ROOM

Cool Weather, New Track Configuration Makes for Tough Conditions

07.23.11 – Coming off an impressive podium finish at Toronto, Ryan Hunter-Reay led the four-driver lineup of Andretti Autosport in Saturday qualifying at the Edmonton Indy, the 10th round of the 17-race IZOD IndyCar Series.

Hunter-Reay, the 30-year-old Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., driver, will start seventh for Sunday’s 90-lap Edmonton Indy on the new 2.25-mile tarmac circuit at City Centre Airport after a clocking a lap of one minute, 18.667 seconds in the second round of qualifying. However, the driver of the No. 28 Team DHL/Circle K/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Honda/Dallara/Firestone entry was upset when he jumped from his mount Saturday afternoon, as he felt he was blocked by Oriol Servia in the last two laps of the 10-minute qualifying session. Hunter-Reay, a third-place finisher at Toronto, believed he had the opportunity to transfer to the Firestone Fast Six round for a chance at the pole position.

Rain washed out all of the practice runs on Friday and Saturday’s cool weather made for some difficult track conditions at the new 13-turn road course.

Takuma Sato won the pole position for Sunday’s Edmonton Indy which will began at 12:45 p.m. (MDT) and televised live on VERSUS TV at 2 p.m. (EDT).

Hunter-Reay will be the lone Andretti Autosport driver starting the top-ten with his seventh position.

The other Andretti Autosport drivers in the 26-car field Sunday will be Marco Andretti, in the No. 26 Team Dr Pepper machine, starting from the 19th position followed by Mike Conway, in the No. 27 Team @FollowAndretti car, starting 20th and Danica Patrick, in the Team GoDaddy.com entry, in the 22nd spot.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 23rd, 2011 at 7:18 PM and is filed under Andretti Autosport, IZOD Indycar Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.