by Team RHR on September 15, 2012 in News, Qualifying Reports
Ryan Hunter-Reay will be gunning for his first IndyCar championship in tomorrow evening’s race, and will need to finish sixth or better to have a mathematical chance to win the title. Hunter-Reay was 17th-quickest in the qualifying session in the DHL / Sun Drop No. 28 car, but will start 22nd after the grid penalty for an engine change. It would be Hunter-Reay’s first championship and the fourth title for Andretti Autosport.
“Not a great qualifying run for us but it’s a 500-mile race, so I’m really not that bummed about it,” Hunter-Reay commented. “We just hadn’t dialed our qualifying trim in with the DHL/Sun Drop car and that caught us out a bit. We missed the balance and (the car) took off on me a bit there at the exit. It was definitely hard to put a good two laps together. We’ve been focusing on the race though – that’s the big thing, we haven’t done any qualifying runs today so it’s something that we just haven’t really put a lot of time into. Tonight we’ll go out and work on race trim and get these four Andretti cars up front.”