Morning Warm-Up: Milwaukee 2012

Dario Franchitti took the pole for the second straight year at Milwaukee as he looks to get back-to-back wins at the Milwaukee Mile. Justin Wilson qualified second but has to serve a 10 grid spot penalty after an engine change. Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Ryan qualified fourth, seventh and ninth respectively but will all have 10 grid spot penalties as well. Due to the penalties, Ryan Hunter-Reay will start second, Rubens Barrichello will start third in his first race at the Mile and Helio Castroneves will start fourth. The other KV cars of EJ Viso and Tony Kanaan start fifth and sixth with Simon Pagenaud, the only other Honda in the top ten, starting seventh. James Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti and JR Hildebrand round out the top ten. Scott Dixon qualified eleventh but will drop to twenty-first after his engine failure at the Iowa test during the week between Texas and Milwaukee. Takuma Sato and Mike Conway also have to serve penalties for engine changes and will start twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth.

A lot of hope surrounds this event. Michael Andretti has made this year's race has to draw a decent crowd if he is to promote again next year. The Milwaukee Mile has seen it's fair share of promoters take over this event but it appears this could really be the Mile's last shot of saving it's place on the schedule.

While this is the Morning Warm-Up for Milwaukee IndyFest, I can't help but mention that the 24 Hours of Le Mans will begin in the hours leading up to the IndyCar race. Audi swept the front row with the #1 diesel-hybrid Audi R18 e-tron quattro on pole and the #3 diesel powered Audi R18 ultra second. In it's first race, the #8 Toyota TS030 Hybrid will start third. The #2 diesel-hybrid Audi will start fourth ahead of the #7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid and the #4 diesel Audi is in sixth. Current IndyCar driver, Sebastien Bourdias is in the #17 Pescarolo Team Dome S102.5-Judd and will tenth. The DeltaWing will start twenty-ninth out of fifty-six cars. The factory Corvettes start third and fifth in the GTE Pro class.

Here is a list of notable past and present IndyCar drivers and American teams and drivers racing at Le Mans.
LMP1
#15 OAK Pescarolo 01-Judd: Bertrand Baguette (Belgium)
#17 Pescarolo Team Dome S102.5-Judd: Sebastien Bourdais (France)

LMP2
#28 Gulf Racing Middle East LolaB12/80-Nissan: Stefan Johansson (Sweden)
#33 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Scott Tucker (USA), Luiz Diaz (Mexico)
#44 Starworks Motorsports HPD ARX-03b: Ryan Dalziel (Scotland)

LMGTE-Pro
#73 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6.R: Antonio Garcia (Spain) Jan Magnussen (Denmark), Jordan Taylor (USA)
#74 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook (England), Tommy Milner (USA)
#80 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 997 GT3-RSR: Patrick Long (USA)
#97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage GTE: Adrian Fernandez (Mexico)

LMGTE-Am
#57 Krohn Racing Ferrari 458 GTC: Tracy Krohn (USA)
#61 AF-Corse-Waltrip Ferrari 458 GTC: Robert Kauffman and Brian Vickers (USA)
#75 Prospeed Competition Porsche 997 GT3-RSR: Bret Curtis (USA)
#79 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 997 GT3-RSR: Seth Neiman and Spencer Pumpelly (USA)

Unclassified
#0 Highcroft Racing DeltaWing-Nissan: Marino Franchitti (Scotland), Michael Krumm (Germany), Satoshi Motoyama (Japan)