Sonoma: Panther Racing qualifying notes

Plowman Will Lead Firestone Indy Lights Effort from 10th; Pippa Mann Start 15th

Sonoma, Calif. - (August 21, 2009) -- In Firestone Indy Lights, Panther's duo will be led by Martin Plowman who qualified in the 10th position with teammate Pippa Mann just behind in the 15th spot. Plowman had a quick-lap of 98.556 mph, with Pippa following with a top overall lap speed of 98.186 mph, 1:24.43494 seconds.

Martin Plowman, No. 15 Firestone Indy Lights

"Was a bit of a difficult session for us after posting the fourth best time in this morning's practice. The car felt very strong but the track conditions changed and it took us out of the performance window of the car. We're going back to the garage to look at the data and see what we can improve on the car for warm-up."

Pippa Mann, No. 16 Firestone Indy Lights

"We unloaded the car pretty close on setup here and I believe that we had a pretty good car in qualifying and we'll have a good car for the race tomorrow. I ran into the problem of track knowledge, which I have none. A lot of the drivers know this track from previous years and others took the school here. But you know, it's an improvement on how we've been so far this year in terms of setup, overall position and gap to the front."

-credit: pr