Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin—Saturday, August 11, 2007—Forsythe Championship Racing and drivers Oriol Servia and Paul Tracy had a difficult qualifying session at the Champ Car Generac Grand Prix at Road America after the duo struggled with car setups and engine problems and will start on the seventh and eight rows for Sunday’s race.
After showing improvement during morning practice, Servia and the #7 INDECK crew felt confident that they could have a good showing for qualifying. As the Spaniard was preparing for his first run an engine problem surfaced which eventually forced him to park his DP01 ending his session early without turning any laps. His lap of 1m43.710s, which was set during provisional qualifying on Friday, is good enough to put him 14th on the grid.
An early spin during qualifying brought out a red flag and per Champ Car rules Tracy was penalized with the loss of his fastest lap. The 2003 Champion still managed to turn nine laps but also had to settle for his provisional qualifying time of 1m44.716 which put him 16th on the grid.
Oriol Servia
#7 Indeck Cosworth/Bridgestone/DP01
1m43.710 / 140.515 mph / 226.136 kph
Qualified 14th
“It’s very frustrating because we have been improving the car throughout the weekend and I think we could’ve had a good qualifying session. I went out for practice and everything seemed fine, we were confident that we could be quick so we waited in qualifying for the perfect time to go out and as soon as we started the car I could tell right away that something was wrong. We managed to get the car going and out on the track but after only a few seconds the engine quit and that was it, I had to park it. This is obviously not where we wanted to be but now we just have to concentrate on the race and make the best of it”
Paul Tracy
#3 Indeck Cosworth/Bridgestone/DP01
1m44.716s / 139.165 mph / 223.964 kph
Qualified 16th
“We’ve been struggling all weekend with the car, I can’t get to terms with the brakes and the lack of grip that we have. To turn a good lap time around here the car has to be balanced right and we just cant seem to find a balance on the car. It’s hard to put a good lap together with out the balance being right. We haven’t got a plan set for tomorrow yet; it’s all going to depend on how we get through first corner and how many cars we can pass on the first lap. We definitely don’t have a car to win race, if we can finish in the top eight that would be good.”
The Champ Car Generac Grand Prix at Road America will be broadcast LIVE August 12 at 3:00pm Eastern Time on ABC. You can also tune in to Race Director, available through the Champ Car website, for live coverage of the race and many practice and qualifying sessions with multiple channels of live video, audio, timing, telemetry and commentary. Visit http://www.champcar.ws and www.forsythe-racing.com for more information.