Brits on Pole

Forget the Monaco Grand Prix – the biggest event in motorsport for the whole of 2011 takes place this weekend with the centennial running of the Indianapolis 500.

Anything up to 400,000 spectators are expected to pack the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a 2.5 mile oval circuit where race speeds can reach well in excess of 220mph and where the winner traditionally celebrates not with champagne, but with a pint of milk.

In the hundred years since 1911, when Ray Harroun brought his Marmon Wasp home to victory after more than six hours forty minutes at the wheel, the race has taken place 95 times – pausing only for the two world wars.

British victors include F1 legends Jim Clark and Graham Hill, the latter being the only driver ever to win the so-called Triple Crown of Motorsport by triumphing at Indy, Monaco and Le Mans.

More recently, England’s Dan Wheldon won in 2005 and Scotland’s Dario Franchitti joined the list of multiple winners with victories in 2007 and last year.

Both are among the favourites for this year’s race, which is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory.

Upset victory?

Only 2.5sec separates pole-sitter Alex Tagliani from slowest qualifier Ana Beatriz, a full half second less than the previous closest spread of times, and the build-up to the race has been dominated by the misfiring of traditional powerhouse teams Penske, Ganassi and Andretti – potentially giving an outsider the opportunity to steal the show.

Tagliani’s pole came in a nine-driver shoot-out where Ganassi team-mates Franchitti and Scott Dixon, the 2008 winner, were both sent out lacking enough fuel to complete their four high-speed laps. Dixon held on to start second but Franchitti was unable to set a time and will start ninth.

Their traditional rivals in Team Penske fared worse, with only championship leader Will Power even making it into the top nine. He will start in the middle of the second row in fifth.

Three-time winner Helio Castroneves, already under pressure after an erratic start to his season, suffered his worst-ever Indy qualifying and will line up 16th, while the third Penske car, driven by Ryan Briscoe, failed to make the race on the first day of qualifying and will start a lowly 26th.

But the troubles of the big two teams paled into insignificance compared with the nightmare May so far experienced by Andretti Autosport, which supplemented its usual four cars with a fifth for John Andretti, cousin of team-boss Michael.

After the first day of qualifying, only the 48-year-old veteran was in the race. Michael’s son Marco, Britain’s Mike Conway, media superstar Danica Patrick and the heavily-sponsored American Ryan Hunter-Reay had all failed to set high enough times.

In the hyper-competitive second day Patrick almost lost her chance to qualify thanks to a rain shower, but safely put her car in the field ahead of Briscoe. Conway was still unable to find enough speed, but Marco Andretti and Hunter-Reay found themselves competing for the final spot in the field.

Money talks

Andretti took it, leaving Hunter-Reay out in the cold – along with a number of sponsors crucial to the future of the entire team. In a hard-headed business decision that has infuriated fans, but also saved jobs at the team, Michael Andretti exploited IndyCar rules to buy a place in the field for his driver.

Under race rules it’s the car itself that qualifies, not the driver, and Andretti was able to place Hunter-Reay in a car owned by rival team owner – and four-time winner – AJ Foyt. It had been qualified in the midfield by Bruno Junqueira, but for the second time in three years the popular Brazilian found himself forced to give way to a better-funded driver. Hunter-Reay will start 33rd and last – but he will at least be in the race.

The floundering of the big names opened up opportunities for smaller teams, many running on a comparative shoe-string, or fielding one-off entries with drivers making their only start of the season.

Tagliani’s pole was a shock result, but it was only part of the story for team owner Sam Schmidt who enjoyed a spectacular run of success in qualifying.

A former racer left quadriplegic after a crash, Schmidt moved into team ownership after meeting F1’s Sir Frank Williams. He expanded from his power base in the supporting Indy Lights series during the off-season by buying Tagliani’s FAZZT Racing IndyCar team.

But he also continued his tradition of fielding one-off entries in the Indy 500, either alone or in partnership with other teams, and placed three other drivers in the field apart from Tagliani – two of them joining him in the nine-car pole shoot-out.

Townsend Bell will start fourth in another solo Schmidt entry while sixth-place Dan Wheldon is running for Bryan Herta Autosport in a technical partnership with Schmidt. Essex-born Jay Howard, starting his first Indy 500 from 20th after a run of bad luck in previous years, is 20th in partnership with Rahal Letterman Lanigan.

But the Schmidt cars are not the only underdogs in the upper reaches of the field.

Feel-good stories

After competing in nine previous Indy 500s Sarah Fisher will not race this year – but the team she now owns and runs sent Ed Carpenter out to take seventh place in qualifying. Both Carpenter and Fisher, who is 22 weeks pregnant, are firm fan favourites and a victory would be the feel-good sporting story of the year.

After several shaky years, former CART stand-out team Newman Haas returned to form with an impressive third-place qualifying for Spain’s Oriol Servia, a driver whose lack of funding has denied him much chance to race in recent seasons, and 13th for rookie James Hinchcliffe.

Former winner Buddy Rice, who has not raced an IndyCar since 2008, put his Panther Racing entry into seventh place and the team’s full-season rookie, JR Hildebrand will start 12th.

And Rahal Letterman Lanigan, which has been unable to afford a full-season entry since 2008, has teamed up with Belgium’s Bertrand Baguette to start 14th. Baguette, a former World Series by Renault champion, was an over-achieving rookie last year but was not able to secure a second year in the series.

Four women will take the green flag to start the race, with Beatriz and Patrick joined by Switzerland’s Simona de Silvestro and Britain’s Pippa Mann – the latter becoming the first woman from the UK to attempt the race.

She will start 31st, having successfully qualified Conquest’s second car when the team’s full-season driver, Sebastian Saavedra, was unable to put the primary car into the race.

De Silvestro’s qualifying effort was the stuff of legends, as the HVM Racing driver earned a place in the race despite suffering second degree burns to her hands in a practice crash.

A component failure at high speed sent her into the wall and twice airborne before her car finished upside-down and on fire. Despite heavily-bandaged hands she put the back-up HVM car – the oldest and heaviest machine still in use – into the race on the first day of qualifying.

Starting line-up

Row	Inside	Middle	Outside
1	Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt Motorsports	Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Oriol Servià Newman/Haas Racing
2	Townsend Bell Sam Schmidt Motorsports	Will Power Team Penske	Dan Wheldon Bryan Herta Autosport
3	Buddy Rice Panther Racing	Ed Carpenter Sarah Fisher Racing	Dario Franchitti Target Chip Ganassi Racing
4	Takuma Sato KV Racing Technology	Vitor Meira AJ Foyt Enterprises	JR Hildebrand Panther Racing
5	James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas Racing	Bertrand Baguette Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Davey Hamilton Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
6	Hélio Castroneves Team Penske	John Andretti Richard Petty / Andretti Autosport	E. J. Viso KV Racing Technology
7	Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Jay Howard Schmidt / Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Tomas Scheckter KV Racing Technology
8	Tony Kanaan KV Racing Technology	Simona de Silvestro HVM Racing	Paul Tracy Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
9	Danica Patrick Andretti Autosport	Ryan Briscoe Team Penske	Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport
10	Charlie Kimball Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi	Graham Rahal Service Central Chip Ganassi	Alex Lloyd Dale Coyne Racing
11	Pippa Mann Conquest Racing	Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Ryan Hunter-Reay AJ Foyt Enterprises