IRL: Homestead: Scott Sharp qualifying report

Sharp Qualifies 15th for Toyota Indy 300

Scott Sharp qualified in 15th position this afternoon for the IndyCar Series season-opening race -- the Toyota Indy 300. Delphi Fernandez Racing made the switch to the Dallara chassis for this weekend's event at Homestead-Miami Speedway with Sharp turning his first laps in the new car yesterday. The team continued to make gains today, focusing on the setup for tomorrow's race.

Sharp will be making his sixth career start on Homestead's 1.5-mile oval tomorrow, recording his best finish of fifth in 2003. The race will also mark the start of his 11th season of IndyCar Series competition. Sharp is the only driver to have contested 10 full seasons since the inception of the IRL.

Scott Sharp - #8 Delphi Dallara/Honda/Firestone:
"This obviously was not what we wanted. We hoped to qualify better than that, but we are on a pretty steep learning curve with this new chassis. We focused on race setup all weekend, and I don't think we were quite as lean or as free as some of the other guys for qualifying. This is one of my favorite tracks. At Homestead, you can run two or three grooves. If you have a pretty good drafting car, you certainly can get up there. I am sure that we will race a lot better than we qualified. Hopefully, we will take another step forward in warm-up tomorrow and, come race time, we will be in a pretty good position."

-www.delphifernandezracing.net