IRL IndyCar Series
 Round
02: Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
Rahal Breaks Records with St. Petersburg Victory
Second-generation IndyCar racer Graham Rahal became the youngest
race winner in the history of North American open-wheel racing,
and just the fourth IndyCar driver to win in his series debut
Sunday in an action-filled Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
To score the win, the 19-year-old son of 1986 Indianapolis
500 winner Bobby Rahal had to recover from a mid-race spin
– resulting from a tap from Will Power on a Lap 37 restart–
and hold off determined advances from Team Penske driver Helio
Castroneves, who was seeking his third consecutive St. Petersburg
victory, over the final dozen laps.
The fourth-annual Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg started
under caution, as a heavy rain shower just minutes before
the scheduled green flag left standing water around much of
the 1.8-mile temporary circuit. The race went green after
10 caution laps, but track conditions remained changeable
throughout the two-hour timed event, as teams switched from
deeply-grooved rain tires to racing slicks.
Once racing got underway, pole qualifier Tony Kanaan took
the early lead, but a decision to pit under caution on Lap
17 backfired for both Kanaan and third-running Castroneves,
as most of the field elected to stay on track and the early
leaders emerged in 11th and 14th places, respectively. They
would spend the remainder of the day fighting their way to
the front, with Castoneves emerging as Rahal’s final
challenger and finishing second, and Kanaan finishing third
for the third consecutive year.
As for Rahal, the spin dropped him from third to 23rd, but
the Newman Haas Lanigan driver worked his way through the
field, and pit strategy allowed him to stay on track during
a caution period on Lap 57. He restarted second behind Ryan
Hunter Reay, who drives for the senior Rahal’s Rahal
Letterman Racing team, and passed for a lead he would not
relinquish on Lap 65.
Following the lead trio, former Champ Car drivers Ernesto
Viso and Enrique Bernoldi rounded out the top five –as
“transition” drivers and teams claimed five of
the top 10 finishing positions –while Japanese rookie
Hideki Mutoh gained two positions on the final lap to round
out the top six finishers.
The 2008 IndyCar Series now heads to Japan for the April
19 Firestone Indy 300 at Honda’s Twin Ring Motegi Circuit,
and the concurrent Champ Car “finale” April 20
at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Graham Rahal(#06 Newman Haas Lanigan Racing Honda) Started
9th, finished 1st, his first IndyCar Series victory; fourth
driver in series history to win in his debut race, youngest
winner in IndyCar Series history at 19 years, 93 days:
“It was a tough start for us, the spin after the tap
from Will [Power] put us really back. But the team never gave
up and I had a great car. From that point on everything worked
perfectly. I knew we had the pace to pull away from the field
if I could get to the front, and the team made great calls
from the pits. At the end, I knew Helio [Castroneves] was
right there, but if I kept calm we could pull away again.
Everything just worked out so well, this is awesome!”
Helio Castroneves(#3 Team Penske Honda) Started 4th,
finished 2nd, won here in 2006 and ’07, takes the early
season championship points lead:
“It was tough. It was so difficult at the start, I couldn’t
see anything and there were a lot of puddles. The officials
definitely made the right call to start under caution until
the
conditions improved. On our pit strategy, I followed [leader]
Tony [Kanaan] into the pits [under caution on Lap 17] but
no one else did! That put us in the back and I have to say
that everyone took good care of each other out there. There
was a lot of ‘give and take’, even while we fought
for positions. Of course you want to win, but second gives
us the points lead and our goal is the championship, so that’s
good enough today.”
Erik Berkman(President, Honda Performance Development)
on today’s race:
“Congratulations to Graham Rahal and the entire Newman
Haas Lanigan Racing team. It was an outstanding performance
for this young man and his team to win in his first IndyCar
Series start, and just his 15thmajor-league open-wheel race.
I think we witnessed the birth of a new racing star today,
and the first of his many victories to come. The changing
weather conditions certainly made this an exciting event and
it appeared that all of the fans braved the weather to watch
a great race.”
IRL IndyCar Series
Round 02: St. Petersburg
1 Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan)
2 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske)
3 Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing)
4 Ernesto Viso (HVM Racing)
5 Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing)
6 Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green Racing)
7 Oriol Servia (KV Racing Technologies)
8 Will Power (KV Racing Technologies)
9 Justin Wilson (Newman Haas Lanigan)
10 Danica Patrick (Andretti Green Racing)
11 A.J. Foyt IV (Vision Racing)
12 Dan Wheldon (Target Chip Ganassi)
13 Darren Manning (A.J. Foyt Racing)
14 Jay Howard (Roth Racing )
15 Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold)
16 Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing)
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing)
18 Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing)
19 Vitor Meira (Panther Racing)
20 Franck Perera (Conquest Racing)
21 Townsend Bell (Dreyer & Reinbold)
22 Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi)
23 Ryan Briscoe (Team Penske)
24 Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing)
25 Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing)
26 Marty Roth (Roth Racing)
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