SunTrust Racing grabs Pole at Homestead
Magnussen, the Danish veteran of Formula One, Champ Car and sports car racing who is co-driving with 2005 series co-champion Max Angelelli in the SunTrust Racing machine, turned in a fast lap of 1 minute, 14.321 seconds (an average of 111.409 mph) around the 2.3-mile, 11-turn Homestead (Fla.) Miami Speedway road circuit during this afternoon’s 15-minute qualifying session. Magnussen’s lap was the fastest among 46 car-and-driver combinations entered in Saturday afternoon’s 400-kilometer race, Round 3 of 14 events on the 2007 schedule.
It was the sixth pole position for the fourth-year SunTrust Racing Rolex Series program, and Magnussen’s second since he first put the blue No. 10 Pontiac on the pole at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., last August.
“I’m very happy with how things went both this afternoon (in qualifying) and this morning (in practice)," said Magnussen, who is riding a streak of seven finishes of fourth or better when co-driving the SunTrust Racing Pontiac with Angelelli, dating back to their victory together at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, Calif., last May. “For qualifying, we made some great improvements on the car. To be on pole for this race is very important for us, especially since it’s a very big weekend for SunTrust with a lot of guests and a lot of very important people coming to the race. Hopefully, we can take this pole position and turn it into a win this time. We’re tired of being in third! Seriously, I think we have a good car. We’ll work a little bit more in the morning with the race setup. Like everybody else in qualifying, we were fast in the beginning, and it was more and more difficult to keep the life in the tire. But the car went well. Even when the tires went off, there was still good balance in the car. So, I’m looking forward to a good race car. Starting from the pole, of course, it makes it a lot easier – at the beginning of the race, at least."
The top-five in qualifying were the following teams:
1. SunTrust Racing (No. 10 Pontiac Riley) with Jan Magnussen and Max Angelelli (1:14.321 at 111.409 mph)
2. Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing (No. 99 Pontiac Riley) with Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney (1:14.509 at 111.128 mph)
3. Alex Job Racing (No. 23 Porsche Crawford) with Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister (1:14.559 at 111.053 mph)
4. Krohn Racing (No. 75 Pontiac Riley) with Colin Braun and Max Papis (1:14.698 at 110.846 mph)
5. Red Bull Brumos Porsche (No. 58 Porsche Riley) with David Donohue and Darren Law (1:14.712 at 110.826 mph)