Long Beach, Calif. (April 8, 2022) — In searing Southern California heat, Filipe Albuquerque gave it everything this afternoon, ultimately qualifying in sixth position for the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The Portuguese ace finished the session with a time of 1:10.576 at 100.385 mph.
Albuquerque felt that the car was good throughout the session, but a strategic decision to run fewer laps did not pan out the way the team hoped, with the track evolving late into the session. He will look to make headway into the pack ahead at the start tomorrow before full-time teammate Ricky Taylor takes over for the second stint.
“A bit of a disappointing qualifying session, especially coming from Free Practice 2,” explained Filipe Albuquerque. “We finished last, but I don’t think the result tells the whole story. I was happy with the car, but we made a slight mistake on strategy. We decided to do less laps, which led us to pit early, when the track was clearly still evolving. And that’s on us, that’s a mistake. I admit that the car was good. It looks like we were really bad, but the truth is that we’re going to go with the same car to the race. We have a good car to race and it’s promising for the race. Let’s see how it goes.”
“As for the start tomorrow, it’s tricky, starting from the outside. You can never plan the start. I just know that I’m going to do my best and try and make some overtakes, and we’ll see what comes out. But we never know. Last year was great. Who knows if this year is going to be any better? Or it could be random. We’ll see. It’s a surprise.”
Green flag for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will wave at 2:00 p.m. PT tomorrow, Saturday, April 9th with full coverage streaming on Peacock and coverage on the USA Network.
DPi STARTING GRID:
- Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing (No. 01 Cadillac DPi) Renger van der Zande & Sebastian Bourdais (101.980 mph)
- Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing (No. 02 Cadillac DPi) Earl Bamber & Alex Lynn (101.453 mph)
- Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian (No. 60 Acura ARX-05) Oliver Jarvis & Tom Blomqvist (101.299 mph)
- Whelen Engineering Racing (No. 31 Cadillac DPi) Pipo Derani & Tristan Nunez (101.209 mph)
- JDC Miller Motorsports (No. 5 Cadillac DPi) Tristan Vautier, Richard Westbrook (100.670 mph)
- Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 (No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05) Ricky Taylor & Filipe Albuquerque (100.385 mph)
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Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. is reshaping and revolutionizing the Workplace of the Future. The company guides and supports its clients’ digital transformation through its expansive office technology portfolio, including IT Services (All Covered), intelligent information management, managed print services and industrial and commercial print solutions. Konica Minolta has been included on CRN’s MSP 500 list nine times and The World Technology Awards recently named the company a finalist in the IT Software category. Konica Minolta has been recognized as the #1 Brand for Customer Loyalty in the MFP Office Copier Market by Brand Keys for fourteen consecutive years, and received Keypoint Intelligence’s BLI 2021 A3 Line of The Year Award and BLI 2021-2023 Most Color Consistent A3 Brand Award for its bizhub i-Series. Konica Minolta, Inc. has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for nine consecutive years and has spent four years on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World list. Konica Minolta partners with its clients to give shape to ideas and works to bring value to our society. For more information, please visit us online and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. The No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 effort and Wayne Taylor Racing is supported by an outstanding lineup of partners including Harrison Contracting, Acura Motorsports, Hammer Nutrition and CIT.
