Heavy rains fell on Houston throughout the night. However, fortunately for the FedEx, Cart Toyota Atlantic Championship and Trans-Am series, the rains cleared by morning. Practice runs and qualifying sessions were all given a green light and proceded as scheduled.
Hoping to improve upon yesterday’s provisional 5th place qualifying result, Gormley, Ontario’s rookie racing gun, Jonathan Macri needed no coaxing at this morning’s practice session as he trounced the 1.527-mile road course and took first- place honours, lapping two tenths of a second faster than his Atlantic competitors. Elated with his performance, Jonathan looked forward to piloting his P-1 Racing/NTN Bearings Swift to a better qualifying result this afternoon. However, changes in track conditions and stiffer competition relegated Jonathan to 5th place, though a much stronger 5th place, as he was off the pace set by leader Martin Basso by a mere .291 seconds; a significant improvement from yesterday when Macri trailed Basso by .782 seconds.
“I think we did a great job today,” Jonathan said. “I’m a little disappointed with qualifying 5th, especially after having ran quickest at the morning practice. The car seemed a little lose in qualifying, which probably had to do with all the rubber left on the track by Champ Cars, but, in all, I’m happy that we were able to run close to the front runners. We’re only a couple seconds off the pace and this is a great boost for the team. We can definitely challenge for a podium finish with this car. We will be running fresh tires tomorrow and the team will likely make a few small changes to the car after warm-up. As it stands now, the car is very competitive. Hopefully, I can try to gain a position at the start, but turns 1 and 2 are very tight and messy so I have to make sure I make it through without incident. I really like the track. P-1 Racing/NTN Bearings Swift have done a fantastic job on the car and so I’m really looking forward to racing tomorrow.”
The official qualifying order for the top five drivers remained unchanged since yesterday’s provisional with Hoover Orsi in second, and Joey Hand and David Rutledge in third and fourth respectively.
Jonathan’s Houston race report will be posted Monday October 8th. For Atlantic race results, please see www.toyotaatlantic.com.
Report by Fedele Fortino
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