Simona De Silvestro Enjoys Best Finish Of The Year

LEXINGTON, August 9, 2010: With Sunny skies and a great crowd greeting them, Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing and Simona De Silvestro arrived this morning ready and hoping to have a great result for today’s Honda 200 Presented by Westfield Insurance. Simona’s best race finish to date was a 9th place just 2 races ago in Toronto and she also had a very good showing in Edmonton. After qualifying 10th, her third best qualifying position of the season, Simona was hoping skill and luck would be on her side for today’s long race.

At the green flag Simona had a great start and picked up a couple of positions immediately. She showed good speed and was able to get away from the cars behind and was in pursuit of the 7th place held by Ryan Briscoe. The first full course caution came on lap # 25 and that brought Simona to the pits for her first stop. The team went to work and executed a flawless pit stop and Simona gained 3 positions. She rejoined the race in 7th, after 2 drivers had not pitted and were out of sequence.

By lap # 42 Simona’s assault on Briscoe continued. Separated by only .8 seconds, Simona filled the Penske driver’s mirrors and was unrelenting in her pursuit. She would move to the 6th position on lap #44 after Tony Kanaan took his 2nd pit stop. Simona came in on lap # 59 for her 2nd stop. The team performed another flawless stop and Simona rejoined in 6th. After exciting on-track battles with Scott Dixon and Rafa Matos, she would end up finishing the race in 8th position. This represents Simona’s best finish thus far this year and also solidifies the best rookie finishing spot for the race.

Simona De Silvestro, Driver No. 78: “ This is a very happy day. We had a good race. Everything went well except after the last pit stop. We got caught behind a slower driver and lost some seconds with that, and had it not been for that perhaps we could have come out in front of some of the drivers, but despite that it was a great weekend and the pit stops were great. A big thank you to my crew and to everyone who helped get me here.”

Keith Wiggins, HVM Racing Team Owner: “Another great performance by the whole team. We were able to capitalize on our strong weekend performance without interference and race with the other fast guys. Simona performed and impressed once again."

Imran Safiulla, Team Stargate Worlds Team Principal: "Fantastic result for Simona and the team. We have been quick all weekend and have finally been rewarded with a well deserved finish. Simona did a marvelous job of driving and the team put on a clinic during the pit stops. This is a great group of people and we hope to take this positive moment and continue building for the future.”