Qualifying Report: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio

 

LEXINGTON, Ohio August 1, 2015—Driving the No. 41 ABC Supply Honda, Jack Hawksworth qualified 11th for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Saturday afternoon while his teammate Takuma Sato will start 16th in the No. 14 ABC Supply Honda. Defending race winner Scott Dixon won the Verizon P1 pole award with his record-setting lap of 1 minute, 4.5814 seconds (125.869mph).

Hawksworth is one of 11 drivers to break Dario Franchitti’s track record (1:05.347) set in 1999. Hawksworth posted a time of 01:05.2291 (124.619mph) which is his best start since the Indy Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. He was also the second quickest Honda-powered driver, with Ryan Hunter-Reay topping that Honda list with his seventh place run.

“We started off pretty good this morning and the practice sessions were pretty promising,” said Hawksworth, who was seventh quick in Friday’spractice. “In qualifying, the car felt ok, we just had a little too much understeer in the medium speed corners. On the black tires, we are a little bit stronger than we are in the reds so that bodes well for the race. We’ll make some adjustments this evening and come back tomorrow and have a good race. Our practice speeds look good and both cars were strong all weekend. Hopefully we can find a little more pace and we should be good for the race.”

Sato, who was fifth quickest in practice yesterday, was not able to match that performance today.

“It was a tough qualifying session; we lost out by only a couple hundredths of a second to transfer,” Sato said after posting a lap time of 1 minute, 5.5933 seconds (123.927mph). “We were competitive in practice but the other cars improved a lot. We also made improvements but not enough.Tomorrow the track will be different again and hopefully we can make the car faster for the race.”

Starting second through sixth were all Chevy-powered drivers:  Will Power, Sebastien Bourdais, Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden, and Charlie Kimball.

The race will be broadcast live on CNBC starting at 1:30p.m. ET; the broadcast will be re-aired on the NBC Sports Network at approximately 6:00pm ET, immediately following the NASCAR race at Pocono International Raceway.