IRL IndyCar Series Round 10: Watkins Glen International,
Watkins Glen
Hunter-Reay Scores Popular First Win at Watkins
Glen
 Opportunistic
passes, avoiding the mistakes of others and a strong sprint
to the finish netted Ryan Hunter-Reay his first IndyCar Series
victory Sunday at Watkins Glen International Raceway. In doing
so, the Florida native became the first driver other than
Scott Dixon to win in four IndyCar races at the historic 3.37-mile
road course in upstate New York.
Hunter-Reay started third, moving up to second by passing
outside front-row starting Justin Wilson on the opening lap.
During the middle portion of the race, Hunter-Reay joined
the group running on a two pitstop strategy, while the rest
of the field elected to make three stops. As a result, by
Lap 45 of the 60-lap event, Hunter-Reay was running fourth
behind Darren Manning, Dixon and Ryan Briscoe. But he successfully
avoided trouble when Dixon spun while warming his tires in
preparation for a restart, collecting Briscoein the process.
On the restart, Hunter-Reay dived under Manning heading into
the first turn and was never headed, holding off Manning during
one final restart on Lap 54 to win by 2.4 seconds.
It was another typically successful weekend for Honda, engine
supplier for the full IndyCar Series, in the middle of a run
of six consecutive race weekends. A total of 26 Honda-powered
drivers ran 11,009.9 miles of practice, qualifying and racing
this weekend without a single engine-related failure.
Following Hunter-Reay to the finish, Manning ran second in
the best IndyCar result for A.J. Foyt Racing since Airton
Dare won in Kansas on July 7, 2002. Tony Kanaan ignored pain
from a broken left wrist – suffered when suspension
failure led to a crash during race-morning warmup session
– to round out the podium finishers. Buddy Rice held
off several late-race passing attempts by Marco Andretti to
finish fourth, his best result of 2008. Dale Coyne Racing’s
Bruno Junqueria and Mario Moraes continued the trend, finishing
sixth and seventh, respectively, in their best finishes this
year.
For two-thirds of the day, the race was “clean and
green” with just a single caution flag, a two-lap yellow
when Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves briefly encountered
gearbox problems that would blunt his efforts today. But from
lap 40 on, the race was interrupted no less than five times,
causing 14 of the final 20 laps to be run under caution for
various spins and collisions, all without injury to the drivers
involved.
In addition to the Dixon-Briscoe collision, A.J. Foyt IV
was eliminated in a similar accident with Milka Duno under
caution on Lap 48. Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira led
four laps, but was bounced into the Turn 7 barrier following
contact with rookie E.J. Viso on Lap 40. Enrique Bernoldi
crashed in Turn One on Lap 45, and his Conquest Racing teammate
Jaime Camara crashed out on Lap 52 for the final caution.
Next week, the IndyCar Series returns to oval track racing
for the Saturday night, July 12, Firestone Indy 200 on the
concrete-paved 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway.
Ryan Hunter-Reay(#17 Rahal LettermanRacing Honda)
Started 3rd, finished 1st, 1st career IndyCar victory, also
has 2 Champ Car victories:
“I’m so happy I can’t even tell you. We
were pushing so hard, I was driving my rear end off there
at the end. The car was great, I have to give it to the team.
These guys perform flawlessly. week-in and week-out. This
is a huge win. I’m an American kid; we’ve got
Ethanol on the car and Izod on the car, and to win on the
Fourth of July doesn’t get any better than that.”
Darren Manning(#14 A.J. Foyt Racing Honda) Started
8th, finished 2nd, best finish of 2008, first laps led in
2008:
“This is a great result, and something that we really
needed after the last couple of races. It’s great to
finally get back to the road courses again. I tried everything
I could to hold off Ryan [Hunter-Reay] and get a win for A.J.
[Foyt], but they were just too strong for us today. But I
think we were the next best car out there in the closing laps
and it’s just a fantastic, fantastic day.”
Tony Kanaan (#11 Andretti Green Racing Honda) Started
6th, finished 3rd, raced with a hairline fracture of the left
wrist sustained in a crash during pre-race practice:
“I’m not tired, but I am in pain. My arm’s
in pretty tough shape right now but this was a good result
in the championship. We made up a lot of ground on everyone
who’s ahead of us in the points, so we did what we needed
to do. It’s good that I can rest my arm for a day or
two now, but Nashville’s next week and that will be
a tough race, too.”
Erik Berkman(President, Honda Performance Development)
on today’s race:
“Congratulations to Ryan [Hunter-Reay], Bobby Rahal,
David Letterman and the Rahal Letterman team. It’s great
for the series for an American driver to score his first IndyCar
victory on the Independence Day weekend – and he beat
an Englishman [Darren Manning] to do it! Thanks also to the
associates at Honda Performance Development and our technical
partner Ilmor for another flawless weekend for the Honda Indy
V-8. We’re in the middle of a tough stretch of six consecutive
race weekends, and so far every thing is going perfectly for
us.”
IRL IndyCar Series
Round 10: Watkins Glen International, Watkins Glen
1 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing)
2 Darren Manning (A.J. Foyt Racing)
3 Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing)
4 Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing)
5 Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing)
6 Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing)
7 Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing)
8 Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan)
9 Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green Racing)
10 Ernesto Viso (HVM Racing)
11 Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi)
12 Ryan Briscoe (Team Penske)
13 Mario Dominguez (Pacific Coast Motorsports)
14 Danica Patrick (Andretti Green Racing)
15 Will Power (KV Racing Technologies)
16 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske)
17 Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing)
18 Jaime Camara (Conquest Racing)
19 A.J. Foyt IV (Vision Racing)
20 Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing)
21 Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing)
22 Vitor Meira (Panther Racing)
23 Oriol Servia (KV Racing Technologies)
24 Dan Wheldon (Target Chip Ganassi)
25 Justin Wilson (Newman Haas Lanigan)
26 Jay Howard (Roth Racing)
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