TROIS RIVIERES, Quebec (SATURDAY, Aug. 6, 2011) – The Sam Schmidt Motorsports duo of Esteban Guerrieri and Conor Daly duked it out for supremacy in qualifying for the Firestone Indy Lights’ Grand Prix of Trois-Rivieres. Daly, who was returning to the Indy Lights series from his base in London, England, held the top spot for most of the session until the last lap by Guerreri. Daly tried to answer but the session was yellow flagged on the last corned for a crash by Josef Newgarden.

1. (7) Esteban Guerrieri, 57.4541 (94.615)
2. (77) Conor Daly, 57.4962 (94.545)
3. (26) Peter Dempsey, 57.5599 (94.441)
4. (11) Josef Newgarden, 57.6385 (94.312)
5. (2) Gustavo Yacaman, 57.8510 (93.966)
6. (5) Stefan Wilson, 58.0259 (93.682)
7. (22) Mikael Grenier, 58.3012 (93.240)
8. (3) Victor Carbone, 58.3898 (93.098)
9. (29) Bruno Andrade, 58.4417 (93.016)
10. (9) Anders Krohn, 58.5812 (92.794)
11. (4) Jorge Goncalvez, 58.6107 (92.748)
12. (16) David Ostella, 58.7465 (92.533)

CONOR DALY (No. 77 Mazda Road to Indy/ SSM): “The car was good the whole time. I really should have had the pole. Unfortunately the marshal was waving the yellow flag on the last turn like there was a ten car crash around the next turn so I had to back off just for safety. Unfortunately, that w as my best lap so I’m pretty disappointed because I wanted this pole so bad but there’s still a race ahead of us. The Sam Schmidt team has done a great job and the car is really fast so I think my goal is just to get around Esteban.”

ESTEBAN GUERRIERI (No. 7 Lucas Oil/Sam Schmidt Motorsports): “We were not in a good situation this morning. We were ok but not the best. So we just worked on the car a little bit and I tried my best on the track and it won us the pole position. I wasn’t too worried about being out of the top six. I knew I had the speed for the top six but I didn’t know I had the speed for the pole position. I was a little worried about the tires staying on the ground but the Firestone Firehawks served me well. We might do some changes before the race because it’s a longer distance. Hopefully with some changes to the car I will be able to stay in the top.”

The Firestone Indy Lights race from Trois-Rivieres can be seen at 4:00 PM EDT on VERSUS.

For more information about this release or Conor Daly’s programs please contact Jeff Grist at Derek Daly Academy – 905.328.7458 or press@derekdalyacademy.com.