Racing three, four and sometimes five-wide for the lead, the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers put on a show at Auto Club Speedway in Saturday afternoon. In the end, Graham Rahal got to take his first trip to victory lane since winning in his rookie season at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
“Our weakness has been these ovals and I said to these guys this morning that these next three races would define our year,” he commented. “I knew yesterday that the car was good in race trim but qualifying we couldn’t find speed. I can’t thank my guys enough for believing me. You don’t know how good this feels – it’s been so long coming.”
The day wasn’t smooth for Rahal as starting deep in the field, he had to make his way to front. Then once he got to the front, he would have a fueling issue on pit road at lap 188 as the fuel man tried to insert for a second time, with Rahal pulling away and taking the insertion point with him.
“I knew my car was really good,” Rahal comments. “It wasn’t quickest out front – frankly, struggled out front – but those last couple laps hung on the bottom line and stayed out there .it’s all these guys. I couldn’t be more honored to have a group like this behind me.”
Restarting near the back of the field, Rahal made his way back to the front, taking the lead with nine to go as the caution flew for an incident between Will Power and Takuma Sato. Sato would get a little sideways, bouncing off of Scott Dixon, before taking Power with him into the outside wall.
“I was hearing three-wide from spotter…and I held there and Dixie just kept coming up and up, and then I became ping pong ball and we tangled,” Sato commented.
The restart would come with three laps to go and immediately, Rahal would have both Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan to his outside. Kanaan was able to stay alongside and the pair battle for the lead till the caution flew shortly after the white flag for an incident involving Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Sage Karam would come down, getting into Hunter-Reay, resulting in Hunter-Reay taking Briscoe to the grass with him. Briscoe would fly up in the air, before coming down hard in the grass. Both drivers would be uninjured.
“I wasn’t expecting Montoya coming up – obviously he had a lane there,” Hunter-Reay commented. “He came up and clipped the front of the car. It was pack racing, it was crazy up there. I didn’t have anywhere to go – I’m just glad Ryan is okay. That was nasty out there. It was looking like a good finish for the DHL car today and we’ll look to do that at Milwaukee.”
“I think she’s more distraught than any of us. I’m just thankful that I’m okay,” Briscoe said. “Nobody made that happen intentionally – the racing was close all day and unfortunately, something bad happened and we all are okay. I wish it didn’t. Starting second on the restart and having a shot to win, this isn’t the way we wanted to go out. it would’ve been nice to bring a strong result home.”
The resulting caution handed Rahal the victory, while Kanaan had to settle for second after battling for the lead all-day. Kanaan felt that he was out front at the end, but was more frustrated at day’s end with the racing as he did not like the pack racing.
“It’s a new package so we keep guessing and guessed on the wrong side,” he said. “It was a good race for the fans, but I get critized a lot but people aren’t in the racecar to see going 200 mph doing this. It’s stressful and makes you think if you want to keep doing this. Hopefully we get together and come up with a better solution.”
Kanaan wasn’t the only driver frustrated, as Team Penske executive Tim Cindric and driver Will Power expressed their frustration with the package post-race, as well. Marco Andretti, who rounded out the podium, admitted that the race was crazy but admits that it’s a form of racing that he likes.
“It’s definitely crazy – pack racing is always like that,” he said. “You’ve got guys that don’t want to back off and guys going forward, going inside and outside. I personally like it. It’s extremely dangerous – but that’s what I signed up for as a driver.”
Points leader Juan Pablo Montoya finished fourth, extending his points to 46 points ahead of Power.
“Honestly, I felt it was a little too stupid,” Montoya said of the racing. “When I saw Indycar yesterday, I told them that we shouldn’t be racing like this and sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt. But we had a good car and I did what I could do out there.”
Rookie Sage Karam would round out the top-five for his best career Verizon IndyCar Series finish, followed by Scott Dixon, James Jakes, Charlie Kimball, Simon Pagenaud and Jack Hawksworth.
“The car was quick all day and to be mixing it up at front with the season that we’ve been having, it felt good and that’s the confidence that I need to go to these races going forward,” Karam commented.
Championship contender Helio Castroneves didn’t have the day that he wanted after leading a bunch of laps early as he would get wrecked out at lap 136. Running three-wide, Briscoe would come up and make contact with Castroneves, resulting in Castroneves spinning and making contact with the backstretch wall.
“Unfortunately, Rahal was coming after me and squeezed me on the top,” Castroneves said. “I was like, ‘What are you thinking’ You don’t need to be squeezing me like that?’ It put me in a position that I didn’t want to be up there and I backed off a little. They all just closed up like that and Briscoe got into me a little – I don’t know why he had to get into me there.”
It also wasn’t the day that CFH Racing was looking for after finishing 1-2 in the Honda Indy Toronto as Ed Carpenter would start sliding up the track with a loose car, making contact with Josef Newgarden and taking him to the outside wall with him.
“I got into three with a pack of cars and didn’t really want to get in the second lane but got shoved down there,” Carpenter said. “There are just guys racing like crazy on these restarts. I would’ve left more room there if I knew someone was coming. It’s pretty unfortunately. Not much worse than getting in the a crash and taking out of my teammate.”
“It’s racing,” Newgarden commented. “The only reason we got together was because we were next to each other at that moment. I could’ve lifted, too, but I had a full head of steam and didn’t want to get out of it.”
