Giancarlo Fisichella is no stranger to success at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 2006 the Italian ace was on form in Formula One – qualifying and finishing third for Renault at the “Brickyard”.

Eight years later the Italian ace today scored his first TUDOR United SportsCar Championship pole – reversing Risi Competizione’s recent struggling form in the super competitive GT LM class.

The Roman driver completed just three flying laps on his way to a class pole-position lap of 1:22.378 in the No.62 Ferrari 458 Italia, his fastest time set on his third and final hot lap in the 15-minute qualifying session. It is the Houston-based team’s first pole position since the final ever round of the American Le Mans Series, Petit Le Mans, in October last year.

“Last time I was here was a while ago in a Formula One car,” Fisichella said.

“I’ve got great memories for a podium in a Formula One car. Today I’m on pole. The shape of the circuit is different. It’s hard to say because the Formula One Car and the GT car are very different.

“I like the shape of this circuit. In the past I didn’t like the 2 slow hairpins, now it looks much better like that. This circuit is a bit small, not long enough for a Formula One car though. We would be less than 1 minute, so it might be too short.

“So far we’re having a good weekend. The car is much better. Maybe the configuration of the circuit is good for us. I did a perfect lap and I am confident and comfortable with the car. The team did a fantastic job, and we went in the right direction with the car and the setup.”

Recent balance of performance changes to the Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche and BMW have leveled the playing field after Corvette duo Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen took the past four race wins in succession.

“The pace is there, we can do well tomorrow,” Fisichella said.

“For sure the balance of performance adjustments have helped. They gave us a couple of things that were good. In the last race we were one second away, so that was too much. Now I think the top six are covered by just two tenths. So this is good. I hope to carry on like that until the end of the season because now it’s right.”