Race Report: São Paulo Indy 300
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL March 14, 2010 – “A.J., I want to thank you
for waiting for me,” Vitor Meira radioed in to his team owner A.J.
Foyt after finishing third in the inaugural São Paulo Indy 300
Sunday afternoon. He also congratulated the crew, thanking them and
sponsor ABC Supply during his cool down lap.
Brazil’s first IZOD IndyCar Series race weekend could be described
as controlled chaos as officials battled difficult track conditions
on Saturday which resulted in a Saturday night modification to a
straightaway, a huge crash on the opening lap of the race and then a
torrential downpour along with a loss of power midway through the
race. In each instance, they rebounded quickly and gave Brazilians
and the VERSUS TV audience a memorable season opener.
Particularly troublesome was a stretch of concrete straightaway
leading up to the start/finish line, the one-third-mile Anhembi
Sambodromo frontstretch, which drivers described as driving on ice.
Numerous drivers lost control and hit the wall in practice (although
Meira was not among them). To correct the problem, the promoters
brought in machines Saturday night to grind the concrete surface and
create more grip. League officials changed the schedule and
postponed qualifying until Sunday morning.
Meira’s first race since his spectacular accident in the
Indianapolis 500 in which he sustained two broken vertebrae proved
the Brazilian had not lost confidence nor his skill. He showed the
patience he needed in the streets to capitalize on other drivers’
mistakes.
The first mistake was a big one entering the first corner on the
first lap! A multi-car crash ensued as 24 cars running two abreast
tried to funnel into one lane. As Takumo Sato punted cars in the
front of the pack including Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and his
teammates Will Power and Ryan Briscoe, the chain reaction that
followed saw Mario Moraes drill and then catapult on top of Marco
Andretti’s car. No one was injured. Meira, who started 16th wended
his way through the carnage and emerged in the eighth position when
the dust cleared.
Meira moved into seventh and was maintaining his position before the
first pit stop on lap 22, but a problem on the pitstop proved costly
as he lost five positions, due in part to some teams short-fueling
to gain track position. Meira never lost his cool and when the skies
opened up on lap 30, he was one of the first to duck into the pits
to put on rain tires. He was able to avoid cars that were still on
slicks that were spinning around the course. He was eighth when the
race was red-flagged after 35 laps as officials waited out the
storm.
When the race restarted, Meira was one of the few drivers to pit to
change from the grooved rain tires to slicks, a strategy that paid
off, despite dropping back to 14th. Five laps later, cars were
spinning, but Meira drove past them into fifth. He dropped to sixth
trying to lap Danica Patrick but gained it back the next
straightaway when he powered past Dan Wheldon.
Solidly in fourth due to Ryan Briscoe’s miscue with six laps to go,
Meira pressured Raphael Matos. Following the final restart, he got a
run on Matos and outbraked him going into the hairpin to move into
third with five laps remaining. It was his best finish since placing
second at Indy in 2008.
“I know I wasn’t the fastest car in normal dry conditions but when
the conditions became adverse, our car became alive and we started
to gain positions,” he said in the post race press conference. “I’m
glad it was mixed up the way it was.”
Will Power won the race and Ryan Hunter –Reay, who subbed for Meira
last year, drove a strong race to finish second. Wheldon finished
fourth and Scott Dixon was fifth followed by defending champion and
race pole winner Dario Franchitti.
With the Brazilian flag draped over his uniform, Meira accepted his
beautiful red trophy much to the delight of the partisan crowd.
Summing up his feelings, he said to told pit reporter in the
post-race interview, “They waited 10 months and they believed in me
after four races, so I just have to thank A.J. and the whole ABC
Supply crew. Having experienced it, it’s very hard to have this
happen to a driver. After having a big accident and having a team
waiting on you, and then come back in a big way at home, it doesn’t
get much better than that. I’m very pleased with everybody.”
He’s not the only one as Foyt said, “We had a good race and Vitor
drove a helluva race. I’m really happy for him to be the top
finishing Brazilian driver in his home country. It was a good way to
start the season.”
Indeed!
The ABC Supply team, now third in the point standings, returns to
action in two weeks when they compete in the Honda Grand Prix of St.
Petersburg. That race will be televised on ABC-TV starting at 3:30
pm ET.
São Paulo Indy 300 Experiences a Few Bumps on First Day of
Practice
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL March 13, 2010 – Race drivers had their
hands full trying to control their Indy cars as they took to the
streets practicing for the IZOD IndyCar Series season opener, the
inaugural São Paulo Indy 300 today. Particularly troublesome was a
stretch of concrete straightaway leading up to the start/finish
line, the one-third-mile Anhembi Sambodromo frontstretch. To correct
the problem, track and League officials changed the schedule and
postponed qualifying until Sunday morning, giving the competitors an
extra hour of practice today.
Vitor Meira and the ABC Supply team spent the day figuring out how
to get the power down on the bumpy and slippery street course in
Brazil’s most populous city. A change in the final session proved to
be key in giving Meira the feel he’d been looking for since he
strapped in this morning.
Meira summed up the day saying, “Overall it wasn’t too bad of a day
especially since we found something in that last practice session
which really helped the car get the power down. We were on older
tires so we knew when we jumped into the top 10, it was due to the
changes we made. We slipped down in the final five minutes of the
session but we have a good starting point for tomorrow’s qualifying.
The track conditions were not ideal today but tonight they are
making changes which will make it better for tomorrow. We are going
to do the same with the ABC Supply car.”
In the combined results of all three sessions, Meira was 16th
fastest with a lap time of 1 minute, 32.65 seconds (98.53 mph) while
quick time was set by Will Power who clocked in at 1:31.29 (or 99.99
mph).
Tonight, machines will grind down the surface of the concrete
straightaway to create more grip. Of course this will have the
adverse effect of wearing the Firestone tires more, so tire
management will be a key factor in tomorrow’s race.
Meira will be wearing a specially painted helmet for this race. It
features the yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag. His
family and many friends will be in attendance for the first IndyCar
race in this city.
There will be a short 15-minute warm-up at 8 a.m. with qualifying
tentatively scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. A driver meeting will
follow qualifying as teams switch the cars over to race set-ups. The
race is scheduled to start on time at 1:00 p.m. VERSUS will
broadcast the 75-lap race starting at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Notes & Quotes: São Paulo Indy 300
• Meira on racing in his home country: “It’s really good to
be racing here in Brazil. I never raced an Indy car or for that
matter a top category car in my home country. The last race I did
here was Formula 3 so it’s really good to race here in a well
recognized series. It is the first huge event that I will do here so
I’m really excited and looking forward to it.”
• Meira on competing on a course for the first time: “I’ve
seen the São Paulo course as much as everyone else has seen—the
simulations online at Indycar.com. So my first time to see it will
be when I get to the race track. It doesn’t compare to anything
really because it’s a street course with very long straights so the
learning curve and adaptation will be huge for this event. It’s
tough but it will be tough for the whole team and for everybody.
It’s a course that will be very different for all of us, and a
course that will be changing throughout the weekend. The course will
be changing through the last lap of the race. It will get rubber
down and then it will get cleaner, but it will be tough for
everybody. Adaptation and educated guesswork will be a big deal this
weekend so we have to be real smart.”
• On dealing with the pressure of racing before family and
friends: “It is what it is, right? I don’t have much of an
option on that. The biggest pressure, it comes from myself. It’s an
important year for me but the whole team. I’m dealing with the
pressure like everyone else, we have to work harder and work smarter
so that’s how I try to face it.”
• Meira on street courses: “Street races are harder on the
cars’ gearboxes because of the bumps and more shifting—there are a
lot of second gear corners. You can do things as a driver like not
use as much rear brake because when you do, you’re locking the rear
wheels which makes it harder on the downshift. And you have to be
careful on upshifting too but in the end, it’s all a balance between
gaining speed or losing time. If you do things like shift earlier
and not right on the edge then you lose time and speed.
• Meira makes his return to IndyCar racing this weekend after
sitting out 13 races following his horrific crash in the 2009
Indianapolis 500 where he sustained two broken vertebrae. Meira
returned to the cockpit of the No. 14 car at Indy at the end of
September to get back in the saddle. He also completed two days of
testing at Barber Motorsports Park last month.
• ABC Supply returns for its sixth year as primary sponsor of
A.J. Foyt’s No. 14 with GAF-ELK signing on for another year on the
car’s engine cover.
• The São Paulo Indy 300 will be televised live Sunday, March
14th, starting at 11:30 am ET on Versus (VS). The race can also be
followed online at www.indycar.com.
• For more information, please check our web site:
www.ajfoytracing.com.
|
