The 2010 Indy Car season is starting to wind down and the points race is starting to get closer and more dicey than it has been all season. On Saturday the Indy Car grid lined up at Chicagoland speedway for an oval battle royal (there are no more road courses for the rest of the season). This race was Will Power’s chance to increase his points lead and give himself a cushion going into the last few races of 2010 but his plans for that were totally dashed when Power was forced to give up fighting at the front to come into the pits for a splash and go since a malfunction in a previous pit stop prevented him from getting the fuel he needed.
It was none other than Dario Franchitti who took advantage of Will Power’s misfortune to take the lead and eventually the win. With Dario’s win and Power finishing 16th Dario was able to shorten his gap to Power by a scant 22 points. This is a dangerous position for Will Power since there are only two races left (Twin Ring Motegi, Japan and Homestead Speedway, Florida). It looks like things have gotten interesting again folks..
The Indy Cars hit up wine country over the weekend for the last road course race on the schedule AKA the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. Things continued with this race as they have for most of the season, with Team Penske and the Target Ganassi team trading blow for blow. However in this round it was Will Power with Team Penske getting the last punch in by taking the win and the Andretti road course trophy. From this point on its all ovals to see who is going to take the big prize! Check out the race highlights below.
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.
On Sunday the Indy Car series threw an open wheel race party up north in Paul Tracy’s hometown of Toronto. The fans really wantetd Tracy to be there and Tracy really wanted to win there (his last win in Toronto was 2003). For a while it looked like Tracy was about to get what he wanted but because of a miscalculation by his race strategist Tracy had to give up the lead and a shot at the win to re-fuel. This then left the race up to Justin Wilson who inherited the lead that Tracy gave up. However Justin had Will Power (the last of the three Penske cars that were in the running) behind him as well as Dario Franchitti.
The pressure from the two top tier drivers was soon too much for Justin and he spun in a corner from pushing too hard. From that point Will Power and Dario Franchitti had their own battle for the remaining 15 laps of the race but Dario just didn’t have enough for Will Power and Mr. Power went on to take the win. It looks like the streak of Penske and Ganassi wins is going to start all over again! Check out the video below for race highlights and visit the Indy Car website for a full post race report on their end.
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.
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.
Take a world class race track, add a large helping of Indy Car racing and a dash of Formula D, mix thoroughly and bake tires until smokey and that’s how you get the Indy Grand Prix Of Sonoma. Northern Cali was definitely the place to be this weekend if you’re a racing and drift fan. Formula D was epic and dramatic (more on that later) and the Indy Car race saw another appearance by Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe on the podium. The race started with a first lap pile up which gobbled up points leader Scott Dixon and ultimately kept him mid pack for the majority of the race. This freed things up for Dario to take the lead and fend off Briscoe until he saw the checkered flag. With the rate that the points lead is changing its practically impossible to make even an educated guess at who will win the title this year….just the way I like it! Check out the video below for race highlights.
On Sunday Scott Dixon officially scored his 20th win at Mid-Ohio which makes him the winningest driver in the modern Indy Car series history. Dixon has pretty much conquered it all: road courses, street courses, ovals, super speedways, and short tracks. And I doubt he is getting tired of any of this in the slightest.
Perhaps he felt something special was going to happen this weekend because almost every driver in the front pack said Dixon was “unstoppable” on that day. Dixon’s major “threats” (I use the term loosely) consisted of Justin Wilson at first until he had a huge mishap in pit lane. From that point on Ryan Briscoe and Scott’s teammate Dario Franchitti fought each other for a chance at Dixon. However their dog fight just slowed them down and put Scott that much farther ahead. It was truly a masterful performance by the kiwi champ. Check out the video below for the highlights.
It was a strange night last Saturday when the Indy Cars came to Kentucky for the Meijer Indy 300. Due to “issues” with the asphalt there was no qualifying and practice was only 75 minutes. Then, race officials decided to give the teams several oval aerodynamic options and threw in the “overtake” option just for flavor. There were 20 lead changes and very fast laps but when it was all said and done Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe took the checkered flag with Ed Carpenter coming in an extremely close (0.0162 of a second) 2nd place and Tony Kanann capturing the bronze finish. I could say more but you really just have to see it. Check out the video below for highlights.
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