Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Honda Indy 200 – Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
IZOD IndyCar Series
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES — Saturday, August 4, 2012
SATO QUALIFIED 18TH IN THE HONDA INDY 200 AT MID-OHIO SPORTS CAR COURSE
POLE: Will Power 1:05.6474 / 123.825 mph (Group 2; Round 3)
18th: Takuma Sato 1:06.4404 / 122.347 mph (Group 2; Round 1)
TAKUMA SATO, No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “I’m disappointed in the qualifying result especially since I like the circuit and had a good record the past two years here. It’s a shame that we didn’t have good speed to go to the next stage of qualifying. The field is very competitive as usual in Mid-Ohio. We made good progress so we made a big improvement from the practice session. Our lap time delta is really ramping up but it wasn’t enough to progress to the next stage. It was only a couple of tenths but we needed a little bit more. We will take the experience from qualifying and the practice sessions and continue to work on it tomorrow.”
GERRY HUGHES, Race Engineer for Sato: “Whilst it was disappointing not to progress into the second qualifying session, for ourselves I think this weekend illustrates to us that clearly we have a better race car than a qualifying car. We need to take something away from the first two practice sessions and qualifying itself and learn from that. We need to ensure that we give Takuma a good car tomorrow for the race. We will build on what we have learned in the two practice sessions and hopefully we’ll have a better result for the end of the race than we have seen in qualifying today. I think that whilst it was an improvement in terms of what we’ve been able to achieve so far this weekend, clearly there is much further to go in terms of being able to progress from Round 2 into Round 3. Tomorrow will be another learning experience for us in terms of giving him a good race car and learning more about the tires on these road courses.”
15TH INDYCAR RACE AT MID-OHIO FOR RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING: The Honda Indy 200 will mark the 15th Indy car event for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) here and first since 2008 when Ryan Hunter-Reay started 15th and finished 10th for the team. The team also competed in the Atlantic Series race here in 2003 with Danica Patrick and has competed in ALMS races here in 2007 and from 2009-2011. The highest IndyCar finish for the team here is two third place finishes (Rahal 1997, 1998) and the highest start is pole (Herta 1997). Another front row start came in 1999 (Herta; 2nd). Prior to the 2012 event, the team prepared a total of 23 Indy car entries for drivers Bobby Rahal (1992-98), Mike Groff (1994), Raul Boesel (1995), Bryan Herta (1996-99), Max Papis (1999-2001), Jimmy Vasser (2002), Michel Jourdain Jr. (2002-03) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (2007-2008). The team also prepared a Toyota Atlantic entry (Danica Patrick 2003). The team has earned TWO podiums (3rd – Rahal 1997, 1998), 9 top-five’s and 13 top-10 finishes at the track. The No. 15 entry for Takuma Sato will bring the Indy car total to 24 entries in 2012.
BOBBY RAHAL AT MID-OHIO: Team co-owner Bobby Rahal competed in 16 IndyCar races here (9 as driver; 7 as owner/driver). He won two races (1985 from pole, 1986), two poles (1983, 1985), made three front row starts (2nd in 1987), finished on the podium eight of his 16 races (including his final Indy car podium) and earned 9 top-fives and 11 top-10 finishes. He is the Grand Marshall for the Honda Indy 200 on Sunday.
NEXT UP: Warm-up will take place tomorrow from 8:05-8:35 a.m. ET and the Honda Indy 200 will take the Green Flag at 1:00 p.m. with coverage on ABC beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday, August 5. Timing and Scoring information is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com.