Long Pond, PA (August 18, 2018) – Pietro Fittipaldi took part in his first qualifying session on a superspeedway on Saturday at Pocono Raceway, placing his #19 Paysafe car 17th on the starting grid for tomorrow’s race.
With the qualifying order determined by the reverse points standings, Fittipaldi was the first driver to take to the track for the single-car qualifying. After an overcast practice session earlier in the day, the sun was shining when Fittipaldi took to the track in the afternoon. Despite the unfortunate position in the qualifying line, the rookie put in a strong performance registering a first lap of 214.679mph followed by a second lap of 213.993mph for a two-lap average of 214.336mph.
While the driver of the #19 Paysafe car sat on the provisional first row for the first quarter of the session, he would end up 17th when all 22 drivers had taken to the track.
“I’m happy with qualifying. We were the first ones out, so we knew it was going to be difficult,” said Fittipaldi. “It’s a 500-mile race so the most important part is having a good race car and making sure you can run well in traffic. It was much windier in qualifying than in practice this morning and you could feel it a bit going into Turn 3 with the car moving around a bit more than in practice. There were other cars out there running before us as well, so the track may have been a bit dirty with a different rubber on it, but overall it was a decent qualifying run for us and now we can focus on the race.”
The ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway will be broadcast live on NBCSN on Sunday, August 19 starting at 1:30pm ET. The race can also be heard live on the Advance Auto Parts IndyCar Radio Network, including SIRIUS/XM 209/214.
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