Granted, Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti hasn’t had its best season; still, the celebration for Filipe Albuquerque’s pole for today’s race seemed particularly jubilant. Albuquerque offered an explanation:
“It doesn’t matter how many races you win, or championships or pole positions. I think we are in the sport because we love it — and I’m in the sport to win,” he said. “And when I achieve that … you know, the road is long — working, taking many flights, being away from the family. There is a lot of dedicati on. So when we achieve, we need to enjoy life. I really feel like that — I need to be happy with little wins. These little wins help me to be more motivated for the next challenge and life is better.
“Pole means nothing … yeah, maybe. But I’m just happy and that will carry on a smile through the day. That does not mean that I’m not going to be working tonight and going again. We lose much more than we win. So if we don’t enjoy the small highs and the wins, then life is just miserable. I’m a happy person, so I always like to see the positives on it.”
Of course it was a double celebration as both WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06s will start on the front row today. But Albuquerque’s quarter-second margin over teammate Jordan Taylor was still impressive.
“I love to qualify because the car will never be better — low fuel, new tires, clean track, you k now the sunset is going a little bit … the car will never be faster,” Albuquerque said. “That feeling for me is always so, so special, to drive a fast car in its prime. I just love it.”
PJ Hyett has four consecutive poles in LMP2, but is still trying to convert a P1 start into victory for the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA. Part of that is start penalties in the last two races — drive-throughs for having too big a gap to the GTP field at Watkins Glen, and for changing lanes before start/finish at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. So how does he expect to handle today’s start?
“I won’t get a penalty, for one. I think I’ve gotten all of them now,” he said. “So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…