Pictures from the Pit & Paddock at St. Petersburg's Honda Indy Grand Prix and Acura Sports Car Challenge

Top--The Andretti-Green Racing Acura ARX-01a (LeMans Prototype 2 winner at Sebring) driven by Bryan Herta, and Marino Franchitti (Dario's brother). The car will start 5th in Saturday's American LeMans Series street debut for 2007. Penske Racing's Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard start their Porsche RS Spyder on the pole (102.794 miles per hour).

Middle--The Audi R10 TDi diesel (LeMans Prototype 1 winner at Sebring), driven by Rinaldo Capello, Alan McNish and the ace of LeMans (24 Hours), 4 time winner Tom Kristensen. The car will start 3rd overall (102.184 miles per hour). McNish qualified the car, but crashed during qualifying.

Bottom--Tony Kanaan's 7-11 Dallara Honda after the first practice session.

IndyCar Top 2 in Combined Qualifying--Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan were 1-2. The 2 time Indy 500 winner clocked in with a 105.192 mile per hour lap; Kanaan a tick slower at 105.043 mph.

That's it for Friday; Saturday is pole day for the IndyCars and race day for the American Le Mans cars.

Paul Kaminski

3/30/2007

Gil de Ferran visiting Homestead, Penske Racing

Gil de Ferran is the Sporting Director for Honda's Formula One Grand Prix team. He won the Indianapolis 500 for Roger Penske in 2003; he and his family are visiting before the Malaysian Grand Prix.

He was asked by a veteran tracksider whether Marco Andretti (yes, 3rd generation Andretti) was going to get another test in a Honda Formula One machine. de Ferran was non-committal, but praised Marco's accomplishments.

Methinks family Andretti would like to see Marco follow in his grandfather's footsteps, and avoid the mis-steps and overall bad situation which arose when Michael went to the McLaren F1 team in 1993.

de Ferran enjoys the job...though it has a lot of pressure...and said he didn't have any desire to get back behind the wheel.

Paul Kaminski

3/24/2007