ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (June 11, 2022) -- The drivers of AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolets will be looking to improve on their qualifying runs tomorrow in the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America.
Dalton Kellett, who will start 23rd in the No. 4 K-Line Insulators USA Chevrolet, said, "Overall, we were
not too happy with how the run went. We'd like to be starting a little further up but we felt like we were maybe a little over the top on being a bit loose that run. I think we are just looking for some grip overall across the camp right now between the three of us. Straight-line braking seems to be a bit of a struggle. I made a little mistake on the start of my second lap and that probably cost us a couple of tenths, but that wouldn't really have affected our position in our group I don't think. Overall, still trying to figure out what it is we really need to kind of hit the nail on the head here. We seem to be still looking for that. So, we're going to look at the data between the three cars and see if we can come up with for warmup."
Driving the No. 14 ROKiT Chevrolet, Kyle Kirkwood had a mechanical issue in the morning practice and lost most of the session.
"Definitely not the best qualifying that we've had all year," Kirkwood said. "Qualified P24. I think some of that is caused by losing some [time] in the second practice which was unfortunate. Conditions have changed a lot I think from yesterday to today and I feel like we probably missed out in qualifying. We got the car a lot better from the first run to the second run, but still just not enough and it's been really tight up at the front. So unfortunate starting position, but we'll see how the race goes."
Tatiana Calderón showed the most improvement in lap time from yesterday to today after gaining over a second since her first practice. She will start 25th in the No. 11 ROKiT Chevrolet.
"I think we improved a lot since free practice," said the Colombian. "Unfortunately, I made a big lock up on my quickest lap where we lost a lot of time. So that cost me quite a lot of lap time obviously. I think this is the closest I've been to my teammates so that's encouraging. I think the car felt much, much better than free practice 1 and free practice 2. So hopefully we can build on that. We need a good race car because they I think that tire degradation will be key here so hopefully, we can get closer to the top guys in race trim."
Alexander Rossi won the pole with a lap time of 1 minute, 44.8656 seconds (137.799mph). Rounding out the Firestone Fast 6 are: Josef Newgarden, Alex Palou, Marcus Ericsson, Colton Herta and Pato O'Ward.
The teams will have a 30-minute practice this afternoon, the final warmup on the beautiful 4-mile permanent road course in the Wisconsin Dells. The 55-lap race will be broadcast live on NBC tomorrow starting at 12:30 p.m. ET.
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