IndyCar Race Review: Firestone 550k

by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2012 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

June 6, 2010 1:02 pm UTC No Comments

In Ryan Briscoe‘s first Texas race for Team Penske, in 2008, he started and finished third. In his second, last year, he started and finished second.

Briscoe continued his positive Texas trend in last night’s Firestone 550k, leading 102 laps and opening up a big gap on a hard-charging Danica Patrick in the later stages for his first win of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season. His victory helped make up for Penske’s disappointing Indianapolis 500 last weekend, when Briscoe crashed and finished 24th, and teammates Will Power and Helio Castroneves barely cracked the top ten.

But that’s not to say that the night was a complete success for Penske; Castroneves was taken out of the race just past halfway when Mario Moraes squeezed him into the wall. Power, who had been running third in the late stages of the race, had to give up his position to pit for fuel with four laps to go, falling to 14th, one lap down.

Instead, the top team overall in the Texas tilt was Andretti Autosport. Besides Patrick’s second-place finish, Marco Andretti placed third for the second week in a row, and Tony Kanaan wound up sixth. Ryan Hunter-Reay, in his first race since having thumb surgery and potentially his last race for Andretti due to sponsorship reasons, placed seventh.

In between the Andretti cars were the two Chip Ganassi Racing teams of Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, respectively. Franchitti managed to lead 86 laps of the 228-lap race, but after losing his clean air was never quite the same.

Alex Tagliani and the FAZZT Race Team continued to show promise, but were once again bitten by bad luck. Tagliani led 33 laps, third most in the field, but a lap 167 pit stop in which fueler Phil McRobert did not remove the fuel hose before Tagliani put the car in gear altered the entire course of his race. Adding insult to injury, the team fell seven laps short on fuel and had to pit before the end of the race, falling three laps down and finishing 18th.

Texas was not generally kind to the series’ six rookies. While Alex Lloyd and Dale Coyne Racing carried on their momentum from a fourth-place finish at Indy, crossing the line eighth, Lloyd was the only rookie driver to finish on the lead lap. Meanwhile, Mario Romancini was the only other rookie driver to finish, two laps down in 17th.

Three rookies – Bertrand Baguette, Simona de Silvestro, and Takuma Sato – were involved in crashes that prematurely ended their nights. De Silvestro had a particularly fiery crash in which safety crews struggled to remove her from her burning car. The last rookie, Jay Howard, experienced mechanical failure after 37 laps to finish last.

The next IZOD IndyCar Series race will be the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway in two weeks. Franchitti won last year.

Read more on the IZOD IndyCar Series from Chris Leone at OpenWheelAmerica.com.

Filed under: Danica Patrick, Indy Cars, Texas Motor Speedway

Tagged with: Alex Lloyd, Andretti Autosport, Danica Patrick, Firestone 550k, IZOD IndyCar Series, Marco Andretti, Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske, Texas Motor Speedway

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IndyCar Race Preview: Firestone 550k

by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2012 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

June 5, 2010 3:06 pm UTC No Comments

Ryan Briscoe and Dario Franchitti will make up the front row for tonight’s Firestone 550k at Texas Motor Speedway, and both drivers are looking to continue trends that would bring them to the winner’s circle.

Since joining Team Penske, Briscoe started and finished third in the 2008 race, and started and finished second in 2009. His pole suggests that he might be able to continue that trend this year. Franchitti, meanwhile, will look to be the third Indianapolis 500 winner in a row to also triumph at Texas.

Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing-owned cars will, unsurprisingly, make up the top five starters, with Will Power (Penske), Scott Dixon (Ganassi), and Helio Castroneves (Penske) starting 3-4-5. Shocking, however, will be Alex Lloyd‘s sixth-place start for Dale Coyne Racing; it comes on the heels of his fourth-place start at Indy, and Milka Duno‘s shocking sixth-place run in Texas practice. (She’ll start back in 17th, though.)

Lloyd is the highest qualifying rookie, with Takuma Sato next best in 11th. None of the other four rookies qualified inside the top 20 of the 26-car field.

Tomas Scheckter, replacing the injured Mike Conway in Dreyer & Reinbold Racing‘s No. 24 Dallara-Honda, qualified 18th. Scheckter led laps in last weekend’s 500, as did two of the other three DRR drivers, only to fall to 15th and a lap down when the checkers waved. Scheckter hasn’t been guaranteed the ride beyond this weekend, but a strong showing may keep him in the car; on three occasions he’s led more than half of the Texas race, meaning he could be a threat for victory. In fact, Scheckter’s most recent IndyCar win came at Texas in 2005, when he drove for Panther Racing.

With two oval races completed, the Ganassi cars of Franchitti and Dixon lead the oval points, followed by Castroneves, Dan Wheldon of Panther Racing, Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti of Andretti Autosport, Power, Alex Tagliani of FAZZT Race Team, Briscoe, and Danica Patrick. Wheldon and Patrick are separated by only eight points, but from there the gap widens; Castroneves is 10 ahead of Wheldon with 69, Dixon is 22 ahead of Castroneves with 91, and Franchitti is 13 ahead of Dixon with 104, bolstered by a 64-point Indy 500.

Filed under: Chip Ganassi Racing, Indy Cars, Penske Racing, Texas Motor Speedway

Tagged with: Chip Ganassi Racing, Dario Franchitti, Firestone 550k, IZOD IndyCar Series, Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske, Texas Motor Speedway

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