Servia’s Good Morning Becomes Dog Day Afternoon

Oriol Servia, 20th after provisional qualifying Friday for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, raised eyebrows Saturday during the 75-minute morning practice by being fastest among 25 drivers with less than seven minutes remaining in the session.

Servia ultimately finished fifth-fastest, 102.826 mph, during the practice, which he used to dial in his afternoon qualifying setup for today’s CART FedEx Championship series race.

But Servia’s practice session was also his last hurrah.

Optimistic going into afternoon qualifying, Servia lost the Toyota-powered engine in his Reynard chassis four laps into the 30-minute qualifying, then got burned by being part of a two-car team.

PPI Motorsports of Rancho Santa Margarita put the gears from Servia’s backup car into teammate Cristiano da Matta’s primary car right before afternoon qualifying began.

After Servia’s engine blew about one-third into the qualifying session, he was stuck without a backup, leaving him frustrated.

“We made two mistakes today, one was with the engine, and the other was with our backup car,” Servia said. “It’s even harder because we were fifth-fastest this morning. If we hadn’t done so well and made so much improvement, I probably would not be as disappointed.”

Had Servia even been able to match his practice speed, he would have started 18th on the grid instead of 21st.

Da Matta, who had the eighth-fastest practice time, said he kept getting caught in traffic during qualifying, though his 12th position on the grid is PPI’s best of the season, and much better than his 20th and 23rd posted in earlier races.

Newport Beach driver Alex Gurney moved up from ninth to fifth in qualifying Saturday for the Toyota Atlantic race, giving Orange County drivers three of the top five starting positions. The All American Racers driver was behind Newport Beach’s Daniel Wheldon and Laguna Niguel’s Andrew Bordin, who occupied the front row for PPI Motorsports.

But a severe gearing problem afflicted Gurney. He finished the race in third gear after losing fourth and fifth gears. Wheldon, who led 10 of the race’s 32 laps, lost fifth gear and finished fourth. Bordin’s gearing problems were less severe--losing second gear--and he finished second.

Rocky Moran Jr. of Coto de Caza finished eighth for P-1 Racing of San Clemente.

Townsend Bell of Costa Mesa will start today’s Dayton Indy Lights race 10th on the grid. Stu Hayner of Yorba Linda qualified ninth for today’s BF Goodrich Trans-Am race.