INDYCAR NEWS AND NOTES - April 8, 2013
Today's IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights and Mazda Road to Indy headlines:
1. Castroneves aims to maintain consistency, points lead
2. Inside the numbers - Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
3. Tire test gives drivers first look at Pocono
4. More races adds more travel to Bia's schedule
1. Castroneves aims to maintain consistency, points lead: Helio Castroneves has been in this spot before. In fact, he occupies the same position in the standings as he did this time last year.
Podium finishes by the driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet have delivered the IZOD IndyCar Series championship points lead. It might be only two events into the 19-race season, but such consistency will certainly keep the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner in the title hunt.
Castroneves finished third in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama on April 7. Paired with a runner-up finish at St. Petersburg, he holds a nine-point lead over Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon heading into the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 21.
"You have to take as it comes," said Castroneves, who broke a tie for 10th on the all-time Indy car list with Tony Kanaan and Gordon Johncock with his 108th top-five finish. "You have to enjoy the moment, but work for it. Those points are very valuable if you are thinking about the long term. Last year the championship was lost by three points.
"We are going for Long Beach with good points in the bag, but we are looking for our opportunity to win a race. We have to keep putting ourselves in those opportunities and the win is going to come. With that, I'm going to add more points. So you got to take as it comes."
He'll gladly take all the points available in searching for his first series title, which is what Ryan Hunter-Reay did in the 90-lap race on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn Barber Motorsports road course. The Andretti Autosport driver, who kicked off defense of his series title with an 18th-place (mechanical) finish at St. Petersburg, earned the Verizon P1 Award and went on to win the race by .6363 of a second over Dixon.
He accumulated four bonus points - 1 for the pole, 2 for leading the most laps and 1 for leading a lap - for a total of 54, which vaulted him into third in the standings. After two races in 2012, Hunter-Reay had totaled 53 points.
"I felt like coming into Barber this was going to be the start of our season," said Hunter-Reay, who won four times last season and secured the title by three points over Team Penske's Will Power. "We had a big hole to dig out of from St. Pete. We pulled a win. That's a new feat for us at Andretti Autosport.
"Several times in the offseason I said our biggest weaknesses were the permanent road courses like Barber and Sonoma, and the big superspeedways like Texas and Fontana. The guys gave me a great car.
"(This result) really shows that we're a threat every weekend. That's what we need to be to win championships is be a threat every weekend. I have a good feeling we will be at Long Beach, Sao Paulo, and Indy, too. We're getting more work done early in the season than last year. Last year we started going on our hot streak much later in the season. So, hopefully, this is a sign of things to come."
2. Inside the numbers - Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama: Some numbers to note from the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, the second race of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season.
1 - Winning car number of Ryan Hunter-Reay. The last win by a car carrying No. 1 was by Sebastien Bourdais in 2007 at Mexico City.
2 - Consecutive Firestone Indy Lights wins by Andretti Autosport at Barber Motorsports Park.
4 - Drivers to finish in the top 10 in the first two IZOD Indy Car Series races: Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Marco Andretti and Justin Wilson. … Consecutive second-place finishes by Scott Dixon at Barber.
10 - Indy car wins for Ryan Hunter-Reay.
13 -- Positions improved by Josef Newgarden, the most positions gained by any driver. Newgarden finished ninth - his first top-10 finish in the IZOD IndyCar Series.
15 - Positions gained by Ryan Hunter-Reay in the standings after his win, the biggest jump by any driver.
67 - Laps led by Castroneves in 2013, which accounts for 33.5 percent of the laps, so far.
100 - Top-five finishes for Dixon in his Indy car career.
198 - Consecutive Indy car starts for Tony Kanaan dating to the 2001 CART race in Portland. Kanaan is second to Jimmy Vasser's 211 straight starts.
3. Tire test gives drivers first look at Pocono: Marco Andretti was a toddler the last time an Indy car turned a lap in competition at Pocono Raceway.
On April 10, the third-generation racer will get the opportunity to turn a high-speed lap on the "Tricky Triangle" as one of four drivers participating in a Firestone Racing conducts a tire evaluation test in advance of the July 7 IZOD IndyCar Series race.
Four-time IZOD IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti of Target Chip Ganassi Racing, 2012 Sunoco Rookie of the Year Simon Pagenaud of Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports and three-time series championship runner-up Will Power of Team Penske will join Andretti of Andretti Autosport during the test, which is open to the public.
Firestone engineers will use the Indianapolis 500 tire specification as a baseline and then test a number of compound and construction alternatives. Driver feedback, race team engineer input and tire performance data collected from the test will all be evaluated to determine the best tire specification to develop for the race weekend.
The aerodynamic specification of mandatory and optional elements used at Indianapolis and Auto Club Speedway will be utilized. The track lap record is 211.715 mph set in 1989.
"We'll get the driver reaction, see the tire wear, look at the speed traces and decide whether it's the correct direction (with the aero package)," INDYCAR vice president of technology Will Phillips said.
Franchitti is the only driver of the foursome to have perspective of the tri-oval, having competed on the track in a stock car in 2008.
"I think it will be a very fun place to drive an Indy car," Franchitti said. "They resurfaced it and put catch fending up (since he raced there) and I think it will be an amazing race for our cars."
4. More races adds more travel to Bia's schedule: Adding races at Barber Motorsports Park and streets of Long Beach to her racing schedule means Ana Beatriz will be spending a lot of time on airplanes.
The Dale Coyne Racing driver returned to her native Brazil following the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama to attend a wedding during the off weekend and will return to the United States for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach the following week.
"It's a lot of travel, but at least I'll get some (frequent flier) miles," Beatriz said.
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The 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season continues with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 21 on the streets of Long Beach, Calif. The race will be televised live at 4 p.m. (ET) by the NBC Sports Network (Verizon FiOS 90/590, DirecTV 220, DISH 159 and AT&T UVerse 640) and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network, including on Sirius and XM Channels 211 and
www.indycar.com. The next Firestone Indy Lights race is the Long Beach 100 on April 21 on the streets of Long Beach, Calif. The race will be broadcast by NBC Sports Network at 3 p.m. (ET) on April 7, immediately preceding the IZOD IndyCar Series race broadcast.
Media Contact: Amy Konrath, INDYCAR, 317-331-7437, akonrath@indycar.com
Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=17253.msg107083#msg107083
