The saving grace of today? Potter and Lally can drive in the wet.
For Andy Lally, who last drove the circuit in a Barber Dodge open wheel car over 10 years ago, several years of wet weather experience always suits him well when the conditions demand. Today was no different, as he managed to consistently keep the car in the top-five as he and the entire field circulated the track at a crawling pace early this morning to learn the track.
John Potter, meanwhile, has a smooth and calculated driving style that suits him especially well in wet conditions. For those who remember the third round at Homestead, Florida, John led for a good portion of his opening stint. Today, he continued that same feat headed in to the third session of the day, where he spent much of the session at the top of the charts, only barely being pipped to second with minutes to go.
By time qualifying came around to end the day, the 15-minute session would turn out to be the only dry session all day. Qualifying the no. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 Cup, John did a tremendous job learning the dry track for the first time, outpacing some big names en route to a ninth place effort.
"It was actually a very neat experience because none of us had really experienced the track in the dry until qualifying." Stated Potter. "Overall I'm pleased with a top-10, but certainly have a few places where I know we can go quicker.The whole team has done a great job, I guess time will tell tomorrow where everyone stacks."
With tomorrow being race day, the team will head out tomorrow morning for a long day of watching the IZOD IndyCar series until our very own race occurs at 5PM ET. We will continue to provide updates throughout the day, as well as live coverage on SPEED.