News: Tagliani on Pole for 100th Indy 500

Photo: Shawn Gritzmacher

 Excitement is back at Indy again. Not that it really ever left, the Indy 500 has always been one of the world's most exciting racing events, but in  years past it has seemed to lack a real "buzz." Its hard to put a finger on it, but that buzz seems to be back. People are noticing the exciting things going on in IndyCar and finally open wheel racing in America looks to be heading in a positive direction.



 IndyCar has been dominated by Team Penske and Ganassi Racing for the past several seasons and with the first race of the year going to Dario Franchitti of Ganassi Racing and round 2 going to Will Power for Penske, 2011 looked to be more of the same. Then at Long Beach, young British driver, Mike Conway, scored a surprise win for Andretti Autosport showing fans (and competitors) that there are indeed chinks in the Penske and Ganassi armor.

  More of these chinks were exposed this weekend at Indy with Alex Tagliani nabbing the pole in the #77 Bowers & Wilkins car of Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The French-Canadian driver was consistently fast in the practice sessions leading up to Saturday's pole day and followed his practice success with a four lap qualifying average of 227.472mph.

  "I'm probably going to be pinching myself until I go to bed," said an excited Tagliani. "It's been an amazing team effort. We have a great group of people, and the additions with the other cars.I had good input from Townsend and Dan (Wheldon) and it's been nice to work as a big group this week. I wanted this one so bad." 

  Scott Dixon managed to secure second position in the first of the Ganassi cars, while the best Team Penske could muster was a rather disappointing 5th for Will Power. 


   
Oriol Servia had a stunning qualifying to secure third on the starting grid for Newman-Haas racing, whose 4 lap average of 227.168mph was the time to beat for the most of the day until Tagliani and Dixon eclipsed it.

 "[The team] gave me a great car and we got all out of the car that we could," said the Spanish veteran."To have the three Penske cars behind in qualifying it just feels amazing and is such an achievement for the team."

  The rest of the top ten was filled by quite a few part time efforts with very talented drivers such as Townsend Bell, 2005 Indy 500 Champion Dan Wheldon, 2004 Champion Buddy Rice and Ed Carpenter. Many of these teams and drivers will make their only appearance of the year here at the Brickyard. So much time, money and resources have gone into these programs so qualifying as well as they did makes it an emotional time for these teams.


 Adding to the drama, many big-name drivers found themselves far down the order and scratching their heads in confusion. 3 time winner Helio Castroneves found himself struggling in 16th position, Graham Rahal could do no better than 30th and Ryan Briscoe had to settle for 27th after damaging his primary car in practice.


If chinks in Ganassi and Penske's armor were exposed this weekend, then gaping holes were blown open in Andretti Autosport's. Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick had to wait until Sunday for bump day and got in by the skin of their teeth qualifying  28th and 26th respectivaly, bumping out Andretti Autosport teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and Mike Conway in the process. 
  
   The 100th running the Indianpolis 500 next sunday at noon should be quite an exciting race.

Qualifying Results

            

1 Alex Tagliani                        227.472
2 Scott Dixon                         227.340
3 Oriol Servia .                       227.168
4 Townsend Bell                     226.887
5 Will Power                          226.773
6 Dan Wheldon                      226.490
7 Buddy Rice                         225.786
8 Ed Carpenter                      225.121
9 Dario Franchitti                   226.379
10 Takuma Sato                     225.736
11 Vitor Meira                       225.590
12 JR Hildebrand                   225.579
13 James Hinchcliffe               225.572
14 Bertrand Baguette             225.285
15 Davey Hamilton                225.250
16 Helio Castroneves             225.216
17 John Andretti                    224.981
18 EJ Viso                             224.732
19 Bruno Junqueira                224.691
20 Justin Wilson                     224.511
21 Jay Howard                      224.483
22 Tomas Scheckter               224.433
23 Tony Kanaan                     224.417
24 T Simona de Silvestro        224.392
25 Paul Tracy                         224.939
26 Danica Patrick                   224.861
27  Ryan Briscoe                  224.639
28 Marco Andretti                  224.628
29 Charlie Kimball                  224.499
30 Graham Rahal                    224.380
31 Alex Lloyd                         223.957
32 Pippa Mann                       223.936
33 Ana Beatriz                       223.879