Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Chevrolet
IZOD IndyCar Series
NOTES/QUOTES — Friday, June 1, 2012
SATO RAN HIS FIRST LAPS AT THE CHEVROLET
FASTEST: Will Power 1:12.8355 / 102.313 mph
22nd: Takuma Sato 1:15.9058 / 98.174 mph
TAKUMA SATO, No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “The course is challenging, it really is. The first corner has so many surface changes from asphalt to concrete. Overall, it’s quite bumpy; its one of the bumpiest tracks I have ever driven on. It’s a good circuit; just quite challenging. The morning session was in wet conditions and we ran just to learn the track. It was quite slippery but it was nice to have a new generation of the Firestone rain tire and it worked really well. The second session we were able to run in the dry and discovered quite a few things that we need to do but it gave us a good taste for the track and good data to work from to improve tomorrow.”
FAST FACTS: Will make his first start at this track… His best road/street course qualifying is pole at
TOM ANDERSON, Managing Director of Racing Operations: “It’s a triple play. Takuma hasn’t been to Belle Isle before, we haven’t had this car at Belle Isle before and it’s the first time for our engineer, Gerry Hughes to be at Belle Isle. Today was all about reconnaissance. We had a good run in the rain so we’re pretty happy with the rain setup. Depending on which forecast you look at, it could rain or maybe not for the race. If it rains we are pretty well set. When everything dried out we found ourselves at the back of the pack but it’s not that disappointing. Today we had had little bit of a technical issue with some sensors in our laser department that weren’t working correctly so we didn’t get as much information as we wanted but I’m fine with our progress going into Saturday. Everything else was working fine on the car. With these cars, a little bit (of improvement) here and a little bit there and you are back in the ballgame. I’m not worried.”
1 WIN, 2 PODIUMS FOR RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING AT
NEXT UP: Practice will take place tomorrow from 9:00-10:00 a.m. ET and qualifying will take place from 11:45 – 1:00 p.m. Timing and Scoring information is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com. The Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix will be televised live on ABC at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday, June 3.