DAY OF MIXED FORTUNE FOR WALKER RACING AT ROAD AMERICA
Elkhart Lake, WI (August 10, 2007) – It was a day of mixed fortune for Walker Racing today as they completed their last provisional qualifying of the 2007 Champ Car Atlantic season on the historic 4.048 mile Road America road course.
Simona De Silvestro, pilot of the #5 Miauton/Walker Racing chassis, had a difficult time in the start of the session, but in the second stint the team put new tires on and the Swiss Miss found herself coming to grips with the track a lot quicker. De Silvestro clocked the eighth fastest time of the session with a time of 2:00.314 seconds.
It was a different story for her teammate, Ryan Lewis (#15 NCPI Solutions/InSport), who struggled most of the day. After a brake issue this morning in practice, it was a new set of problems that surfaced during qualifying. The Brit fought his way with over-steer as he turned the nineteenth fastest time of 2:00.958 seconds.
The green flag drops tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. CT for Champ Car Atlantic practice. For more updates on the team please visit www.walkerracing.com.
What they had to say…
Simona De Silvestro: “We didn’t get off to a great start in the beginning, but then we put new tires on and it went much better. The car isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely getting there and we will find out tonight what we have to do for tomorrow. I feel pretty confident.”
Ryan Lewis: “Today didn’t really go our way. We had problems with the brakes in the first practice today and luckily we got that all resolved, but we ran into some new problems and we’re not quite sure why we were so off the pace. Obviously we have a lot of work to do for tomorrow and hopefully things will go better.”
Derrick Walker: “Simona did a fantastic job in the sessions. She has never been here before so it was a big step for her to learn Atlantics around a track like this, but the car was very good for her and she put in some good laps. Some traffic issues held her up a bit, but overall I think the car was pretty good. The car was not the way Ryan needs it. We had a braking issue earlier on in the day, which robbed him a lot of track time. There wasn’t enough time for his qualifying and we didn’t have the car good enough for him and unfortunately we have some work there.”
