2010 Indy Lights Race of Mid-Ohio (Round 9, Qualifying)

For the first part of the 45 minute qualifying session for IndyLights, Martin Plowman topped the times in his AFS/Andretti Autosport machine, prior to debris bringing out a lengthy yellow flag period.  Once the session restarted, Championship challenger James Hinchcliffe jumped to the top of the standings with Stefan Wilson only a few hundredths of a second slower. Following a static period Plowman would once again retake the top spot on the time sheets, but this time he would stay there as a fierce battle for 2nd and lower became ever more frantic.

Charlie Kimball, JK Vernay and Sebastian Saavedra all joined the battle for the top three, but it would be James Hinchcliffe that would eventually claim 2nd spot ahead of former-Champ Car driver ‘Speedy’ Dan Clarke. Saavedra picked up 4th spot, while Series leader Vernay found himself all the way down in 7th position for tomorrow’s race.

This was Plowman’s first ever IndyLights pole position and with passing being notoriously hard at Mid-Ohio, it could well be the most important pole of the year. Former F3 EuroSeries race winner, JK Vernay leads Hinchcliffe by a huge margin of 55 points in the standings, having only once not finished on the podium so far this season, while Plowman is a further 26 points behind Hinchcliffe.

Firestone IndyLights Race of Mid-Ohio (Rd 9)
SP Car Driver                 Car Name Entrant               Time      Speed
1  27 Martin Plowman          AFS Racing Andretti Autosport  1:12.8624 111.564
2   2 James Hinchcliffe       Team Moore Racing              1:13.0068 111.343
3  40 Dan Clarke (R)          Walker Racing                  1:13.0425 111.289
4  29 Sebastian Saavedra      Bryan Herta Autosport          1:13.0625 111.258
5  28 Stefan Wilson (R)       Bryan Herta Autosport          1:13.1349 111.148
6  26 Charlie Kimball         AFS Racing Andretti Autosport  1:13.1587 111.112
7   7 J.K. Vernay (R)         Sam Schmidt Motorsports        1:13.3039 110.892
8  22 Adrian Campos Jr (R)    Team Moore Racing              1:13.3515 110.820
9  77 James Winslow (R)       Sam Schmidt Motorsports        1:13.7072 110.285
10 49 Philip Major (R)        Sam Schmidt Motorsports        1:14.3337 109.356
11 10 Gustavo Yacaman         Wayne Taylor Racing            1:14.3453 109.338
12  8 Juan Pablo Garcia (R)   Michael Crawford Motorsports   1:15.0550 108.305
13 36 David Martinez (R)      Quamtel Genoa                  1:15.0635 108.292
14 18 Rodrigo Barbosa         PDM Racing PDM Racing          1:16.4591 106.316
15  4 Giancarlo Vilarinho (R) Allied Andersen Racing         1:18.0560 104.141

The IndyLights race will also be shown on indycar.com from 5.15pm (BST) onwards.