Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Allmendinger thrives at Forsythe

AJ Allmendinger said that he already feels comfortable in the Forsythe team after taking provisional pole at Portland on his first appearance with the squad

Champ Car's only American driver was sacked by RuSPORT after the last round at Milwaukee, but was soon picked up by Forsythe, who dropped Mario Dominguez to make way for him.

"More than anything, the team just really made me feel at home, they're excited to have me here," said Allmendinger.

"For the first time in a while, I was able to come to the track today and have fun and be happy and really enjoy myself.

"More than anything, I wanted to prove to Forsythe and the whole crew and the whole team for working so hard and bringing me here, that I deserve to be there and hopefully show them that I can do the job.

"Hopefully today just kind of starts that process. Obviously, there's still a lot of weekend left, there's still a lot of things we're going to go through. It starts a process of showing them how hard I'm going to work and how much I want to be here at Forsythe."

At present, Allmendinger's deal with Forsythe is only for Portland and Cleveland, but he hopes that extending it to a full-season drive will be a formality.

"I think we just want to gel as a team and see if we work well together," he said. "I know everything will fall into place."

Dominguez's sacking was widely seen as a consequence of the first lap accidents that he triggered at Long Beach and Milwaukee, both of which took out his team leader Paul Tracy.

But the team insisted that Dominguez's very different set-up preferences had also caused tension. Allmendinger's arrival appears to have cured that problem.

"Mario had a very difficult time driving the car that our team has kind of developed over the last couple of years with myself and Pat (Carpentier)," Tracy explained.

"There's been a lot of time and a lot of money spent going down this avenue. Mario just didn't seem to want to work within that box. The team felt it was holding the team back in terms of developing the car.

"I know Gerry (Forsythe) was looking at some other drivers, then all of a sudden AJ became available. The first test was this weekend. Can he drive the set-up that we've migrated towards? Obviously, he can. He's on the pole.

"Now we've started working today really for the first time this year on how do we make both cars better at the same time. I think we still have a lot of work to do to catch Newman/Haas, but I think we're in a much better position right now."

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Wilson baffled by poor qualifying
Next article Mixed results for team switchers

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe