Laguna Seca: Qualifying session 1

A twenty car field took to the fabled Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca for the Cooper Tires presents the Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda. As part of the Monterey Festival of Speed, James Hinchcliffe, racing the # 3 of Forsythe Racing lead the first of two qualifying sessions with a time of 1:17.541. Finishing in second for the session was Walker Racing’s Kevin Lacroix (1:17.710), third was Finnish driver Markus Niemela (1:17.830), fourth was Dutch driver Junior Strous (1:17.910), and in fifth was Atlantic veteran Andreas Wirth with a time of 1:17.941.

Canadian third year veteran James Hinchcliffe placed his Indeck Forsythe Racing Mazda swift on the top of the charts, which will secure him a front row starting position for Sundays race. James’ teammate David Garza of Mexico finished the session with a close sixth place with a time of 1:17.983.

“Long Beach was a really tough weekend for us,” Hinchcliffe said. “It was pretty gutting to be so far down. We had a little bit of a problem with the car in terms of the setup, so we kind of reshuffled the engineering department before this race. I think we’re kind of seeing the benefits of that now. We’ve finally figured out qualifying. The best thing to do is to go quicker than the other guys. Now that we’ve got that sorted, we’re really looking forward to more success in qualifying. We’ve seen how competitive this championship is, and qualifying means so much when it comes to the race. The session was pretty standard. We really struggled this morning, so I was a little skeptical coming into the qualifying session, but right out of the box, the car was just awesome. The whole Forsythe/Petit team worked really hard since Long Beach to get this car sorted. A guaranteed front-row starting spot is nice, but the job’s not done by any means. Hopefully, we can get a legitimate pole tomorrow, just keep up the pace, and see how the race unfolds. It should be a good one.”

Quebec’s rising star Kevin Lacroix was able to prove that Walker Racing is getting up to speed with a second place finish for the session. Teammates in Walker’s triple threat the Mansell brother’s Greg and Leo placed tenth with Greg and fifteenth with Leo.

“The heat didn’t affect me,” Lacroix said. “Just before the season, I cut my hair, so I didn’t feel it. Qualifying went pretty well. As soon as we put on new tires, it went much better than the first few laps. Normally, the sixth or seventh lap is the fastest one, but my fastest lap was going to be the third and I made a mistake and missed it. I was maybe a bit frustrated about it, but I just kept going and tried to do the best I could. James did many good laps and he deserves the pole more than me, so I congratulate him.”

Brooks Associates Racing driver Finnish rookie Markus Niemela was able to have a good showing with a third place. BAR veteran member of the team German Andreas Wirth placed fifth. Both BAR drivers will be looking to take the pole in tomorrow’s round two of qualifying.

"On Saturday (in Long Beach), I was already having quite a good run, but I clipped the wall on my second lap with the new tires in qualifying, and I finished seventh,” Niemela explained. “The race was really boring. I was trying to pass all the time and ended up seventh in the race. So, the lesson learned was 'Don’t hit walls in Saturday qualifying, because it might hurt your result.’ I think also here, probably tomorrow is going to be a little bit faster, depending on the winds and everything. Today was pretty much like a checkup. I think tomorrow counts more than today. We just have to keep improving.”

Round two of Atlantic qualifying will take place tomorrow afternoon (Saturday 5/17) at 3:40 p.m. EST.

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