Courtesy of PippaMann.com

Pippa Mann won her second pole of the year, when she grabbed the top spot for the Kentucky 100 after a sensational qualifying session on Friday.

The #11 Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver recorded a two-lap average of 190.474 mph (55.9447 seconds), placing her just ahead of AFS Racing’s Martin Plowman (190.309 mph). Mann now becomes the third female to start on the pole at Kentucky Speedway, after Sarah Fisher in 2002 and Danica Patrick in 2005.

Speaking about the result, Mann said: “Last week was a really good event for us. We had a nice run in the race. We came here hoping for something similar. I’m really, really pleased to get the pole. We didn’t seem to think that we were that quick but we’ve been on the front row for three out of the four oval races this year, and every time we thought we had a car capable of running in the top five, so maybe there’s something to it. Today, I really have to thank my teammates. They let me know what their cars were doing and I was able to use my in-car tools to help, so a huge thank you goes out to not only my crew but J.K. Vernay and Philip Major for letting me know what was going on out there.”

Mann has been in fantastic form since her return from injury at Infineon Raceway last month. Having taken fifth in Sonoma, and just narrowly missing out on a win last time out at Chicagoland Speedway, the young Brit will be looking for victory when the green flag drops in Kentucky.

The 67-lap race is scheduled to get underway at 17:30 on Saturday evening (local time) and can be seen live on www.indycar.com.

© 2010 Salamander Motorsport

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