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The touring car legend has no open-wheel experience and is already 33, so faces a daunting task to get up to speed after just four days of testing. Yet he was impressive at preseason testing at Thermal Club in California. Despite it being a 100sec lap of just over three miles, Canapino was 0.78sec off Ilott on Day 1, 0.86sec behind on Day 2, and both days he finished in 21stst out of 27 entries.
Yet he modestly – realistically – admits there are huge barriers for him to still overcome.
Agustin Canapino, Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevrolet
Photo by: IndyCar Series
FF: Do you arrive in St. Petersburg where you wanted to be in terms of preparation?
AC: Most IndyCar drivers say there is never enough training, so imagine for me. It’s IndyCar, it’s the most physically demanding series in the world. From December to now it’s been two months since I’ve been fully involved in training and I’ve totally changed. I train every day, and at the same time I’m really far away because the other day I went in [to the gym, Pit Fit], (Scott) Dixon was there and he was so much better than me that made me look as small as a dwarf! That’s when I realized how far away I am.
But at the same time I look at myself from two months ago and I’m doing much better. It’s a whole process that I’m going through and that I’m going to go through. But well, I don’t know yet because I didn’t run any races either. My goal is to do the 100 laps in St. …