Road America! Home of straights, corners, hills and trees! The imaginary 1995 Indycar circus of love and memory stops off again in the great Midwest for a race around America’s primary road course. Last week at Portland we saw a brief but intense battle between Al Unser, Jr and Jacques Villeneuve end in a victory for Unser and a mechanical failure for Jacques. Chicane-and-lappery-induced chaos unfolded behind, but that turned out to be a small amount of chaos indeed compared to the chaos inflicted after the race when Unser was disqualified for some manner of plank infringement. Jimmy Vasser was provisionally awarded his first Indycar win, but sometime in the futurepast that will be taken away and handed back to the 1994 champion. So ignore all that, and bear in mind that for our purposes, we have a new championship leader. All hail 82 Points Unser! We’ve seen the last of 80 Points Villeneuve! (We haven’t.) In case you’re interested, Robby Gordon got 80 points too, and remarkably Michael Andretti has brawled his way up to fourth on 67 points. Bobby Rahal and Scott Pruett are a single point further back, meaning that at the season’s midriff we have five drivers a win away from the championship lead. There’s a lot going on! Anyway, you know Road America. 4 miles, 11 turns, fast corners, slow corners, long straights, bratwurst, summertime.
What happened in qualifying?
First-or-second in points and last year’s Road America winner Jacques Villeneuve scores the bonus point for his second successive pole position. Excitingly, rookie Gil de Ferran joins him with his first front-row start in Indycar. Andretti and Unser start third and fifth.
1. Jacques Villeneuve 1:41.261, Team Green R/F/G
2. Gil de Ferran +0.033, Hall R/M/G
3. Michael Andretti +0.412, Newman-Haas L/F/G
4. Raul Boesel +0.640, Rahal-Hogan L/M/G
5. Al Unser, Jr +0.663, Penske P/M/G
6. Bobby Rahal +0.829, Rahal-Hogan L/M/G
7. Scott Pruett +1.015, Patrick L/F/F
8. Teo Fabi +1.079, Forsythe R/F/G
9. Christian Fittipaldi +1.082, Newman-Haas R/F/G
10. Bryan Herta +1.133, Ganassi R/F/G
11. Paul Tracy +1.252, Newman-Haas L/F/G
12. Andre Ribeiro +1.333, Tasman R/H/F
Jim Vasser starts from the 14th slot, championship near-leader Gordon from 16th, Emerson Fittipaldi from 21st. After a drive through the field at Detroit that ended in a collision with Eliseo Salazar, Parker Johnstone is back for a second go with Comptech Racing. He’s put his Reynard-Honda in P13. Part-timers Greco and Bachelart are still here with their second Galles and Payton/Coyne cars, and it’s a first and indeed only Indycar start for someone called Hubert Stromberger, who’s qualified his year-old Reynard in 27th, three seconds off Hiro Matsushita in 26th. If anyone can tell me anything about Hubert Stromberger it would be very much appreciated. I have a picture of Rene Binder who will have to serve as a placeholder until I get Information.
Same time as usual, although this time we’re warming up for a real-life flesh-and-blood non-phantasmal NASCAR race in North Yorkshire, or South Carolina. So see you on Sunday 17 May at 6pm BST for some red-hot CART follies. Video below!
