Believe it or not, there
is more than just one race in the IndyCar Series schedule. Already, four races
have been run since late March. The first quarter of the 2012 season has been
dominated by Will Power. Power not only leads the points standings but has also
won three races. Although all of the races have been on road courses, it has
been plainly obvious that the teams running Chevrolet engines are the fastest
cars week-to-week. Power’s Team Penske teammate, Helio Castroneves, cruised to
victory in the first race of the year in St. Petersburg. Power then won the
second race at Alabama. (Those may be really brief recaps but not a lot
happened in those races).
Things got interesting at
the third race of the season in Long Beach. Chevrolet changed one of the parts
in their engines and as a penalty, every driver that uses a Chevrolet had to
start 10 spots back from their qualifying spot. Not only did this damper
anybody’s spirits, it may have been used as a motivational tool. Ryan
Hunter-Reay set a new track record in qualifying and Will Power won the race
after starting 12th.
In a completely unrelated
note, Dario Franchitti showed his true colors at Long Beach when he ran rookie
driver Josef Newgarden into the wall on the first turn of the first lap.
Newgarden started second and was alongside Franchitti going into the first
turn. Franchitti left Newgarden little room to make it through the turn and the
only viable option for Newgarden was to concede the position. However, he
didn’t, and clipped the right side of Franchitti and ran into the wall. You
could consider it a rookie mistake on Newgarden’s part. He should have realized
that it was a long race and he would have more chances to pass. Franchitti
could have also realized that you should give more room on the first lap.
The fourth race of the
season was in Sao Paolo and was again dominated by Will Power. This race
highlighted one of the most confusing and idiotic moves made by IndyCar
officials in the offseason. The geniuses that run the league decided that
double-file restarts would only be utilized on road/street courses. The oval
races on the IndyCar schedule are wide and have room for at least two lanes of
traffic. Instead of keeping the ultra-exciting double-file restarts on those
big tracks, they get rid of them. Even more dumbfounding was that they kept the
double-file restarts on the street/road courses. Those tracks are not meant to
allow two-wide racing or any kind of passing, yet this is where they allowed
the double file restarts. If you watched the Sao Paolo race you saw that one
caution brought out another caution which brought out another caution, all
because everybody wants to drive 150 M.P.H. into Turn 1. Needless to say, it
creates one huge snafu.
2012 IndyCar Standings:
1- Will Power
2- Helio Castroneves
3- James Hinchcliffe
4- Ryan Hunter-Reay
5- Simon Pagenaud
6- Scott Dixon
7- Takuma Sato
8- Ryan Briscoe
9- JR Hildebrand
10- Dario Franchitti
11- Rubens Barrichello
12- Graham Rahal
13- EJ Viso
14- Tony Kanaan
15- Charlie Kimball
16- Oriol Servia
17- Justin Wilson
18- Mike Conway
19- Marco Andretti
20- Sebastien Bourdais
21- James Jakes
22- Josef Newgarden
23- Ed Carpenter
24- Simona de Silvestro
25- Katherine Legge
26- Alex Tagliani
27- Ana Beatriz
Proving once again how powerful the Chevrolets have been this year, the highest
place Honda race car is represented by rookie Simon Pagenaud in 5th
place. Andretti Autosports teammates Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe have been good
so far and should be considered good picks to win the 500. Franchitti has had
been in position to win races but has had a lot of good luck in 2012. He has
won three IndyCar championships so don’t count him out of the points race until
he’s officially out. The former Formula 1 driver, Rubens Barrichello, seems to
have gotten a good handle on the new IndyCar’s and is consistently running in
the Top 15. It will be interesting to see how he does at Indy. I’d love to know
the last time he raced on an oval.
This is just the first article of many I will post in the next couple of weeks
concerning IndyCar and the Indy 500. I just wanted to let everybody know what’s
gone down in the IndyCar Season so far and how it could influence what happens
on May 27th. Look for a preview of this weekend’s track activity and
about how you can see me on ESPN!
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