F1SA - Motorsport: News channel - IRL : 2009 Miami - Dario Franchitti wins pole at Homestead-Miami Speedway

IRL : 2009 Miami - Dario Franchitti wins pole at Homestead-Miami Speedway

Source - Indy Racing League / F1SA

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Dario Franchitti won the PEAK Performance Pole Award for the Firestone Indy 300 on the 9th of October 2009 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leading a front row sweep by Chip Ganassi Racing.

The three contenders for the IndyCar Series championship, Franchitti, Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe, and occupy the top three spots in the starting grid for the season ending race, which starts at 17h00 (ET) Saturday.

Dixon leads Franchitti by five points and Briscoe by eight.

Franchitti earned his fifth pole of the season with a four lap average speed of 212.696 in the #10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing. Dixon completed the third Ganassi sweep of an IndyCar Series front row at 212.160 in the #10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing entry.

Briscoe was third at 212.137 in the #6 Team Penske car.

STARTING LINE-UP:

Pos.	N°	Class.	Driver	Hometown	Car Name	Team	Time	Speed
ROW 1
1	10		Dario Franchitti	Edinburgh, Scotland	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	1'40.5378	212.696
2	9		Scott Dixon	Auckland, New Zealand	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	1'40.7920	212.160
ROW 2
3	6		Ryan Briscoe	Sydney, Australia	Team Penske	Team Penske	1'40.8027	212.137
4	20		Ed Carpenter	Indianapolis	Menards/Vision Racing	Vision Racing	1'40.9781	211.769
ROW 3
5	40202	R	Alex Lloyd	Manchester, England	HER Energy/Newman/Haas/Lanigan	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing	1'41.0097	211.702
6	02		Graham Rahal	Columbus, Ohio	McDonald's Racing Team	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing	1'41.0333	211.653
ROW 4
7	7		Danica Patrick	Roscoe, Ill.	Boost Mobile/Motorola	Andretti Green Racing	1'41.2224	211.258
8	26		Marco Andretti	Nazareth, Pa.	Team Venom Energy	Andretti Green Racing	1'41.4018	210.884
ROW 5
9	2	R	Raphael Matos	Belo Horizonte, Brazil	US Air Force Luczo Dragon Racing	Luczo Dragon Racing	1'41.4260	210.834
10	5		Mario Moraes	Sao Paulo, Brazil	Azul Tequila/Votorantim/KVRT	KV Racing Technology	1'41.4329	210.819
ROW 6
11	3		Helio Castroneves	Sao Paulo, Brazil	Team Penske	Team Penske	1'41.5103	210.658
12	43		Tomas Scheckter	Kaap Stad, Suid Afrika	Mona Vie/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	1'41.6095	210.453
ROW 7
13	18		Justin Wilson	Sheffield, England	Z-Line Designs	Dale Coyne Racing	1'41.6251	210.420
14	4		Dan Wheldon	Emberton, England	National Guard Panther Racing	Panther Racing	1'41.6315	210.407
ROW 8
15	11		Tony Kanaan	Salvador, Brazil	Team 7-Eleven	Andretti Green Racing	1'41.6759	210.315
16	67		Sarah Fisher	Commercial Point, Ohio	Dollar General/Komen For The Cure	Sarah Fisher Racing	1'41.7441	210.174
ROW 9
17	23		Milka Duno	Caracas, Venezuela	CITGO/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	1'41.8188	210.020
18	13		E.J. Viso	Caracas, Venezuela	PDVSA HVM Racing	HVM Racing	1'41.9386	209.773
ROW 10
19	27		Hideki Mutoh	Tokyo	Formula Dream	Andretti Green Racing	1'42.0119	209.623
20	24	R	Mike Conway	Bromley, Kent, England	Roll Coater/Dreyer & Reinbold	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	1'42.3300	208.971
ROW 11
21	14		Ryan Hunter-Reay	Boca Raton, Fla.	ABC Supply Co. AJ Foyt Racing	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'42.5433	208.536
22	33	R	Robert Doornbos	Rotterdam, Netherlands	HVM Racing	HVM Racing	1'43.1288	207.352
ROW 12
23	98		Jaques Lazier	Vail, Colo.	CURB/Agajanian/Team 3G	CURB/ Agajanian/ Team 3G	1'44.0045	205.606

Eight IndyCar Series drivers competing in the Firestone Indy 300 live in South Florida:

Marco Andretti – South Beach

Helio Castroneves – Coral Gables

Milka Duno – Brickell

Ryan Hunter-Reay – Boca Raton

Tony Kanaan – Key Biscayne

Raphael Matos – Brickell

Mario Moraes – South Beach

E.J. Viso – Miami Beach

For the fourth consecutive year, it will be a last race shootout for the IndyCar Series championship. Scott Dixon enters with 570 points while Target Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Dario Franchitti is second with 565, and Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe has 562.

It’s a winner take all scenario for Dixon and Franchitti, as it was in 2007, when Franchitti prevailed on the final lap at Chicagoland Speedway. The race winner earns 50 points, with a 10 point margin to second.

There are a few additional criteria for Briscoe to claim his first title based on bonus points (one for earning the PEAK Performance Pole Award and two for leading the most laps in the Firestone Indy 300).

Eight points between first and third is the second closest margin in IndyCar Series history with one race remaining, and the five points between first and second is the fourth closest.

Raphael Matos leads Robert Doornbos by 25 points, 296-271, in the Apex-Brasil Rookie of the Year competition, with $25,000 awarded to the winner.

Matos and Doornbos swapping the lead six times in the race for the title.

Doornbos led the standings for the first four races of the season. After Milwaukee, Matos took the top spot and held it through Richmond. The drivers swapped spots after Toronto, only to have Doornbos take the lead again after Edmonton and holding it through Kentucky. Matos has since moved ahead.

Firestone Racing tyre notes for IndyCar Series competitors for this event:

Eight sets (32 tyres) per car for the weekend; 892 dry condition slicks supplied in total.

This Firehawk tyre specification sees its first race action this weekend. It features the same right side tyres run at Kansas and Texas, paired with the same left side tyres used at Kentucky. As usual with the high banked 1.5 mile ovals, this tyre was designed to withstand high temperatures and speeds while providing consistent grip.

Tyre stagger for Homestead will be approximately .45 of an inch. Stagger, which helps cars turn more smoothly on ovals, is created by producing the right rear tyre with a slightly larger diameter than the left rear tyre.

PEAK PERFORMANCE POLE QUALIFYING NOTES:

This is fifth Peak Performance Pole of the season for Dario Franchitti. His other poles came on the ovals at Texas and Richmond and road courses at Toronto and Infineon.

This is Dario Franchitti’s 11 career IndyCar Series pole.

This is the third time this season that Target Chip Ganassi Racing team-mates Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon have swept the front row in qualifying. Franchitti won the pole and Dixon was second at Richmond, and Dixon won the pole with Franchitti second at Kentucky.

This is the 28th IndyCar Series pole position for Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

Ryan Briscoe has qualified fourth or better in nine of the 10 oval events this season. He qualified seventh at Kansas. The only other time Briscoe qualified third on an oval this season, at Kentucky, he won the race.

PEAK PERFORMANCE POLE QUALIFYING QUOTES:

HELIO CASTRONEVES:
“Today was a great team effort. I tell you those guys on the #3 car really did an incredible job in getting a backup car ready for me to qualify. Because we were in such a rush to get out there, we probably went a bit conservative on the setup. But if we didn’t get to qualify, we would've had to start last, so 11th isn't that bad.”

MARIO MORAES:
“KV Racing Technology qualified 10th, which is very disappointing for everyone on the team, especially after starting on the front row at Motegi and having such a good test here last week. But the important thing is I feel we have a good car for the race, so I am confident we can have a good result tomorrow.”

RAPHAEL MATOS:
“I'm very happy with the run. I worked with my tools and got everything I could out of the car. I have to thank the Air Force Luczo Dragon team for putting together a good car for the weekend. I feel confident that we will have a good race car tomorrow. Grip will be the issue; everyone has been dealing with it. We will make some adjustments tomorrow, and hopefully we will finish strong and win the Rookie of the Year title. A strong finish would give the team some nice momentum heading into next season.”

ED CARPENTER:
“I'm really happy with that qualifying effort. I felt like we were definitely going to be in the top 10, but we were flirting with a top five in practice. This is a challenging place. The car has been really good, then really bad, then really good again, but we made some good changes for qualifying. The Vision team has worked really hard all year long, and it good to have such a strong qualifying effort to end the year. I'm happy to be starting fourth in the #20 Menards car, and it's going to be an interesting race because everyone seems to be struggling in traffic on a challenging track. We thought it would be a little easier with all the aero changes than what it has been, but at the same time it is kind of fun to come to a track where you really have to nail the set-up to have a good car. I think a lot of people are hoping to see the three championship contenders duking it out three wide in the end, but I'm don't think that will be the case. The best car is going to win, and truthfully I think we have a good shot at it.”

GRAHAM RAHAL:
“We struggled with a lot of under steer since the start, and it was really hard for me to get the car down at the exit of Turn 4. The last two laps, I crept up a little too high, and it cost us a lot of speed. We made a lot of improvements today, though, because when we showed up the McDonald’s car was a real handful. This has been a challenging place for me, for sure. We’re pretty happy to be where we are. Obviously, Alex had a good run, too. So for the team, it’s good. We’ll keep working on this obviously, and hopefully we’ll get the McDonald’s boys up front in the race.”

MARCO ANDRETTI:
“We had good speed in the Venom car for qualifying today. Considering we’ve been focusing on race set-up, I’m pleased with where we will start for the race tomorrow. I believe a race can be won from eighth, and winning the race is the highest goal I can have. Hopefully everything will fall into place.”

ALEX LLOYD:
“Everybody at HER Energy and Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is very excited about our starting position. I was fortunate enough to win here (in Firestone Indy Lights). Racing here in an Indy car is different than in an Indy Lights car, but at the same time it’s nice to have some experience at the track and have that feeling. It’s great to be back competing in the IndyCar Series. We had a good car in qualifying and a good car in traffic. We want to go out there and be able to mix it up. There are some things I need to learn, but at the same time I think we can run at the front. Having only done the race at Indianapolis, it feels like a very quick weekend.”

DANICA PATRICK:
“Overall, it was a productive day for the Boost Mobile/Motorola car. The changes we made in practice today made the car better, which is what you hope for on a race weekend. The last run in the afternoon session was the best the car has felt yet. To go from that and then end up faster in qualifying is a good sign, and it makes me believe we have a strong car for tomorrow’s race.”

SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE (all times local):

9 a.m. Garages open
11 a.m. IndyCar Series systems check lap
4 p.m. IndyCar Series pre-race ceremonies
5 p.m. Firestone Indy 300 (200 laps)

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