Herta Makes Most of His Ticket to Ride

It didn’t take Bryan Herta long to adjust to Derrick Walker’s Reynard-Honda on Friday during provisional qualifications for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday.

The 29-year-old from Valencia, who was named Monday to replace injured Shinji Nakano and drove 65 test laps in the car Wednesday at Phoenix International Raceway, was clocked at 102.445 mph on the second-to-last lap of the qualifying session, good enough for ninth position and a spot in the first group of drivers for the second round of qualifying at 1:45 p.m. today.

“We’re fighting a lack of running time, but we’re still right in there,” Herta said. “We were pretty competitive with the fast guys [Friday]. I definitely feel there is more to come, and we have a good direction to go in.”

Herta was 11th fastest in the morning practice session with a lap at 100.232 mph. Adrian Fernandez captured the provisional pole at 103.223 mph, and also was fastest in morning practice with a lap of 101.211 mph.