Long Beach: Alan Sciuto Friday notes

Alan Sciuto Racing: Friday at the Beach

April 13, 2007 (Long Beach, Calif.) -- Hometown favorite Alan Sciuto certainly raised the bar on his young team's performance on the seaside Long Beach Grand Prix course during Friday practice and qualifying.

As his team was formed just in time to answer the bell at last week's Las Vegas Grand Prix, many might not have expected Sciuto to be at the sharp end of the field in only his second race with his own team. He quieted the skeptics, if not with a P2 performance during the morning practice, than with a P3 performance during provisional qualifying.

As the Alan Sciuto Racing Swift .016 was obviously quite good during morning practice, the team only implemented small changes for the afternoon's qualifying session, opting to not disturb the car's good balance. Provisional qualifying saw Sciuto battling for the front positions with eventual polesitter Rafael Matos, second-placed Jonathan Bomarito, Robert Wickens and James Hinchcliffe, a group which Sciuto split down the middle as he eventually wound up third.

Although the times will drop tomorrow as the temporary circuit continues to get faster as more rubber is laid down, the team is optimistic that they will again be at the front at the end of Saturday's qualifying session.

Alan Sciuto #20 The RoomStore of Phoenix / Deans Ultra Plug / Dromo One Mazda-Cosworth/Cooper/Swift

"After being second-quick in the morning, we decided to only make small changes to the car before qualifying, and minor changes during the qualifying session. Even though I think some of those changes may have hurt us, I am still really happy with the result.

"The red flag that we had at the end of the session didn't hurt us too much, but I ran up on some traffic at the end of the lap. The splits showed that we were a tenth up on our best time and maybe we could have had P2, but we couldn't have caught Matos today.

"Everybody I've talked to has been going crazy about how well we've been doing. I've never done more interviews than I've done this weekend, and it's a great feeling that my dad and I started this team and we've gotten good results so fast. We've definitely surprised a lot of people. Taking pole here would be the best thing I've done in racing."

-credit: asr