IndyCar
St. Pete: Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing qualifying report
The learning curve continues for Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing's driver Simona De Silvestro. The 21 year old rookie, who comes off a strong performance at the last race in Sao Paolo, Brazil, arrived today at the Honda Grand Prix at St. Petersburg ...
Edited: Mar 31, 2010, 1:58 AM
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The learning curve continues for Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing's driver Simona De Silvestro. The 21 year old rookie, who comes off a strong performance at the last race in Sao Paolo, Brazil, arrived today at the Honda Grand Prix at St. Petersburg looking to continue her education in the IZOD Indy Car Series for qualification. Under a sunny Florida sky, De Silvestro and her crew were ready to begin qualification for tomorrow's Honda Grand Prix at St. Petersburg.
For the first practice session of the day De Silvestro finished 21st on the timesheets. The young Swiss driver and her crew used most of the time trying various things with the car and more importantly, De Silvestro used the session for learning the track and gaining confidence. With every lap she gained more and more confidence and was looking forward to putting it to the test for her qualification.
As the temperature reached the 80 degree mark, the team gathered up once again for qualifying. De Silvestro was part of the second qualifying group. She immediately shot to sixth on the grid and kept her momentum. After completing 5 laps she came in and and made some adjustments and changed tires before reentering the track to complete the brief session. De Silvestro sliced around the 14-turn course and as the time came to an end she would end up finishing in the 7th position with a time of 01:02.4493, which was just shy of 6th place by .003 seconds.
Keith Wiggins, HVM Racing Team Principal - " We were so close to making the second group; the fast twelve, that it was both tense and disappointing. Once again we have to remember her newness to the whole environment and the fierce competition she faces, but she is so capable that we want more. We are now looking forward to her second race and a good result."
Simona De Silvestro, Driver No. 78 - "We are working in the right direction and we almost made the second session but missed it by a very small margin. Overall, I am pleased with some things and on other things we can do better, but I am still learning, but I think we are very prepared for tomorrow. A big thank you to the Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing crew for doing such a great job for me."
Imran Safiulla, Team Stargate Worlds Team Principal - "We made some very positive strides all weekend. We knew there would be learning curve for Simona, having never been to the track before. The team did a good job and Simona really hung it all out during her qualifying run. We are very proud of the progress she's making and hope to have a good race tomorrow."
-source: hvm racing
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