IndyCar Race Preview: Cafes do Brazil Indy 300

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.

October 2, 2010 12:58 pm UTC No Comments

The IZOD IndyCar Series will take the green flag one last time at the Homestead-Miami Speedway tonight for the Cafes do Brazil Indy 300. Besides being the final race of the IndyCar season, it will be the final race of the near future at Homestead, after the longtime open-wheel hosts and the sanctioning body could not come to an agreement for a 2011 event.

As such, expect tonight to be a show of great magnitude, with both sides looking to go out with a bang.

The biggest storyline remains the championship battle between leader Will Power and second place Dario Franchitti, the defending series champ. Franchitti will start on pole alongside his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon. Meanwhile, Power’s Team Penske machine will roll off the grid third.

The pole comes with a bonus point, one of three available per weekend. Franchitti came into the race weekend 12 points behind Power, meaning a win after leading the most laps in the race would seal the championship for him no matter what Power does; since first place pays 10 more points than second, even a 1-2 between the two contenders would mean Power would lose the title by a single point.

But neither Power nor his Team Penske teammates are willing to concede the first IndyCar title for owner Roger Penske since 2006 so easily. Teammate Ryan Briscoe paced final practice after qualifying fourth, while Helio Castroneves will attempt to back up wins in the series’ past two races with a march to the front from 10th on the grid. Castroneves and Andretti Autosport’s Tony Kanaan will actually serve as co-grand marshals of the event, giving the command to start engines from the cockpits of their cars.

Homestead marks the final opportunity of the year for a handful of winless drivers to grab one checkered flag before the season ends. The top seven in points have all won a race, but eighth place Dan Wheldon, ninth place Marco Andretti, 10th place Justin Wilson, and 11th place Danica Patrick are just some of the big names that have not seen victory lane this year. Of them, Wheldon stands the best shot; the three-time Homestead winner (2005-07) and Panther Racing have been achingly close to victory in the past few domestic oval races.

The race will also inevitably mark the final event for a handful of driver-team combinations, as plenty of teams will be looking to move up in the ranks for 2011. The question right now is who will stay and who will go. As recently as last week, Panther and Wheldon were considered the most likely to separate, after two years of mutual frustration and a lawsuit filed for $2.5 million in back wages by Wheldon’s management. Now that the suit has been settled, however, Panther owner John Barnes is discussing bringing Wheldon back.

Justin Wilson and his Z-Line Designs sponsorship are a hot commodity, as are the talents of Simona de Silvestro and Graham Rahal. Meanwhile, a handful of Firestone Indy Lights graduates appear ready for the big time in 2011, with Ana Beatriz, James Hinchcliffe, and Sebastian Saavedra likely to attract at least some interest from team owners.

Meanwhile, in the Lights race, Pippa Mann will roll off the grid first. Charlie Kimball will join her on the front row, while series champion Jean-Karl Vernay will start 12th and clinch this year’s championship upon taking the green flag.

Filed under: Homestead-Miami Speedway, Indy Cars

Tagged with: Cafes do Brazil Indy 300, Chip Ganassi Racing, Dario Franchitti, Helio Castroneves, Homestead-Miami Speedway, IZOD IndyCar Series, Team Penske, Tony Kanaan, Will Power

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IndyCar Race Review: Iowa Corn Indy 250

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

June 20, 2010 6:54 pm UTC No Comments

Tony Kanaan ended a 34-race winless drought and Michael Andretti won his second race of the season after a winless 2009 as the IZOD IndyCar Series finished its first oval segment of the 2010 season with today’s Iowa Corn Indy 250.

It was the 15th career open-wheel win for Kanaan, his first since Richmond in 2008, and the first time that the Brazilian did not suffer a race-ending accident in an Iowa event. He led 62 laps, holding the point for the first time since Chicago last year.

It also marked the second race win at Iowa for Andretti Autosport, and their first since the inaugural event in 2007 with Dario Franchitti. However, neither Franchitti nor the other Andretti cars had quite the same amount of success as Kanaan; Franchitti’s transmission gave out late in the race, dropping him to 18th, while the other three Andretti cars of Ryan Hunter-Reay (8th), Danica Patrick (10th), and Marco Andretti (15th) fell off the lead lap.

Helio Castroneves held the lead with as few as a dozen laps to go, but Kanaan positioned himself perfectly for the victory, conserving 11 of his 24 allotted overtake assists for the final 11 laps. Castroneves had nine assists remaining, but they were not enough; with each assist lasting about halfway around the 7/8 mile track, Kanaan could run with extra horsepower for about the entire final segment of the race.

Castroneves had encountered issues with Kanaan earlier in the race, coming very close to his countryman on pit road early in the race. Castroneves was stuck between Kanaan and Scott Dixon racing out of the pits, overcorrected to avoid Kanaan’s left rear and careened into Dixon, giving both cars a little air. Kanaan also had a pit incident with Hunter-Reay as the American pulled into his pit.

E.J. Viso finished third, salvaging one solid finish for KV Racing Technology. Mario Moraes became a victim of Justin Wilson‘s turn three spin at the beginning of the event, eliminating one of the three KV cars before anybody could even get into a rhythm. Takuma Sato, in the lead Lotus-sponsored KV car, had a fantastic run going before trailing Alex Lloyd too closely into the turns on lap 177, losing the air off his car, and sliding up into the wall.

Iowa also featured support races that went all the way down the Road to Indy ladder. In Firestone Indy Lights, former Andretti driver Sebastien Saavedra held off his replacement, Martin Plowman, for the victory. Conor Daly led all 100 laps of the Star Mazda race for his fourth consecutive victory in that series, and Sage Karam (also driving for Andretti) won his third US Formula 2000 event of the season.

Filed under: Indy Cars, Iowa Speedway

Tagged with: Andretti Autosport, E.J. Viso, Helio Castroneves, Iowa Corn Indy 250, IZOD IndyCar Series, Tony Kanaan

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IndyCar Race Preview: Sao Paulo Indy 300

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

March 13, 2010 2:06 pm UTC No Comments

The first IZOD IndyCar Series race of the season takes place south of the border – way, way south – on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the first annual Sao Paulo Indy 300. It will be the first American open-wheel race in Brazil since CART ran on the Emerson Fittipaldi Speedway from 1996 to 2000. It will also be the first street course race for IndyCar outside of North America since the non-points event in Surfers Paradise, Australia, at the end of 2008.

The new track has posed problems for the whole field, with the narrow concrete frontstretch causing most cars to fishtail and a handful of drivers slapping the wall elsewhere on the track. Scott Dixon led the field in final practice, with Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan not far behind. The biggest surprise of the session was Alex Tagliani, with a brand new team, in fifth. Drivers that had problems on the track included Briscoe, Bia Figuereido, Hideki Mutoh, and Danica Patrick.

Qualifying was eventually postponed until the morning of the race at 7:25 AM EST, replaced on Saturday by another practice session as teams and the series tried to figure out what to do about the concrete surface.

Adding to the challenge, the forecast calls for potential rain on race day. Add up all these variables on a new track, and nobody knows quite what to expect for this year’s season opener.

The field contains seven Brazilians, almost all of whom are racing IndyCars in their native country for the first time. Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves had three starts at Fittipaldi apiece; Kanaan’s best finish was fifth in 1999, while Castroneves never finished better than 23rd in his native country.

Dixon has been fast in every practice session, pacing the field in the intended final practice session and leading inthe early stages of the extra session. Kanaan, too, has been quick, despite trashing the quality of the track to the Brazilian media. These two should lead the fight for victory come Sunday.

As for a dark horse, street course ace Alex Tagliani has shown great speed in practice despite coming to the track with the startup FAZZT Race Team. Keep in mind that Tagliani almost won last year’s race on the streets of Toronto, leading 21 of 85 laps. The new team also features some experienced personnel, including longtime Walker Racing team manager Rob Edwards.

Filed under: Indy Cars

Tagged with: Alex Tagliani, IZOD IndyCar Series, Ryan Briscoe, Sao Paulo Indy 300, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan

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