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!
After Justin Wilson won in Detroitit became clear that the main points battle between Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves would come down to the final points-paying race in Chicago. Dixon had been dominating all season but had a few hiccups on the tail end which enabled Helio to catch up due to his consistent top 3 finishes. As it played out, before Chicago only 30 points separated the two drivers.
Scott needed only to finish 8th place or better to mathematically lock out Helio’s chances for the title. Things didn’t start off well for Helio as his fastest qualifying lap which would have put him on pole was waived off by officials due to the Brazilian driver constantly dropping his wheels below the white safety line during his lap. This meant Helio would start from the very back of the pack and have to fight his way to the top while hoping that Dixon had trouble.
It seemed to be Helio’s lucky day as that’s exactly what happened. He had a hard fought battle all the way to the front while Dixon’s problems with traffic held him in 10th place towards the last leg of the race. However a brilliant pit stop by the Target Chip Ganassiteam put Scott up front where he battled it out with Helio for the remainder of the race down to the second closest finish in IRL history.
It appeared as if Dixon just edged out Castroneves at the last moment. So much so that Dixon’s car was wheeled into the winner’s circle and the celebration began but he was then informed that after reviewing the tap Helio Castroneves beat him to the line by a scant .0033 of a second.
Although despite the troubling news Dixon couldn’t be too upset as he still officially locked in the 2008 Indy Car Series title earning himself a million dollar bonus and redeeming his heart breaking loss of the title last year due to running out of fuel.
Even though the points battle is over there is still one more race left in the season. The Indy Cars will head to Surfer’s Paradise Australia for an exhibition race. This will also mark the return of Dario Franchitti to Indy Car where he’ll be joining the Chip Ganassi team and officially becoming Scott Dixon’s teammate. I’m sure it will be ironic for the drivers since Franchitti took the title from Dixon last year.
All in all this was a great semi-end to a great season. We can’t wait to see what happens in 2009
Just when it looked like the remainder of the 2008 Indy Car season was going to be all about Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves someone else swoops in and steals the thunder. That someone is UK born Justin Wilson. He earned the 107th win for the Newman Hass Lanagan team this past weekend during the Belle Isle GP in Detroit.
As I stated earlier the story over the weekend was the tightening points battle between Scott Dixon and Helio “twinkle toes” Castroneves. Thanks to Helio’s win at Sonoma he narrowed down the points gap to a scant 43 points. However if Dixon won in Detroit it would have mathmatically clenched the title for him. Obviously a lot was at stake for both drivers. However unfortunately, or fourtuneately (depending on who you ask) both Dixon and Castroneves suffered difficulties over the weekend.
First was Scott who qualified on pole but due to a not-so-great pit strategy left him back in 5th and unable to get up in front. On the contrary Team Penske’s strategy helped put Helio out front where he lead the latter half of the race however their fuel strategy left their driver having to soft pedel the throttle in order to make the milage needed to finish the race. This was partly the reason why Justin Wilson was able to close in on Helio and attempt to make a move for the lead with less than 20 laps to go. But in a desperate move Helio blatantly blocked Justin from getting around. The officials were not amused and ordered Helio to let Justin by. Without enough fuel in the tank to run his car at full power Helio was forced to watch from second place as Justin took the checkered flag.
With Scott Dixon’s 5th place finish and Helio’s 2nd place finish it narrows the points gap to 30. If Scott can get 8th place or better at the next race in Chicago then he will have clnched the title. However Chicago has not been kind to Scott in the past. Last year he narrowly lost the 07 title to Dario Franchitti because he ran out of gas on the last lap.
This weekend Team Penske achieved one of the biggest comebacks in motorsports history. First of all you have a top driver (Helio Castroneves) who was suffering a near 30 race drought without a win. Then, the week before the next race the team suffers a trailer fire which destroys more than half their equipment and the primary race cars for both of the team’s drivers.
However in a miracle that only Team Penske could pull off, they shipped in new equipment, buttoned up both back up cars to track spec, and then Helio Castroneves put his car on the pole. If that weren’t already miraculous enough he was also able to fend off points leader Scott Dixon and contender Tony Kanan to take his first win in 30 races. Not only did this put an end to his frustrating drought but it also tightens up the points battle.
Now only 43 points seperate Castroneves and Dixon with six races left to go in the season.
Loading ...
