I'll be KO qualifying today at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg...

(4-05-08, 8:30 a.m. EDT) Morning practice has begun, drivers running in this session are in the same groupings as they will be in their first segment Knock Out "Q" runs. Yesterday afternoon I was wondering where lap times seen last year were, and blamed the slower times on unseasonably warm conditions. Yet up until the latest Marty Roth meeting with a tire barrier in a runoff area, they are still running in the mid-63 second range. I'm beginning to think nobody wants to risk contact with little to gain from being atop a T&S chart. In the past, "Q" sessions were split depending on practice speeds, and in order to run in the "quick" group you needed to have a practice time in the top half of the field.

Yesterday, when I speculated on whether N/H/L Racing/Justin Wilson would attempt to qualify with an enhanced front wing package, I had neglected to check on whether there would be a morning practice session, obviously there is, and the team is running the standard wing, with Wilson is 3rd quickest in a session now led by Ryan Briscoe for the first time this weekend.

The morning practice session has ended with Helio Castroneves atop the T&S chart shown below, followed by a surprising run by Ernesto Viso. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that I expect KO times to be much quicker when "Q" runs begin.

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

 

 

Last Lap

 

1

Ryan Briscoe (6)

 

62.9746

102.899

11

 

 

16

 

2

Marco Andretti (26)

 

63.1362

102.635

13

 

 

18

 

3

Oriol Servia (5)

 

63.1647

102.589

13

 

 

15

 

4

Justin Wilson (02)

 

63.1863

102.554

13

 

 

18

 

5

Scott Dixon (9)

 

63.1971

102.536

14

 

 

18

 

6

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

63.2971

102.374

15

 

 

17

 

7

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

63.3262

102.327

7

 

 

17

 

8

Ernesto Viso (33)

 

63.3731

102.252

17

 

 

18

 

9

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17)

 

63.4136

102.186

10

 

 

11

 

10

Buddy Rice (15)

 

63.5172

102.020

18

 

 

19

 

11

Tony Kanaan (11)

 

63.5477

101.971

14

 

 

15

 

12

Enrique Bernoldi (36)

 

63.5879

101.906

12

 

 

13

 

13

Hideki Mutoh (27)

 

63.6064

101.877

13

 

 

14

 

14

Will Power (8)

 

63.6572

101.795

11

 

 

15

 

15

Vitor Meira (4)

 

63.6757

101.766

5

 

 

16

 

16

Bruno Junqueira (18)

 

63.7015

101.724

18

 

 

18

 

17

Graham Rahal (06)

 

64.0008

101.249

8

 

 

13

 

18

Darren Manning (14)

 

64.1077

101.080

8

 

 

11

 

19

Franck Perera (34)

 

64.2445

100.865

10

 

 

12

 

20

Jay Howard (24)

 

64.5616

100.369

15

 

 

15

 

21

A.J. Foyt IV (2)

 

64.6632

100.212

14

 

 

16

 

22

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

64.8832

99.872

9

 

 

14

 

23

Danica Patrick (7)

 

64.8925

99.857

10

 

 

13

 

24

Mario Moraes (19)

 

65.0811

99.568

12

 

 

13

 

25

Marty Roth (25)

 

67.3890

96.158

12

 

 

13

 

26

Townsend Bell (23)

 

73.1351

88.603

2

 

 

2

 

On Friday D&R Racing hosted a breakfast gathering where it was announced that William Rast, a clothing company, would sponsor the bulk of the races Townsend Bell will run for D&R this season while sharing the #23 with Milka Duno.
***

Here are the practice and qualifying groupings, more on that later...

 Group 1
No. 25 Marty Roth
No. 17 Ryan Hunter-Reay
No. 19 Mario Moraes
No. 06 Graham Rahal
No. 20 Ed Carpenter
No. 27 Hideki Mutoh
No. 34 Franck Perera
No. 7 Danica Patrick
No. 11 Tony Kanaan
No. 36 Enrique Bernoldi
No. 14 Darren Manning
No. 8 Will Power
No. 23 Townsend Bell

Group 2
No. 10 Dan Wheldon
No. 26 Marco Andretti
No. 2 A.J. Foyt IV
No. 33 Ernesto Viso
No. 9 Scott Dixon
No. 15 Buddy Rice
No. 3 Helio Castroneves
No. 6 Ryan Briscoe
No. 5 Oriol Servia
No. 18 Bruno Junqueira
No. 4 Vitor Meira
No. 02 Justin Wilson
No. 24 Jay Howard
***
OK, here's my take on the new "Q" format, unfortunately at times changes are made and the stated reason doesn't wash, I think that is the case here. Lets crunch some numbers, we have 26 entries here at St. Pete, my guess is that the average "Q" lap will take 62 seconds, given nearly a half-minute for "spacing," that means you could throw a checkered flag on a single lap "Q" run every 90 seconds, but just for spits and grins lets they average one "Q" lap every two minutes, 26X2=52 minutes. That means that at least here they can qualify the field in less than hour, take a break to setup Firestone Fast Six and still get the entire "show" in in the 90 minutes they have allotted for today's qualifying. Even at Watkins Glen, where a "Q" lap takes 92 seconds, they can STILL run single lap "Q" runs.

Now here is the downside of Knock Out Qualifying, which by the way is underway as I write this. First of all, yellow flag time counts against the 20-minute session time, that means that should there be a large number of incidents in a 20-minute session (or in 2nd round a 15 minute session), several legitimate Fast Six candidates might not have enough time to get their best times in the book. That meaning at best they would start 13th, through no fault of their own. Already today there was one caution in the first session, and Danica Patrick spent nearly a lap behind Marty Roth. While ANYONE is capable of over-cooking a corner and getting in trouble, on the two lists above I noted six drivers, four in one session, two in the other that could easily get in trouble. That's the problem with a "blind draw, the two sessions could easily be out o whack alignment-wise, not only for crash potential concerns, but as with the first grouping, the quicker cars have a fewer contenders to beat to avoid a Knock Out. I don't think this is a fair system, and somewhere along the way it will invite troubles that don't need to happen.

Tony Kanaan wins the pole position for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, former CCWS drivers Power and Wilson run 2nd and 3rd...

Here are the detailed IndyCar T&S charts sequencing the "Q" runs. The first group of the first segment of qualifying has finished their runs, there were two yellow flags, one as you might expect because Marty Roth got into the tires again. On the chart below drivers listed in green transfer to the 2nd segment, those listed in red will start Sunday's race 13th or worse.

Pos

Driver