Ryan Hunter-Reay qualified 13th for tomorrow’s 85-lap race through the streets of Baltimore. Although the Chevy-powered machine had the speed needed, the No. 28 team found themselves short of qualifying time today after a red flag was brought out for the No. 38 car of Graham Rahal, expiring the session time.
“We can manage this,” said Hunter-Reay. “Now we have two new sets of reds (Firestone alternate tires) and there are some (drivers with) engine penalties in front of us. We can manage it, but we really stepped on our own foot today. That’s what you get for going out the latest. We went out latest out of anybody and gave ourselves absolutely no margin for error on a red flag happening. It’s part of the qualifying risk on street courses. You don’t find this on ovals, more on street circuits. It’s part of the beast, you wait until the last possible moment to get the most rubber down on the track and obviously get the best lap time out of the car, and we got bit by that. But, this is the first time we’ll have two sets of new reds (for the race) in along time so maybe that will be to our advantage. We have to look at the positives and this DHL/Sun Drop team has become really good at doing that lately.”
No comments yet.