RACE RESULT: CLEVELAND

JUNE 26, 2005

• 1 Paul Tracy , 91 laps
  " It was a tough race today. I thought with how our weekend went, the car has been so fast in every practice session, old tires, new tires. My strategy really was to get to the first corner first and just go as fasts I could go ... I ran within a 10th or two the whole race. Never put a wheel off, never made a mistake. The pit stops were perfect. Our last stop was six seconds. You know, we weren't the fastest car out there, but consistency really paid off"
• 2 A.J. Allmendinger +3.1
  "We struggled all weekend with the balance of the car, but got it right when it mattered most. Bridgestone brought an amazing tire here and everything just worked together today. Paul (Tracy) was a master at the restart and passed two cars. I was hoping I had a few more laps with traffic between us! I really had to keep pushing hard at the end because I wanted to close the gap to Paul and Oriol (Servia) was coming quick behind me. After the weekend we've had, this 2nd place feels really, really good."
• 3 Oriol Servia +3.9
  "I'm happy with the podium from where we started and I'm looking forward to Toronto."
• 4 Alex Tagliani +10.1
  "We got a bit of a tough call at our first pit stop when the officials put me back behind Oriol and AJ. They said I was behind at the blend line but I was pretty sure I was in front. At the last restart we went with a strategy to try to save fuel and in the end we probably needed one more lap of yellow to make it to the finish on one less stop. The yellow never came and we had to up the pace to try to chase them down but it didn't work out for us. It was a great call by the guys because with a bit of luck we could have won the race. But we came away with a bunch of points and I am really proud of how hard the guys worked. The chemistry in this team is really starting to come together and I can't wait for the next race in Toronto."
• 5 Sebastien Bourdais +13.2
  "It seems like this year things aren't going our way as much and we are fighting very hard. It's going to turn around; I don't know when but it will"
• 6 Jimmy Vasser +20.3
• 7 Justin Wilson
  "This was definitely a tough race, but I just kept battling. I had a couple of incidents on the track, but my team did a great job and my engineer Todd (Malloy) kept us in the race. I got my lap back and then just focused on putting together fast and mistake-free laps. Everyone's effort paid off and we brought home our fourth top-ten finish and earned another championship point for most cars passed. All of that keeps us right there in the overall standings, so I'm pleased we finished the weekend on a better note."
• 8 *Andrew Ranger
• 9 Ricardo Sperafico
• 10 *Timo Glock
• 11 Marques 12 *Marshall 13 Philippe
• DNF: * Bremer , Wirdheim , da Matta , Dominguez , Hunter-Reay
• *rookie

QUALIFYING:

GRID, JUNE 25, 2005

• 1 Paul Tracy 57.419s, 132.040 mph
  "We decided to try and get some open space on track by going out early in the session. We had a good warmup session on old tires so we knew the car was going to be fast, but unfortunately I started the session off by spinning at the last corner as I launched a lap, breaking a wing and flat-spotting the tires. Then while I was regrouping I got in Sebastien's way at Turn 1. I didn't see him coming but balked him and that means a penalty that costs me my quick time in the session. So the mindset was for two fast laps since I was going to lose one. We decided to go out early again and had a bit of open track, so I was able to post two laps quick enough for pole. I don't think anybody has ever gotten a fast lap penalty and still grabbed the Pole before. The Bridgestone tires were really impressive since my normal style is to go fast for a lap and then cool them off, but I had to crank out some consecutive laps and the red alternate tires really performed great. We were a bit lucky that a Red Flag ended the session early, but we won't ever know if anybody could have gone faster. It should be a good race tomorrow."
• 2 Cristiano da Matta, 57.424 s
  "I am very happy with the Bell Micro/PKV Racing car. It was a good car in qualifying and it will be a good ca in the race. I had a very good lap on the standard Bridgestone tires. Then I put on the alternate tire for the second stint, but we just didn't get a chance to put our best lap in because of the red flag, so we didn't get everything out of the red tire that we could," he explained. "I am not saying that for sure we would have got the pole because it is very close between Paul (Tracy), Sebastien (Bourdais) and myself, but we were doing good and making a lot of progress. The good news is I know that we have some more in the car so we are in good shape for the race"
• 3 Sebastien Bourdais
  ""Well, it's good to be here; it's been a bit of a struggle. Finally we made it to the top three. I think we really worked hard both days, yesterday and today, and made the McDonald's car work pretty well. I was fairly happy with the balance. Paul spun around, and just didn't see me so it kind of ruined our run a bit. And then after that, it was a tough choice: either you want to stay out or you want to wait. We were a bit too optimistic and stayed in the pits for too long. Then when we went back out, there were too many cars on the track and we couldn't do a lap. It's kind of a repeat from yesterday. It's a bit of a shame, but, you know, we've got two fast cars in front of us, and we're just going to have to battle it out tomorrow."
• 4 *Andrew Ranger
• 5 Alex Tagliani
• 6 Oriol Servia
• 7 Mario Dominguez
• 8 Jimmy Vasser
• 9 A.J. Allmendinger
• 10 Tarso Marques
• 11 *Glock 12 *Bremer 13 Wirdheim 14 Hunter-Reay 15 Philippe 16 Sperafico 17 *Marshall 18 Wilson
• *rookie
• WILSON (crashed): "It's unfortunate because we were 2nd quickest in the pre-qualifying practice. My guys worked really hard, but we just couldn't get the car back out. The thing to do now is really focus on getting a good race car so that we can make some progress during the race tomorrow. It's good that Cleveland lends itself to a few more opportunities for passing."