Dan Wheldon Mid-Ohio qualifying

Dan Wheldon will start this afternoon's eighth round of the 2001 CART Dayton Indy Lights Championship at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, USA from the front row of the starting grid in his Gemstar Communications PacWest Racing Lola-Buick.

With none of the four fastest drivers from Friday afternoon's first official qualifying session improving their times in yesterday afternoon's final qualifying session, Wheldon's time of 1 minute 14.163 seconds (an average speed of 109.607 mph) is good for second place on the grid in today's race.

The 23-year old Englishman won at the Mid-Ohio track in Formula Ford 2000 two years ago -- on the way to winning the US FF2000 title -- and is hoping for an equally successful race today.

After yesterday's final qualifying session, Dan said: "The balance of my car is pretty good, but I have been battling a little understeer coming out of Turn One all day. We are still very close to (polesitter and Championship leader) Townsend Bell but he seems to be better on fresh tyres than I am right now. I really need to work on extracting the most from my car on new tyres because we are hurting ourselves more than we are helping ourselves in that respect. Overall I am happy with starting second. I won from the outside of the front row in 1999 while racing here in Formula Ford 2000, so I think we are in a good position for tomorrow."

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