Kanaan sets up car for Danica and Marco
05/09/07 Wait a second, that's not Danica in the No. 7 Motorola car. Hey, that's not Marco in the No. 26 NYSE car.
Andretti Green Racing's Tony Kanaan, the team's "sounding board," got behind the wheel of both of his teammates' cars early on the first day of official practice for the 91st Indianapolis 500 to provide the baseline setup.
In the last IndyCar Series race – on the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway on April 29 – Andretti's ill-handling car forced him out of the Kansas Lottery Indy 300 after 43 laps. In the run for the AAMCO Transmissions Pole Award a day earlier, Patrick wondered aloud why her qualifying speed was more than 2 mph slower than Kanaan's pole-winning speed (214.188 mph; 25.5476 seconds). Both employed the same setup. Patrick started 10th and finished seventh.
Kanaan had a top speed of 223.474 mph (40.2731 seconds) in Andretti's car on seven laps. His best of eight laps in the No. 7 was 222.562 mph.
"We were trying some different things today and the best way to judge is to have one driver driving all the cars," Kanaan said. "I was chosen to drive the cars because I'm the closest in size to Marco (Andretti) and Danica (Patrick). We had a couple of things we wanted to try and I think we accomplished them."
Patrick, who playfully held an umbrella over Kanaan while he waited in the cockpit, didn't want to be upstaged by the fill-in. She recorded a best lap of 224.164 mph (sixth of the 27 car-driver combinations). Andretti's best was 223.239.
Kanaan, who posted a best lap of 224.622 mph (third) in the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car, offered to set up the cars of Dario Franchitti and team co-owner Michael Andretti. Both politely declined. IndyCar.com
[Editor's Note: Good drivers don't have their teammates set up a car for them.]