IndyCar Barber Park - Simona de Silvestro Perseveres To Ninth-Place Finish At Barber

Birmingham, April 11, 2011: Coming off a tremendous, fourth-place finish at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Simona de Silvestro had her sights set on another strong finish. She delivered on that goal, finishing ninth, after persevering through a trying race.

"I'm pretty happy with ninth," she said. "I want to thank Entergy and my team for giving me a strong Nuclear Clean Air Energy car. I definitely think we could have been more up front because we had a good car and a solid run - we were saving fuel nicely."

Just before the half-way point, de Silvestro was involved in an incident with E.J. Viso. The contact didn't cause damage, but forced her back through the field.

"I think we could have finished in the top five," said de Silvestro. "But unfortunately we got into an incident with E.J., and we kind of got stuck there and moved all the way back."

Determined not to let that break her focus, de Silvestro drove smartly through the remainder of the race and finished in a bittersweet ninth place, while maintaining her standing of fourth place in the championship points.

"I think we can be happy with coming back to ninth," she said, "but a little bit disappointed because we knew we could've finished way more up front."

In one week, the IZOD IndyCar Series moves on to the Long Beach Grand Prix, where Simona de Silvestro aims to keep the positive momentum going.