PT Suffers Mechanical Problems
Paul Tracy SUFFERS MECHANICAL PROBLEMS IN Q1
Long Beach, California – April 13th, 2007 – PT ended the final practice session today with an engine misfire. The Forsythe Team swapped out all the electrics and the car was good to go for the first qualifying session. PT went out on track and jumped to P1 on his third lap with a time of 1:08.573 @ 103.318 MPH. He pitted and by the time he came back on track he found himself in P4. With 10 minutes left in the session Paul radioed his crew “I’ve got a really bad vibration and the clutch is slipping.” The Forsythe team believes something in Tracy’s differential is broken. His session is over. By the time the session finished Paul found himself in P5 just over half a second behind Provisional Pole winner Will Power.
Paul: “Well it was kind of a disappointing day for us to be honest. We just haven’t been able to get the car to handle very well. During morning practice it was pretty bad and we made a lot of changes, so it got better for qualifying but still not enough. As we were going out for our second qualifying stint something failed in the gearbox and we were done, so we never really got a good run on new tires. I don’t think we would’ve been quick enough for pole today but I’m pretty sure we could’ve gotten into the Top-3.”