So, the Honda Edmonton Indy race was yesterday and with the exception of the last 3 laps or so there wouldn’t have been much to report. Will Power took the pole position on Saturday and for a great majority of the race Will Power was in the lead with teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe in tow. For a while it looked like we were going to see a boring Team Penske 1-2-3 finish. However, towards the end of the race a chain of events unfolded which ultimately resulted in a massive explosion of in-field drama. It started with the leaders of the race coming into the pits to get fresh tires and fuel to start off the last stint. While Will Power’s crew put a set of hard compound black tires on his car, Helio’s team decided to go for the red-sidewall soft compound tires. Because of this Helio was able to take the lead from Will just as they were coming up on lapped traffic.
This is where things got interesting…
As Will Power fought his way through lapped traffic to get back behind Helio an incident in the back pack brought out a full course yellow during the last 5 laps of the race. Two laps later all the cars were bunched together for a restart leaving Will Power poised in the perfect position to over take Helio. As the green flag dropped Power attempted to make his move on Castroneves going into turn 1 but was foiled as Helio pushed Will towards the outside. In this skirmish Scott Dixon (who was in 3rd) capitalized on the opportunity and passed Will Power to take the 2nd place position behind Helio.
Just as the cars crossed the line marking just 2 laps to go a message comes down from the race officials to the Team Penske pit that Helio was being issued a drive through penalty for blocking Will Power on the restart! This penalty would essentially hand the win over to Scott Dixon as soon as Helio came in to serve his penalty. Helio did not come in… He decided he would stay out finish the race and raise hell later, and raise Hell he did!
As soon as the race was over he pulled off, got out of his car absolutely livid and looked for anyone he could find wearing an Indy Car “Track Official” uniform and got in their face demanding answers. He even grabbed a security guy twice his size by the collar! It was one of the most magnificent displays of emotions I’ve ever seen from Helio and he has had some doozies. The only difference is that while usually Helio’s emotional demonstrations are of extreme happiness or sadness, this time it was unbridled anger! Don’t worry though, there were still some tears in the end. Oh, Helio…
It was so spectacular that Indy Car didn’t even release they’re usual “race highlights” video. Instead they put a full recap of Helio’s meltdown out on the interwebs for all of us to see. Check it out below!
At first I agreed with Helio’s anger but after the rule for blocking was explained I could see how the race officials came to the decision to penalize Castroneves. However what I do not understand is how Scott Dixon got the win when Will Power was in 2nd place when Helio committed the infraction. Shouldn’t the person who was blocked inherit the position that the blocker would be stripped of because of the penalty? Apparently, the Indy Car officials do not see it that way.
I hope everyone had a great Independence Day where no one lost a digit from an explosion! If you happened to tune into Versus TV on Sunday before the fireworks went off you would have seen the Indy Cars putting on their own show at Watkins Glen for the Camping World Grand Prix. One of the big stories for this race was the “Penske Curse”. Ever since 2005 a Team Penske car has always managed to qualify on pole at the Glen but can never win! They almost have a record for all the poles they’ve captured at Watkins Glen but have yet to catch a “W”. However this year Penske came armed with three cars (Will Power, Ryan Briscoe, and Helio Castroneves) and as usual a Penske Car (Will Power, who is also a past winner of Watkin’s Glen) qualified on pole. In the end Penske’s choice to add Will Power as a full-time driver on his team paid off because he managed to break the curse and score a win at the Glen! Check out some of the race highlights below and a full post race report at IndyCar.com.
While most of us were hanging out with our Dads on Sunday, the Indy Car grid tackled the Iowa Superspeedway short track for the Iowa Corn Indy 250. A race on Father’s Day is a pretty nice gift in and of itself but what was even better was how it played out. Despite having horrible practice sessions and crashing during qualifying, Andretti Autosport driver Tony Kanaan managed to pull off an incredible come from behind win starting 15th in the field and fighting his way to the front. This was Kanaan’s first win in just over two years and the first time he has finished the Iowa Corn 250 since ‘07. In ‘07, ‘08, and ‘09 Tony crashed out of Iowa despite having strong performances but now that monkey is finally off his back as he celebrates this win. You can read a full race report on Indy Car’s website as well as check out race highlights in the video below.
Formula 1 wasn’t the only motorsport with its season opener during the weekend. The 2010 Indy Car season got started on Sunday on the streets of San Paulo, Brazil. This race was, problematic from the start. This was the first race in this new street course and it showed. When weather wasn’t plaguing the drivers the nature of the course was. There was a section on the main straight that had a section of recently ground down asphalt and someone forgot to mop up the dust!
Some of the rookies weren’t doing so great either. Former F1 driver Takuma Sato got a little too friendly with the brakes and caused a huge pile up right as the race went green the first time. Then, Mario Morales made the same mistake and literally ran over Marco Andretti. Marco had to sit there with Mario’s car on his head for a few minutes until they were able to get a crane to pull it off. Amazingly, he took it pretty well.. but then again he was probably still fuzzy from the concussion.
When the dust settled it was Will Power and Team Penske on the top of the podium. Check out the race highlights below and a detailed wrap up of the race on Indy Car’s website.
It has been confirmed that the Aussie driver Will Power is going to be a permanent part of a three car Team Penske team in 2010. Will Power first started driving for Penske last year when he filled in for Helio Castroneves as he dealt with legal troubles. Once getting into a Penske car Will demonstrated some serious skill and ability to run up front. Check out the video below for Will’s comments and reaction to getting picked up by Mr. Penske for 2010.
A little late with the race report again folks sorry about that. Anyhow down to business. The Indy Car series made its return to our Canadian neighbors to the north once again this past weekend for the Toronto Indy. This race had been a long time comming for Canadian super star Paul Tracy. Unfortunately his return was short lived when Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves shoe-horned Tracy’s car into a barrier thus ending his weekend. Natrually Helio was subject to a sonic wall of boo’s for taking out the hometown hero. However the real story was up front with Dari Franchtti, Ryan Briscoe, and Will Power dicing at each other up front. In the end Dario’s cool head kept him in front of the Penske cars and on to the victory. Check out the highlights below.
The golden boy came off a lackluster performance at Milwaukee last week to snatch a win @ Texas from his teammate Ryan Briscoe. Just like Milwaukee Briscoe lead the brunt of the race which was taking a toll on many drivers with Texas Motorspeedway being the only track that has brutal 24 degree banking. Briscoe actually lead 160 laps of the race but a caution bunched up the field and ruined Briscoe’s 9 second lead over Marco Andretti who was in 2nd.
Helio was able to sneak up behind Marco and pick him off for 2nd then he set his sights on Briscoe. After a second caution on lap 173 the top 10 cars came into the pits and Helio’s award winning crew got him out ahead of everyone else giving him the lead. After that he simply held on for the remaining laps and took the win.
However with Briscoe’s 2nd place finish he moves up to the top of the points standings at 199 points, just three points ahead of Scott Dixon.
The Indy 500 is so huge that when its over sometimes it feels like the end of the season when really its still just the start. One week after Helio Castroneves drank the milk in victory circle the Indy Car caravan hit the Milwaukee Mile for the ABC Supply/AJ Foyt 225. After having such a great run at Indy Helio Castroneves hit just the opposite in Milwaukee as he had trouble in qualifying and had to start way from the back. His teammate and last year’s winner Ryan Briscoe had much better luck as he captured the pole position.
On race day Briscoe lead much of the race while Helio, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, and Graham Rahal chased him down and for the most part he fought them all off. However towards the closing laps of the race Scott Dixon was able to grab the lead away from Briscoe and take it home for his second win of the season and to take over the overall points lead. It was a pretty awesome race. Check out the video below for the highlights.
In the days leading up to the weekend many were questioning if the Indy 500 still held the same relevance that it had in years past. Heck Autoblog even put up an online poll asking if anyone still “cared” about the 500. It seemed that with the 24 Hours of Nurbergring and the Monaco GP happening in the same weekend the American tradition of the 500 was taking a backseat in the minds of many motorsport enthusiasts.
Yet now that the weekend is over and checkered flags have waved in different parts of the world I honestly have to say that I had a better time watching the 500 than any other race this weekend.
Sure the Monaco GP is prestigious but it was also a snore fest this year with Jenson Button practically winning from the pole position.
Yet this year’s Indy 500 did not disappoint. Helio Castroneves earned the pole position but he certainly didn’t lead a parade for 200 laps. There were at least 4 lead changes through out the race with 33 drivers all fighting to get their faces embossed onto the famous Borg Warner trophy. However despite the best efforts from some of the best drivers in the world Helio battled back to take his third Indy 500 win.
That, in and of itself is a pretty impressive feat but when you think about how earlier this year Helio missed the first race due to being on trial for tax evasion and facing up to 35 years in prison it suddenly increases the gravity of the win. Long Beach was Helio’s first race back and he made that race fresh off the plane from leaving the trial. We all thought his comeback would have lost all its steam there but then he shows up at Indy wins pole position and then wins the race!
If I try to take you through everything that happened this is going to turn into an article instead of a blog post so check out the highlight video below to catch anything I might have missed.
So the first day is wrapped up and I’m already tired! It was pretty eventful with Indy Car practice and qualifiying for two different events (ALMS and Pro Celebrity). I tried my best to keep up with Indy Practice via the MotorworldHype twitter page but my phone got a little dicy. I should do better tomorrow.
In some other Indy news it was announced that Paul Tracy would join the KV Racing team for the Indy 500 with backing from Geico insurance.
Also on the menu today was Toyota Celebrity (AKA demolition derby) qualifying. Its so fun to watch these people pinball around the track! Some of them did pretty well though all things considered. Heck, Farnsworth Bentley qualified 3rd among the celebs despite bouncing off concrete and tires earlier in the day. Pro-skater Danny Way qualified first with Keanu “Neo” Reeves qualifying second. Make sure to stay tuned to the MotorworldHype twitter page tomorrow at 11:40am california time as I’ll be tweeting the race live.
On the American LeMans (ALMS) tip the P2 Mazda Lola coupe was only a few tenths off from the Fernandez racing Acura. It looks like its going to be a tight race between the only two Japanese manufacturers in the Series. The Rahal BMW M3s qualified 4th and 5th respectively in the GT2 class while Falken Tire’s Porsche 911 RSR qualified 8th in GT2 just ahead of Boris Said in the Riley Corvette.
Tomorrow is race day for ALMS and I might be in Mazda’s pit box tweeting the race live. I’ll give you guys a heads up on that tomorrow.
For now check out some of my day 1 pictures. There will be much more tomorrow!
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