Grand-Am

Laguna Seca: Doran Racing qualifying report

Bobbi Qualifies Eighth at Laguna In Doran Racing's Crown Royal Special Reserve DORAN JE4 Lexus ...

Published: May 1, 2005, 5:58 PM

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Bobbi Qualifies Eighth at Laguna In Doran Racing's Crown Royal Special Reserve DORAN JE4 Lexus #77

MONTEREY, Calif., April 30 - Despite only getting to do half as many laps as most of his rivals, Matteo Bobbi still qualified eighth Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for tomorrow's Road & Track 250 Rolex series race.

Bobbi's fastest of four laps during the 15-minute qualifying session in Doran Racing's Crown Royal Special Reserve DORAN JE4 Lexus No. 77 was clocked in 1:25.695 (94.017 mph). He'll start alongside the Rx.com DORAN JE4 BMW in row four tomorrow, with the Kodak EasyShare DORAN JE4 Pontiac right in front of him, before handing the car over to co-driver Fabrizio Gollin.

The 250-mile, 112-lap, two-hour-and-45-minute race will be televised live on SPEED at 3 p.m. Eastern time.

The team had to serve time in the penalty box during the 15-minute qualifying session when Bobbi allegedly did not report to the pits as soon as possible when a black flag was waved with three laps into the session. Bobbi said he was already past the pit entrance when the black flag was displayed, and all he could do was slow down and report to the pits the next time by the pit entrance, which he did.

The officials did not see it that way and their directions had to be followed, so Bobbi sat on pit road while Oswego Negri won the pole with a 1:24.357 (95.508 mph). Negri, and all of the other drivers in the top 10, did at least seven laps to Bobbi's four.

The black flag was shown to all the competitors to bring the field into the pits in order to clean up an unrelated incident.

"Oh well; at least we'll have tires that have three or four less laps on them at the start of the race tomorrow," Gollin pointed out.

"I just had one fast lap," Bobbi said. "They showed me the black flag when I was already beyond the pit entrance.

"Of course I wish that hadn't happened, but the car has been getting better and it's not that important where you start," he added. "The most important thing tomorrow will be to stay out of trouble and finish.

"This track is very narrow, and traffic will be very bad," Bobbi added. "Hopefully we had our trouble today, and we won't have any trouble tomorrow."

-dr-

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