Hornish Takes Richmond Pole
Team Penske's Sam Hornish Jr. will start tomorrow's IRL race at the Richmond International Raceway from pole position, after setting the fastest time and a new track record in today's qualifying
With a fastest speed of 176.244 mph, Hornish, along with eleven other drivers, broke his teammate Helio Castroneves' track record of 171.202 mph. This will be Hornish's second pole of the season.
"The car was set up really good," Hornish said. "We've made some big improvements in the last year, and we seem to be going faster and faster wherever we go. We were pretty much running flat out all the way around. It was just a really good run for us."
Castroneves himself will start from second, giving Toyota its first all-front row of the 2005 season.
"Team Penske always works so hard," said Castroneves. "I wanted to be on pole position, but I guess my teammate went there and went a little faster. Hopefully we'll have a one and two. This place kind of owes me, so hopefully we can win here."
The second row of the grid sees two rookies setting their best qualifying result in IRL. Ryan Briscoe lines up on third, alongside Patrick Carpentier in fourth.
The first of the Honda powered cars lines up on the fifth spot on the grid, with Dario Franchitti qualifying alongside Bryan Herta, in six.
Pos Driver Make-Engine Speed 1. Sam Hornish Jr. Dallara-Toyota 176.244 2. Helio Castroneves Dallara-Toyota 175.797 3. Ryan Briscoe Panoz-Toyota 174.656 4. Patrick Carpentier Dallara-Toyota 173.776 5. Dario Franchitti Dallara-Honda 173.760 6. Bryan Herta Dallara-Honda 173.457 7. Dan Wheldon Dallara-Honda 173.068 8. Tomas Enge Dallara-Chevy 172.771 9. Alex Barron Dallara-Toyota 172.761 10. Darren Manning Panoz-Toyota 172.701 11. Kosuke Matsuura Panoz-Honda 172.329 12. Scott Sharp Panoz-Honda 172.222 13. Jimmy Kite Dallara-Toyota 170.693 14. Buddy Rice Panoz-Honda 170.691 15. Vitor Meira Panoz-Honda 169.627 16. Ed Carpenter Dallara-Toyota 168.933 17. A.J. Foyt IV Dallara-Toyota 168.436 18. Roger Yasukawa Dallara-Honda 168.382 19. Tomas Scheckter Dallara-Chevy 168.268 20. Scott Dixon Panoz-Toyota 167.367 21. Danica Patrick Panoz-Honda 164.707 22. Tony Kanaan Dallara-Honda -
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments