Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
IZOD IndyCar Series – Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course,
TESTING NOTES/QUOTES – Thursday, July 26, 2012
TAKUMA SATO COMPLETED APPROXIMATELY 120 TROUBLE-FREE MILES OF TESTING AT MID-OHIO SPORTS CAR COURSE BEFORE HEAVY RAIN BROUGHT AN EARLY END TO THE TEST
Takuma Sato, No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “It was a good test day despite being cut short by the weather. We were able to check a number of things like ratios, ride heights and the other initial things you check in the first practice session of a race weekend so it was nice to get it done this morning. Then we started to work a little on the setup which was interesting. Actually it was quite good fun making the changes; you can feel the changes improving the car and know you are collecting very valuable data so it was a productive day. It’s just a shame that it was cut short because there was quite a lot of things left that we wanted to get done. The team will go back to the shop and analyze the good data from today and come back well-prepared for race weekend.
(On DW12 at Mid-Ohio:) “We already broke last years qualifying time so the car is quick. There is a little more downforce. There are different characteristics but we have seen this at a number of tracks. I wanted to explore a deeper setup and usually you can’t do it on a race weekend. It’s a shame this process was interrupted by weather but there is nothing we can do about it.”
· FAST FACTS: Sato completed 35 laps of testing on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course before the lunch break and 18 after for a total of 53 laps. Heavy rain at approximately 3 p.m. ET brought an end to the test… The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio will mark Sato’s third race at the track… Prior to his third place finish in
JAY O’CONNELL, Technical Director: “We made good progress today to get ready for the Honda Indy 200 next week. We were able to dial in the gearing, the ride heights, the spring platform, front and rear suspension geometry and get a great, solid starting point for next week. Our quickest lap of 67.44 was on tires that were one fuel stint old so we think the car is going to be better on long runs than it was in Barber which was what we needed to make some progress. The car is better on used tires than it was at Barber where we seemed to have tire degradation on long runs whereas here at this track, we seemed to be turning our best laps on used tires which should help us prepare for Mid-Ohio to reduce tire degradation.
(On Push to Pass at Mid-Ohio:) “We don’t know how much Push to Pass we are going to have at Mid-Ohio yet but they happened to carry it over from Edmonton so we could try it today so we tried it just to see the effect it had on gearing but we have no idea how much we are going to get. Mid-Ohio has typically been a really tough track to pass on because you have limited opportunities and it’s just tough to get close to other cars so the Push to Pass should help the situation but, if you were to compare this track with last week,
NEXT UP: The team will return to