Takuma Sato Completes His Rookie Test, Prepares For His Indy 500 Debut

[Mark H]

MORAES GOES OVER 225 MILES PER HOUR

IN SUNDAY’S INDY 500 PRACTICE RUNS

 

Takuma Sato Completes His Rookie Test, Prepares for His Indy 500 Debut

 

SPEEDWAY, Ind. (May 16, 2010) —  The KV Racing Technology engineering staff continued to work through its proposed practice program Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the second day of practice for this year’s Indy 500.

        

Young Mario Moraes, 21, paced the KV Racing Technology drivers with the sixth fastest speed of the day at 225.043 miles per hour in the No. 32 KV Racing Technology Honda/Dallara/Firestone car.  Moraes recorded just 21 laps Sunday due to intermittent rain showers in the afternoon on the legendary 2.5-mile oval.

        

Takuma Sato, the F-1  veteran attempting to qualify for his first Indy 500, completed his rookie test Sunday in the No. 5 Lotus - KV Racing Technology Honda/Dallara/Firestone machine with a speed better that 220 m.p.h.  Sato returned for the afternoon portion of practice to clock a best of 220.063 m.p.h. in just 14 lap         

Personable E.J. Viso continued his work Sunday when he drove the No. 8 PDVSA — KV Racing Technology Honda/Dallara/Firestone car to a best of 222.278 m.p.h. in 24 laps.  Viso was ready to improve on his speed Sunday afternoon when a steady rain halted on-track activities with 30 minutes remaining in the Sunday practice session.

        

Veteran Paul Tracy completed the most laps of any KVRT driver Sunday with 34 circuits in the No. 15 GEICO — KV Racing Technology Honda/Dallara/Firestone entry.  Tracy, the Indy 500 runner-up in 2002, worked exclusively on race setups.  Tracy, entered in his seventh Indy 500, plans to continue his “race trim” mode for another day before switching to a qualifying setting at mid-week.

        

Practice continues on Monday, May 17, with all drivers set to run from noon to 6 p.m.

 

DRIVER QUOTES:

 

MARIO MORAES, #32 KVRT HONDA/DALLARA/FIRESTONE: “Our day was just fine.  We are right where we want to be with our settings.   We are just getting up to speed for the second day.  Our team is working on a variety of things with each of the drivers.  We’ll continue to work on our program that was laid out for us before we came to the track this month.”

 

E.J. VISO, #8 PDVSA – KVRT HONDA/DALLARA/FIRESTONE:  “We had another smooth second day.  Of course, the weather played with us a little today.  We were able to go through all of the changes we wanted for the day.  We are still very conservative on our downforce levels.  It’s too early to pull all of the downforce off the car.  Right now, the puzzle pieces are coming together for us.”

 

PAUL TRACY,  #15 GEICO - KVRT HONDA/DALLARA/FIRESTONE: “We took a methodical approach with our GEICO-KV Racing car.  We ran race setup all today.  Our KV Racing team wanted me to get close with other cars for a feeling in race trim.  This team is really working well together as Mario [Moraes] and E.J. [Viso] were working more on the qualifying setup.  We got Takuma (Sato) through his rookie test, so he can get into the race mode now.  We have cars spread across the grid for setups.”

 

TAKUMA SATO,  #5 LOTUS - KVRT HONDA/DALLARA/FIRESTONE: “For the second day we had difficult weather conditions.  We also had a slight technical issue in the morning that caused a delay getting on track.  However, I finished rookie orientation, and I got a feel for the track and the level of downforce.  That was a very important step and, from that point of view, it was a productive day.”

 

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