Race Report: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
LONG BEACH, CA April 18, 2010—Vitor Meira drove the ABC Supply car to an
11th place finish in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Sunday afternoon under
perfect racing conditions in the southern California port city.
Meira, who started 14th for his best start of the year to date, drove a hard
race as the pace was fast and nearly caution-free. There was one five-lap
caution period triggered by a crash between Graham Rahal and Mario Romancini on
lap 59 of the 85-lap race. That caution played into the hands of two drivers who
finished ahead of Meira because they did not run out of fuel until the cool down
lap after taking the checkered: Justin Wilson finished second and Dan Wheldon
finished ninth.
“I thought it was a fair result for ABC Supply and AJ Foyt Racing,” Meira said
afterwards. “As competitive as the IndyCar Series is and having an almost
top-10, it was a fair result for the team. Nobody dropped out and it was green
almost all the way so this result, there was nothing artificial about it, like a
good strategy or getting luck on situations, this is a true result.”
Meira’s pit stops were flawless as he picked up a position on both stops.
However, the lone yellow worked against him as he had to slow on course which
allowed Mike Conway to slip out of the pits ahead of him into the tenth
position.
After the race on the cool down lap, Meira radioed in, “Good stops guys! Thank
you.” It is a sentiment which team owner A.J. Foyt seconded.
Meira started the race on the red-rimmed alternate Firestone tires, as did 22 of
the 25-car field. He ran them without incident until his first pit stop on lap
27 when the team switched him to the black primary tires. They slapped on
another set of primaries on the second stop 30 laps later.
Meira said the race was the most physically demanding of the season.
“It was a pretty hard race,” he said. “Racing Long Beach, as rubbered as the
track was, the steering was pretty heavy and there were not very many
yellows--actually there was one yellow, period. So it was a very tough race. We
had maybe four laps of yellow and the rest all green and not easy green, it was
hard green with pressure everywhere. That’s why I say it was a true and fair
result for us, nothing artificial about it.”
Meira did have a little Race Day fortune. After the morning warm-up the team
discovered that the fuel pump had frozen, triggered when the car ran out of fuel
in the final minutes of practice. The discovery was made when they attempted to
restart it around 10:30 a.m. Diagnosing the problem quickly with the Honda
engineers, the team had to change the fuel pump which required pulling the
engine. They were able to do so in about 90 minutes which was fortunate because
it was a tight schedule with the race set to start at 1:15pm. The car made it to
the grid with time to spare.
Ryan Hunter-Reay snapped Team Penske’s win streak by posting his second career
IndyCar Series victory from his outside pole position. Hunter-Reay swept past
Will Power when the pole winner's car got stuck in first gear causing him to
slow and lose the lead on lap 17. Hunter-Reay posted the first win for Andretti
Autosport. He was followed across the line by Justin Wilson, Power, Scott Dixon
and teammate Tony Kanaan.
Meira’s 11th place finish saw him slip to 11th in the point standings as ninth
place finisher Wheldon advanced past him into 10th by a margin of two points.
The IZOD IndyCar Series resumes action in two weeks at Kansas Speedway. The Road
Runner Turbo Indy 300 race will be televised live on ABC-TV starting at 1:30pm
ET.
Meira To Start 14th in No. 14 ABC Supply at Long Beach
LONG BEACH, Calif. April 17, 2010—Vitor Meira will start 14th in the
Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach tomorrow afternoon. It will be his best start of
the year.
“It’s bittersweet – it is our best qualifying run so far but it’s still not
where we want to be,” said Meira. “But at least we can be on the same strategy
as the leaders and the ABC Supply car is very good on the long run so I’m very
encouraged for the race.”
Meira posted his best lap of the weekend in qualifying with a time of 1:10.4259
for a speed of 100.599mph.
Will Power won his fourth straight pole with a speed of 102.206mph. All three
Team Penske cars were in the top six with Helio Castroneves (101.433mph) and
Ryan Briscoe (101.175mph) starting fourth and fifth. Ryan Hunter-Reay will start
outside pole with a speed of 101.573mph and his teammate Tony Kanaan will start
sixth with a speed of 100.978mph. Justin Wilson will start third with a speed of
101.510mph.
Practice Report: Friday, April 16, 2010
In the first day of practice for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Vitor
Meira was 18th on the speed chart with a best time of 1:11.98 for a speed of
98.426mph around the 1.968 mile street circuit through downtown Long Beach.
Despite that he was nearly two miles per hour off the top speed of 100.302 set
by Ryan Hunter-Reay, Meira was optimistic about qualifying tomorrow.
“Today was good,” Meira said after practice ended for the day. “Our strategy on
waiting to put tires on in the last 10 minutes of practice didn’t work because
we got a yellow in the middle of it so we never got a hot lap in, but the
importance of today is making sure we have a good car and we do. The ABC car
unloaded very good and we just tweaked on it. Even though we’re not top 10 on
the timesheet, I think we’re there car-wise and in what I’m feeling. It might
not translate for the sheet right now, but on the track the car’s very
comfortable, very good. We have to be there on the timesheet tomorrow—qualifying
is what time you put in no matter what, but I’m confident we’ll do that.”
Rounding out the top five on the speed charts were Ryan Briscoe (100.212mph),
Tony Kanaan (100.162mph), Alex Tagliani (100.068mph) and Will Power (99.977mph).
All of the drivers in the top 10 have competed on the Long Beach street circuit
before last year’s inaugural event for the merged IndyCar Series.
The teams have one more practice session tomorrow morning beginning at 10:25am
PT before the afternoon qualifying session starting at 2:30pm PT.
Notes & Quotes: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
• Expectations for Long Beach: “I expect to bounce back from our weekend
in Alabama and gain some points. Long Beach is similar to Barber in that it’s
hard to pass on the track because it’s so narrow so qualifying is again very
important.”
• Reflections after the Barber Motorsports Park race: “The weakness right
now, which is my weakness and the team’s weakness because we’re in it together,
is qualifying. Once we qualify better, I think it’s going to make the whole
weekend easier. We’ll start up front and it won’t be necessary to risk on
strategy, everything else will be better and it will all fall into place. We’ve
been risking on strategy not because we want to, but because we felt we needed
to in order to get a better result and it didn’t work out for us.”
• On back-to-back races: “It’s definitely tougher. Yesterday I was
feeling a little bit tired, not sore here or there, just overall tired. It
happens after most of the weekends but this week you don’t have a lot of time to
recuperate. Wednesday night I will be traveling already to Long Beach. I’m sure
it’s tough on the crew too. Because they have to turn the car around and prepare
it in a day. But if I have to take one good thing out of it, it’s this: after a
bad weekend, you don’t have to think about it for two weeks! Next week you can
bounce back and forget all about the bad weekend. That’s my positive thinking
here!”
• ABC Supply roofing customer, Hunters Roofing, of Northridge, CA won the
‘Your Name Here’ contest for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The company
name will be atop the sidepods of the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda. Doug and
Tracy Hunter will receive selected merchandise, race tickets, hospitality and
garage passes, plus a Meet and Greet with Vitor Meira. The “Your Name Here”
promotion selected winners by random drawing from a pool of entries sent in by
ABC Supply customers earlier this year.
• Last year at Long Beach: Meira qualified 20th, ran as high as 11th and
was credited with 14th. He slid into a tire barrier on the final lap which
capped a disappointing weekend in his first ever visit to the street circuit.
• Following this year’s Grand Prix, Meira and 10 other drivers will be
visiting the folks at Honda Performance Development in Santa Clarita and
American Honda in Torrance. The day includes autograph sessions at both places
plus lunch with senior executives. During the season, the drivers make several
appearances for Honda, the official engine supplier to the IZOD IndyCar Series.
• The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will be televised live April 18th,
Sunday afternoon starting at 3:30pm Eastern time on Versus (VS).
• For more information, please check our web site: www.ajfoytracing.com.
We also have a Facebook page and a Twitter page, search for: ajfoytracing.
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