Herta Nets Top-10 Finish at Infineon in XM Satellite Radio Car
If the following text-only file is not easily readable, particularly any tables of numbers, try enlarging this window since every line has a forced end and there is no word-wrap. Otherwise, this report will look and print better from the following PDF file: http://www.sportssystems.com/applib/PDFload.cfm?file=/email/filehost/HR342.pdf&id=BC342HR9EC574 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Immediate Release www.andrettigreen.com Herta Nets Top-10 Finish at Infineon in XM Satellite Radio Car SONOMA, Calif. (Aug. 27, 2006) - Bryan Herta, driver of the #7 XM Satellite Radio machine, was the victim of a late-race mishap and finished 10th at Sunday's running of the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. Starting from ninth place, Herta took advantage of a restart on lap 15, passing two cars and was running in sixth position. The XM Satellite Radio team then decided to use an alternate pit strategy to gain an advantage on a track that is notoriously difficult to pass on. At the halfway point of the 80-lap event, Herta was still running in sixth place. Following his final pit stop of the day, Herta was shuffled back to the 10th position as several cars tried to finish the race without pitting again. With less than 10 laps to go, as Herta tried to gain a few positions, his car spun and had to be restarted to finish the race. He is currently 11th in the driver championship, only 10 points out of ninth. Herta's AGR teammates finished the race first and second. Marco Andretti led the final 30 laps of the event and picked up the first IndyCar Series win of his career. Dario Franchitti collected second place, his best 2006 finish. Vitor Meira, Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves rounded out the top five. The final race of the 2006 season takes place on Sunday, Sept. 10, at Chicagoland Speedway with the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300. ABC Sports will provide live coverage of the event beginning at 1:30 p.m. (EDT). It can also be heard live by XM Satellite Radio subscribers on XM channel 145, the official home of the IndyCar Series. Bryan Herta, #7 XM Satellite Radio Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "This was really an unfortunate result for us today. The XM Satellite Radio car has been quick all weekend and today was no exception. We tried to do something a little different with our pit strategy on the first stop to see if we could sequence out differently because we knew it was hard to pass and we got up to sixth place. Unfortunately we didn't get the yellow we needed for that to work out and we got stacked up in a pack of cars. Late in the race I had some good runs under breaking into Turn 9 and I just got on the power too early and the car came around. But, I'm really happy for Marco and Dario. They drove great races." George Klotz, Team Manager, #7 XM Satellite Radio Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "We unloaded the XM Satellite Radio car this weekend and we were fast, right off the truck. Bryan drove the hell out of the car and Martin Paré (race engineer) gave him a good car to do it with. The only thing we regret is qualifying. We had a great weekend and we had a really fast race car today. We tried something different today because that's the strength of a four-car team and it didn't work out for us. Bryan was driving hard to get some spots back, but his record speaks for itself. We did a lot of things right this weekend, we just didn't get the result we were looking for." 2006 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Results Pos. Name Laps Pos. Name Laps 1 Marco Andretti 80 10 Bryan Herta 80 2 Dario Franchitti 80 11 Tony Kanaan 80 3 Vitor Meira 80 12 Ed Carpenter 79 4 Scott Dixon 80 13 Kosuke Matsuura 79 5 Helio Castroneves 80 14 Scott Sharp 79 6 Dan Wheldon 80 15 Buddy Rice 75 7 Jeff Simmons 80 16 Ryan Briscoe 67 8 Danica Patrick 80 17 Tomas Scheckter 44 9 Sam Hornish Jr. 80 18 Jeff Bucknum 9 Contact: Rob Cleveland, (317) 872-2700 ext 264, rob.cleveland@andrettigreenracing.com Al Larsen, (317) 872-2700 ext 239, alan.larsen@andrettigreenracing.com