5/14/2007

Indy 500 Pole Day

Pole day for the Indy 500 was an exciting affair. I was sure AGR driver Dario Franchitti would retain pole position despite attacks by some of the best drivers. Penske’s Helio Castroneves got pole and AGR’s Tony Kanaan almost took it from him.
Kanaan’s teammate at Andretti Green, Dario Franchitti, held the pole for five hours before Castroneves bested that with a four-lap average of 225.817 mph in the waning minutes of qualifying.

Minutes later, as the first of four days of qualifying ended, Kanaan tried to reclaim the pole for Andretti’s team. For three laps, it appeared Kanaan had it. But he slowed slightly on the last lap and finished with a 225.757, six-hundreths of a second slower than Castroneves.

That put Kanaan in the middle of Row 1, giving the Brazilians their second one-two start at Indy since 2003, and left Franchitti, a Scot, on the outside.

Credit Yahoo IRL for the quote.