Alex Tagliani will start from row 10 at Homestead-Miami

Homestead, Florida (October 1st, 2010) – Canadian driver Alex Tagliani qualified 19th in Friday’s session held at the 2.414-km Homestead-Miami Speedway oval track located Southern Florida. The FAZZT Race Team driver posted timed-lap speeds of 338.921 and 338.676 km/h for an average speed of 338.798 km/h for his two-lap qualifying run. Driving the #77 Bowers & Wilkins-La Capsule Sportive-TorcUp Dallara, Tagliani will start Saturday’s Cafes do Brasil Indy 300 from the inside of row 10 next to Andretti Autosport driver Ryan Hunter-Reay.

 “Qualifying was definitely a nasty surprise; it was a very disappointing result considering where we were in practice,” said Alex Tagliani who was eighth in the morning free session. “Honestly I really don’t know what went wrong; we just didn’t have the speed. The car was not bad, but we just weren’t fast enough in qualifying to challenge the top ten. Hopefully we will have a good car for the race and make it back towards the front to consolidate our position in the top twelve in points for the season.”

Rob Edwards, FAZZT Race Team COO/General Manager:

 “Clearly a disappointing qualifying session but as we have seen before this year the FAZZT team has great resilience and the ability to turn a poor qualifying performance into a good race result. I have great confidence in Allen and the guys to analyze the data and give us a good package for the race. We have had a great first season and we look forward to Saturday night and ending the year on a high note.”

Chip Ganassi driver Dario Franchitti won his second pole of the season ahead of teammate Scott Dixon. Franchitti edged Dixon by only six hundredths of a second with point’s leader Will Power taking third place ahead of his Team Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe. Dan Wheldon and Justin Wilson will share row three.

Saturday’s series finale will decide who will be champion and only Will Power and Dario Franchitti are still contending for top honors. With 11 points separating the two protagonists, whomever finishes the race ahead of the other has a good chance to clinch the title. For Will Power, the strategy is simple: to finish the race ahead of his rival. As for defending series and race champion Franchitti, he needs to finish in the top two ahead of Power and lead most laps in order to clinch his third title in four years.

Round 17 of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar schedule is a 200-lap, 483 kilometers race that will be broadcast live Saturday night October 2 on TSN starting with the pre-race show at 6:00 p.m. and a race start at 7:00 p.m. Live Timing and scoring as well as video coverage of the race are available at http://www.indycar.com/.

© RIF | FAZZT Race Team -Max d’Orsonnens