LONG POND, PA – Tony Kanaan knew on Saturday that he may have something for the field in Sunday’s ABC Supply 500. The only problem is, if he can have a better season overall, he could have turned these top 10 finishes into top fives. Here’s why.

See, last month at Iowa, Kanaan had a bad qualifying draw as the qualifying order was in reverse order of the entrant points. Despite having a very fast race car that weekend, he’d have to go out among one of the first drivers since he sat near the bottom of the NTT IndyCar Series points standings.

That cost him a good starting spot as the later you went that day, the better you would have started.

A similar situation happened this weekend at the Pocono Raceway. Kanaan, was 19th in the series standings and with rain washing out qualifying on Saturday, he’d have to start 19th too.

Later on in the day, Kanaan was the quickest in the lone practice session around the Tricky Triangle in practice. He knew he had the speed but he had to be methodical on his approach to the front.

It worked too. Kanaan, brought his No. 14 Chevrolet home eighth in Sunday’s race. It was his third top 10 finish of the season – coincidentally enough, all have come on ovals.

“Good day for us, another top 10,” the popular Brazilian said. “We have a few things to improve still but we’ll take it from where we started. We had a competitive car all weekend. The goal was to finish in the top 10 and we finished eighth, which is my best result of the year. It’s a good energy boost for the boys.”

Kanaan, went from 13th at Iowa to finish 10th. He went from 16th to finish ninth in the Indy 500 too.

Now, if he can get a better draw in qualifying, watch out.