Steady progress for Canadian Alex Tagliani

Driving the AJ Foyt Racing number 35 Alfe Heat Treating Special Dallara-Honda, Alex Tagliani made steady progress during the week-long practice sessions leading up to Saturday's first round of qualifying for the 100th running of the Indy 500. Listed 30th on opening Monday, Tagliani moved up to 21st overall on Wednesday, following Tuesday's complete rainout. On Thursday, Tag continued to improve, posting the 13th fastest lap of the day.

"Opening Day was okay. It was interesting to feel the car with some new things on it. We were quite conservative with downforce for the few laps we did. We now have a baseline and we'll review the data to bring the car level up for the rest of the week bit by bit," said Tagliani early in the week.

On Wednesday, the Canadian ran 88 laps compared to Monday’s 13. "I was very pleased with the day we had. I thought we were getting closer to where our car needed to be. We had the chance to run up front, and we had the chance to run in the back today. The team made a lot of changes, and we ran a fair bit. Air was quite dirty, but I sensed there was a lot of progress."

The number 35 crew kept on improving the handling of the Alfe Heat Treating Special Honda and on Thursday, Tagliani was 13th fastest on the track. "Again, we made some progress. Changes we made continue to improve the car quite a bit. In traffic, the car seemed to be racier. I think the car has really good potential. It was the best day so far even though we didn't run many laps (44)."

Fast Friday turned out to be frustrating for Tagliani who was stuck 69/100ths of a second behind fastest driver of the day, Will Power. Tag has another two hours of practice on Saturday morning to get his car ready for qualifying which is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Drivers are all hoping for a dry, cloudy day but without rain.

"Obviously it was not a good day for us. We really struggled to find the setup with car trim. We had a couple of tough moments on the track. Not something you really want to see, so we are in a really rough situation right now because we have to change the car and hit it right on the money for our first run tomorrow. It's going to be difficult, but we're going to put our heads down and figure something out."

Qualifying procedure explained

Two hours of final pre-qualifying practice is scheduled from 8-10 a.m. Saturday. The first day of qualifications to set the provisional 33 positions and lock in the Fast Nine Shootout competitors is scheduled from 11 a.m.-5:50 p.m. Saturday.

At the conclusion of Saturday qualifying, the fastest nine cars, based on their four-lap qualification attempts, will advance to Sunday's Fast Nine Shootout to determine the Verizon P1 Award pole winner and the rest of the starting positions in the first three rows for the May 29 race. The remaining 24 cars from Saturday move on to Group 1 qualifying Sunday to determine race-starting positions 10-33.

Who will come out with pole position on Sunday?

All qualifying times from Saturday are erased for Sunday qualifying. Group 1 qualifying runs from 2:45-4:45 p.m. ET Sunday, with each car making one four-lap attempt in order of slowest to fastest based on Saturday's times. The Fast Nine Shootout takes place from 5-5:45 p.m. ET Sunday, with each car making a four-lap attempt in order from the slowest to fastest based on Saturday's times. The top qualifier in the Fast Nine Shootout wins the Verizon P1 Award and will start on the pole position for the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500. In 2011, Alex Tagliani won the Verizon P1 trophy.

Tagliani Autosport