June 5, 2009

IRL: Texas lineup with avg. start/finish

Dario Franchitti won the pole for Saturday night's Bombardier Learjet 550k—his fifth top-10 start on this track in six attempts. His results have been irregular after starting that close to the front, but the other time he started from the pole in 2004, he finished second.

Ryan Briscoe rolls off the grid second, and if his personal history at Texas is an indication that is precisely where he will finish. In 2005, he started and finished 12th in this race. Last year, he finished third after starting on the inside of the second row.

Like Briscoe, Scott Dixon does a good job of finishing what he starts at Texas. His first attempt there came in spring 2003 when he started second and finished sixth. In fall 2003, he started and finished second. In fall 2004, he started fifth and finished sixth. He went from fourth to second in 2006 and last year he won from the pole. He starts third on Saturday.

The king of Texas qualifying, however, may just be Helio Castroneves. In 10 previous attempts, he's never started outside the top 10 and he converted two of those strong starts into victories and another pair of races into runner-up results. He kept that streak alive with a fourth-place start.

Danica Patrick rounds out the top five in fifth, which is her fourth top-10 start in five Texas attempts. In those races, she's never finished worse than 13th and has back-to-back top-10s in 2007/2008.

Lineup with avg. start/finish

StartDriverAvg. FinAvg. StartAttempts
1Dario Franchitti8.407.405
2Ryan Briscoe7.507.502
3Scott Dixon6.756.508
4Helio Castroneves6.305.7010
5Danica Patrick9.507.004
6Mario Moraes18.0022.001
7Dan Wheldon9.1111.899
8Marco Andretti17.3311.673
9Robert Doornbos


10Ed Carpenter17.0015.437
11Hideki Mutoh6.004.001
12Graham Rahal11.0018.001
13Alex Tagliani


14Sarah Fisher14.2517.888
15Raphael Matos


16Tony Kanaan4.507.508
17Justin Wilson27.0023.001
18Tomas Scheckter15.336.009
19Mike Conway


20Milka Duno14.0023.002
21E J Viso14.0028.001
22Anthony Foyt IV17.4316.437
23Ryan Hunter-Reay20.0010.001
24Jacques Lazier




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