Predicting a close race

During qualifying Saturday, Team Penske put itself in prime position to win Sunday's Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.

Sam Hornish Jr. qualified second, while teammate Helio Castroneves posted the third quickest lap. Both Penske drivers were just a fraction of a second behind pole winner Tony Kanaan.

"We started second here last year and won the race, so maybe it's a good omen we're starting second,” said Hornish, who recorded a lap of 25.5710 seconds - 213.992 mph – to earn the outside front row starting position. “Anyone in the top ten can work their way through the traffic if you have a good handling car. I see a lot more closeness in the first six to seven cars than there was at the Homestead race.”

Castroneves said he didn't think his car had enough speed in practice to qualify as well as it did: 25.5920 seconds - 213.817 mph.

"To be honest, I was a little nervous to qualify because we couldn't find the speed we were looking for in practice,” Castroneves said. “But the Team Penske crew came up big for qualifying. I'm extremely happy. I wasn't expecting to be in such good shape for tomorrow."

"My race engineer Ron (Ruzewski) really did a great job getting the car set up this afternoon just like he's been doing all season.”

Both Penske drivers said their goal was to remain focused and score valuable points heading into next month's Indianapolis 500, which Team Penske has won a record 14 times. Practice at Indy begins May 6th.

“So far everything is looking good,” Castroneves said. “As long as we keep up the hard work, we should be fine. We're going to make sure we stay patient and focused so we're there at the end of the race to earn valuable points heading into the Indy 500."

E.A.
Source Team Penske