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Race report

KV Racing Technology off to a good start with 4th and 6th Place finishes at St. Pete

Team owner Kevin Kalkhoven was pleased with the team's efforts.

Simona de Silvestro, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet

Simona de Silvestro, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet

Eric Gilbert

St. Petersburg, FL - KV Racing Technology had an exciting start to the 2013 IZOD IndyCar season with fourth and sixth place finishes. Both KVRT drivers spent the day in the top ten with Kanaan, driver of the No. 11 HYDROXYCUT - KVRT-SH Racing Chevrolet/Firestone car, finishing fourth and De Silvestro, driver of the No. 78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car, finishing sixth.

Kanaan, who started 11th, pushing hard all race and overcame a stall in the final pit stop on his way to his 107th career top-five finish.

Simona de Silvestro, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet
Simona de Silvestro, KV Racing Technology Chevrolet

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

His combined streak of consecutive starts, which includes his career in CART and IndyCar is now 197, which currently puts him second in the standings behind KVRT co-owner Jimmy Vasser who has 211 consecutive starts.

Kanaan was pleased with the day's results. "It's definitely a good start to the season for everyone at KV Racing, finishing fourth and sixth", he said. "My car was flawless while on track, the only problem we had during the race was that I couldn't shift into neutral during my last stop.

That cost me three spots on track and made me work a bit more for this fourth place finish. I was impressed that my last set of scuffed red Firestones lasted that long and I can't say enough about my Chevy engine.

It's unfortunate that Simona couldn't hold on for third place. She was running strong up front until she had no more tires. She deserved the podium. I guess Marco had a newer set of Firestones than both Simona and I, so it was just a matter of time for him to get by us."

While not her best finish, De Silvestro who is in her fourth season in the IZOD IndyCar Series and first with KV Racing, did have one of her strongest races running most of the day in third, fourth or fifth place.

It looked like she was going to grab her first podium, but with less than 10 laps to go her Firestone reds started to fade. She managed to hold on until the final lap when Marco Andretti, TK and Scott Dixon managed to get past her.

"It's been a good weekend for us." De Silvestro said. "Unfortunately we lost a few positions at the end there. We kind of ran out of tires at the end. I think we can be pretty happy with sixth.

Now we know what we have to work on for the next race. It was really cool to be up front all day with Will, Hinch and everybody; it was awesome.

I think we can learn a lot from this weekend to have a better result at the next race. I really want to thank Chevy and my Nuclear Clean Air Energy sponsors for all their support. I'm really excited to get to Barber and see what we can do there."

Team owner Kevin Kalkhoven was pleased with the team's efforts. The first thing is," he said, "my congratulations to Steve Moore as team manager.

He put together a very, very good two team operation in a relatively short period of time. And of course, congratulations to both TK and Simona, they did really well. I'm very proud of the whole operation."

Jimmy Vasser agrees with his partner. "We're off to a great start," he said. "What can you say about TK? He's a consummate professional. He overcame a stall in the pits that dropped him back a few positions, but he worked his way back through the field. He did a great job today.

Vasser went on to say, "Simona was awesome today. We knew she had it in her and that if we gave her the tools she needed she'd be competitive.

It would have been great if she had been able to hang on and finish on the podium, but the last few laps she struggled with grip and couldn't hold off Marco in the end. I fully expect both of our drivers to be back up front at Barber."

Team Manager Steve Moore was also proud of his drivers and crew. "It was a good day for KV Racing," he said. "We're very excited about the results.

We had a couple of issues in the pits, but the drivers and the crews rebounded. It's not the end result that we wanted, but we'll take the positives out of it and move on to the next race."

KVRT drivers will be in action again in two weeks at Barber Motorsports Park. Make sure to tune in and catch TK and Simona in action.

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