IRL IndyCar Series Round 12: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course,
Mid-Ohio
Team Penske Reigns Supreme at Mid-Ohio
Traditionally a strong team at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course,
with 1-2 finishes in CART races using Honda power in both
2000 and 2001, Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe led teammate
Helio Castroneves to a third Honda-powered victory sweep in
Sunday’s Honda Indy 200.
Starting on the outside of the first row alongside pole-qualifier
Castroneves, Briscoe was the final driver to change over to
dry weather racing slicks after late-morning showers led race
officials to declare the event a “wet” race, requiring
the entire 26-car field to start on treaded “rain”
tires on a damp, but rapidly drying, track. Most of the field
changed over to slicks on the fourth and fifth laps, but Briscoe
didn’t make the swap until Lap 6, dropping him to 15th.
But a decision by team owner Roger Penske to go “off
sequence” on pit stops and stay on track during a Lap
25-29 caution period moved Briscoe back up to fourth, and
fuel conservation during the next stint got the Australian
into the lead and back onto the same pit sequence as the rest
of the field. Dale Coyne Racing’s Bruno Junqueira attempted
a similar strategy, but was forced by low fuel to pit out
of second place with just seven laps remaining. He finished
13th.
The 26-car field recorded 10,874 miles in practice, qualifying
and racing this weekend at Mid-Ohio, again without a single
engine failure for the Honda HI8R Indy V-8 used by all competitors
in the IndyCar Series. As a result of the larger fields following
reunification with the former Champ Car World Series, IndyCar
drivers and teams have run 171,999 miles this season. Thisequals
the total mileage recorded in all of 2007, with five races
remaining in the 2008 championship. There has been just one
recorded failure this year– on the Vision Racing car
of Davey Hamilton during practice for the Indianapolis 500.
Following Junqueira’s late pit stop, Castroneves finished
second for the fifth time this season, making up five championship
points on third-finishing Scott Dixon. KV Racing Technology
teammates Will Power and Oriol Servia completed the top five
finishers. Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira was strong early
in the contest. The Brazilian was one of the first drivers
to pit for dry rubber, at the end of the first lap, and went
on to lead 21 laps in the first half of the race. But he lost
ground during the mid-race pit stops to finish sixth.
Next week, the IndyCar Series concludes this stretch of six
consecutive race weekends with the Saturday, July 26, Rexall
Edmonton Grand Prix, on a 1.973-mile temporary circuit laid
out on the grounds of the City Centre Airport.
Ryan Briscoe(#6 Team Penske Honda) Started 2nd, finished
1st, 2nd IndyCar Series victory of 2008:
“What a great weekend for the team. It couldn’t
get any better. We probably stayed out too long on rain tires
at the start, but what great pit strategy by [team owner]
Roger Penske to get us to the front of the field.”
Scott Dixon(#9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda)
Started 6th, finished 3rd, continues to hold a 58-point lead
in the IndyCar Series drivers’ championship:
"It was kind of a strange race for us, right from the
start there seemed to be no real rhythm to it, for us, anyway.
I think a lot of teams started thinking ‘fuel mileage’
and ‘pit strategy’ right from the start. The car
was good, and the pit stops were great, but we could never
get enough momentum to make a serious run at either Helio
[Castroneves] or Ryan [Briscoe]. But third was great for the
championship, and we’re taking a healthy lead into Canada
next week.”
Will Power (#8 Team Australia/PK Racing Honda) Started
12th, finished 4th, best finish since winning the Grand Prix
of Long Beach in April:
"It seems like we had a lot of traffic to contend with
in this race, but that’s been true on the short ovals,
too! This was a great comeback for the team, as we didn’t
start the weekend with a very quick car, but the team never
gave up and kept making improvements all the time. In the
race, both KV cars were really quick, and that’s why
we both ended up in the top five today.”
IRL IndyCar Series
Round 12: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Mid-Ohio
1 Ryan Briscoe (Team Penske)
2 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske)
3 Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi)
4 Will Power (KV Racing Technologies)
5 Oriol Servia (KV Racing Technologies)
6 Vitor Meira (Panther Racing)
7 Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing)
8 Darren Manning (A.J. Foyt Racing)
9 Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green Racing)
10 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing)
11 Justin Wilson (Newman Haas Lanigan)
12 Danica Patrick (Andretti Green Racing)
13 Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing)
14 Jaime Camara (Conquest Racing)
15 Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing)
16 Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan)
17 Dan Wheldon (Target Chip Ganassi)
18 A.J. Foyt IV (Vision Racing)
19 Mario Dominguez (Pacific Coast Mtrsprts)
20 Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing)
21 Marty Roth (Roth Racing)
22 EJ Viso (HVM Racing)
23 Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing)
24 Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing)
25 Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing)
26 Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing)
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