Junqueria Out, Tagliani In
By Andrew Cutler
May 18 2009
Well now; here is one of those little "wrinkles" in the Indy 500 qualifying system that I personally can't remember being used since back in 1992. Conquest Racing is going to pull Bruno Junqueria out of his car - which he qualified on "Bump Day" - and replace him with Alex Tagliani, who's car was the knocked out of the show in the final moments yesterday.
The rules allow a team to make a switch in drivers, with the "penalty" for doing so being that the car will now start last on the grid. This was a rule that, back in the late '70s & early '80s, Mario Andretti took advantage of on a couple of occasions to run at Indy while still fulfilling his commitments to F1.
Conquest Racing cited their relationship with Tagilani and his sponsors, who have commited to (at this point) four races with the squad, as the reason for the change. For his part, Junqueria has accepted the squad's position. "I really enjoyed working with Conquest Racing, they gave me a really good car and hopefully I can work with them again the future. It's a shame that Alex got bumped out of the field at the end. I knew coming into this that Alex is Conquest's primary driver and that if something happened to the first car that I would likely give him my place and I completely understand it."
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