Star Mazda Trois Rivières Qualifying
So, there will be drama aplenty as Alex Ardoin, who just turned 18, lines up his #51 Oral & Facial Surgery Center / Mundill Mazda on the pole position with a lap of 1L02.306. His season was nothing to brag about with finishes hovering around the top-10 until Round Seven in Toronto when he found something in his driving that unlocked the promise of a brighter second half of the season. He is currently 8th in the championship with 215 points, plus one point for his pole here today.
Asked what made the difference in his driving, he replied, “I looked over the tapes of the races early in the season and saw that my problem was I was being too nice a guy, letting everybody go by. At Toronto I decided that I would give them racing room, but not one inch more, and that decision transformed how I race. As for qualifying here at Trois Rivières, the track was a lot looser than we thought going into the session, but that proved to be faster for us. I expected some red flags in the session, and there were two, so I put in a couple of fast laps early and that got us the pole. My car and tires are still in good shape, so I’m optimistic for the race tomorrow."
Starting next to Ardoin on the 25-car Star Mazda Championship grid will be the #21 Maxwell Racing / Nugget Mazda of Toronto native Marco Di Leo, who rewarded his new sponsor Nugget, with a pole position at Road America and a front-row start in Trois Rivières with a lap of 1:02.341. Di Leo has qualified in the front row in every race but one this season, won the season opener at Sebring and currently stands 4th in the championship battle with 242 points.
“We’ve been kind of quite so far this weekend, running 7th in practice on Friday, but we knew the car was good and we were just working on setups so we weren’t worried," says the 20 year-old Canadian who was the 2005 Skip Barber scholarship winner and was runner up in the Skip Barber Pro Series in 2006. “We had some brake issues in qualifying, but got them sorted out in time to put in a couple of quick laps. Hopefully Lady Luck will be on the side of the Maxwell Nugget car in the race."
Starting behind Ardoin, third on the grid, will be Melbourne, Australia native James Davison, driver of the #7 Velocity Motorsports / Easternats Mazda. Davison has shown flashes of brilliance from the start of the season, leading across the finish line twice – at the season opener in Sebring and again at the last race at Road America – only to have both victories taken away by penalties imposed by series officials for on-track driving infractions. Still, he has a record of two pole positions, two podium finishes, three top-5 finishes and is tied for second in the championship battle with 250 points.
“I definitely feel like I’ve got something to prove here, and I feel that the team has given me that car to do it," says Davison, who competing in the Champ Car Atlantic series in 2006. “The top three are only 2/10ths apart, and that’s pretty close racing on a circuit like this. I only did two fast laps, so my tires are in good shape for the race and I’m expecting to do well."
Other qualifiers of note include Californian Dane Cameron, the Star Mazda Championship points leader with three wins and four poles. He qualified on the outside of the second row with a lap of 1:02.513 in his JDC Motorsports/Finlay Motorsports Mazda. Qualifying 5th was Vancouver, B.C. native Lorenzo Mandarino with a lap of 1:02.564 in the #15 Team G.FRO/Newway Forming Mazda. Quebec native Yannick Hofman, in his first Star Mazda drive for top team Andersen Racing after two years in the Formula BMW series, qualified 8th in the #00 Jig-A-Loo/Andersen Racing Mazda with a lap of 1:03.168. Devin Cunningham, also from Quebec, qualified his #33 AIM Autosport/Discovery Channel Mazda 13th on the grid with a lap of 1:03.637.
The GP3R is Round 9 of the 12-race 2007 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear. The 36-lap/60-minute Star Mazda race scheduled to take the green flag at 1:30 pm, Sunday, August 19.
Star Mazda races are broadcast on the SPEED Channel, with the GP3R event scheduled to air on Monday, August 27 at 3:00 pm. To find out when future Star Mazda races will air, log on to www.speedtv.com/programs