will start third after a fast lap of 31.8275 seconds (226.219 mph).

 

Final practice is set for 4:45 p.m. local time (7:45 p.m.EDT) today.  Race time Sunday is 12:30 p.m. local time (3:30 p.m. EDT) with a live broadcast set for ABC-TV.

 

FELIPE GIAFFONE

 

"All things considered, I think it was a pretty solid effort for qualifying today.  We got all of about one decent run in during practice yesterday because we were struggling with some problems we were having in both sessions.  We were able to pinpoint the problems last night but we had only a half and hour of practice this morning to finally try and get up to speed.  So, with all that going on, I think we should feel pretty good about what we got out of the Hollywood car for qualifying.  I'm not sure what exactly we will have for the race.  We'll find that out in final practice tonight.  I'm confident we'll be in good shape for the race.  It's going to be really hot.  If the race goes like all the other we've had on the big tracks, lately, it'll come down to the very last lap and there will be a handful of cars with a chance to win.  Hopefully, one of them will be ours."

 

TORA TAKAGI

 

"I think we had a good car for qualifying, but then the track turned out to be just a little more slippery than I thought it would be.  The car turned out to have oversteer in Turn 1, especially on my second lap.  That was a big problem and took away our chance of qualifying much better, like we thought we would.  For the race, we should be okay.  I love these big tracks and I really look forward to going 400 miles tomorrow."