Edmonton Weekend Ends Strong

07.23.2007

J.R. Hildebrand recovered from an unfortunate accident caused by another driver in Saturday's first race at Edmonton to score a top five finish on Sunday.

The weekend started off slowly. "We thought that the setup we used at Cleveland should work well at Edmonton, and that didn't really turn out to be the case." While J.R. ended the first race qualifying session only a bit more than seven tenths off the pace, that was only good for the twelfth starting position. "The field is so competitive that missing the setup by a tiny bit, or making a small mistake on a fast lap, is enough to cost you several positions in qualifying. I think we might have started a little behind, and I just couldn't make it up during the session."

Saturday started with the qualifying session for the second race. The team made a number of aggressive changes to the car, and overall things were better, leading to J.R. staking out the eigth place on the grid for Sunday's race. "We picked up in some important places during the session, particularly through turn one, but also lost some pace in other spots. Overall, it was an improvement."

The first race was that afternoon, and J.R. got an incredible start, jumping up to ninth by the end of the first lap. But he continued his morning struggles getting the car onto the back straight out of turn 9. On lap 4, Simona De Silvestro tried to take advantage of this going into turn 10, and, in the words of announcer Jon Beekhuis, "dive bombed" J.R., running into his left rear tire and spinning him into the tire wall. The NWR #36 was too damaged to continue. Silvestro was black flagged and penalized for avoidable contact.

"It was a real shame that I was taken out by someone that early in the race. While I don't think we had the combination to get to the front, we should have been able to make a significant move up the order, and learn more for Sunday's race as well. As it is, we'll just do our best to get the car ready for tomorrow."

That night the team made a few changes to try to address the weak points of the car's setup without compomising the gains they had made on Saturday morning. Sunday morning's practice seemed to indicate good progress had been made, and the team was ready for Sunday's race.

At the start on Sunday, J.R got another good start, nearly moving up to sixth from his eight place starting position. But, given the result on Saturday, discretion was the better part of valor, and J.R settled into seventh. As there wasn't much chance to make changes after the mroning warmup, and knowing he didn't have the pace to match the leaders, J.R. focused on consistency, which allowed him to stay in range of the leaders. After holding off an early challenge from one of the Red Bull cars, J.R. built a sizable gap on the eight place car, and focused on running consistent fast laps, allowing him to move up to fifth place in the races closing stages. "I knew I didn't have the fasest car, and I thought if I could just keep up a consistently high pace, the leaders might fade back into range." While that led to J.R. making up a few seconds in the last several laps, it wasn't enough to allow him to catch the fourth place runner.

"Not withstanding Perrera running out of gas, I think that if the race had been a bit longer, I could have caught a few people. Now we just have to get ready for San Jose. We plan to be better off the trailer, and that should put us into a great position for the weekend."