Coyne eyes Valiante
Valiante raises the Canadian contingent in the series to four, as he joins Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani and rookie Andrew Ranger. He gets the seat of Spaniard Oriol Servia, who moved from the Coyne team to Newman/Haas racing to replace the injured Bruno Junqueira. "I'm looking forward to this weekend," Valiante said. "I've been trying to get this opportunity for a long time. It's unfortunate what happened with Bruno and I hate to see anything like that, but that's how things happen in racing sometimes and that freed up this seat for me.
"Portland is one of the most difficult tracks to jump into because it has a lot of very fast corners and they are very long in duration, so you're turning a lot at high speeds. So for us it will be important to get the car right in those sections this weekend."
Team owner Coyne said Valiante was tested in the off-season and was the first driver he turned to when Servia decided to join Newman/Haas. "When we needed a driver, he was the first guy that we thought of," he said. "He tested for us here Wednesday and was very professional."
Valiante made his Champ Car debut in the final race of the 2004 season in Mexico City for Walker Racing and finished 14th. He was hoping to race full-time for Walker this season but couldn't come up with the sponsorship dollars to secure a ride. Toronto Star
06/15/05 With no rubber on the track, Valiante turned mid-59 second laps early on today in Portland in the No. 19 AMR car vacated by Oriol Servia.. The fastest time in recent Portland testing was AJ Allmendinger at 57.04 sec. and the fastest time turned by Servia on that day was 58.15 sec, again on a well rubbered in track and 58.9 sec on the first day of the test, which shows how much faster the track gets as rubber is laid down. The team spent much of the day getting familiar with each other and testing various setups. Heavy rains are forecast Thursday and into Friday with clearing before race day on Sunday. It appears we may see wet weather qualifying. 06/15/05 This rumor is upgraded to 'fact.' Michael Valiante was in the car today at Portland. No other drivers were tested and we hear Valiante will indeed race this weekend for Dale Coyne Racing. We hope to have his lap times soon. 06/10/05 We spoke to Dale Coyne this afternoon who informed us that he will test Michael Valiante next Wednesday at Portland, just prior to the race weekend. He may test a second, as yet unnamed driver, as well. Mark C. 06/05/05 Coyne was particularly miffed that he didn't find out about Servia's departure until Wednesday afternoon, and then only from another driver calling to inquire about taking over Servia's car. "I want a driver who is going to be loyal to the team now and in the future," said Coyne, who had a handshake agreement but no contract with Servia since they hooked up last year. "If it had been for the rest of the season, that's one thing, but to do it for one race doesn't make a lot of sense to me." We hear Coyne will test Valiante for Servia's seat this week at Putnam Park. 06/03/05 We hear that ex-Champ Car driver Christian Fittipaldi is talking to Dale Coyne about replacing Oriol Servia. Coyne is not happy with Servia because he found out he wasn't driving for him this weekend from another driver and never got a call from Oriol.