IndyCar 2012

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:14

Flibster said:
Justin Wilson going really slowly.

Poor guy never catches a break when he's doing well.

Still Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, Pagenaud at the front. RHR improving his lead by a few tenths a lap.

Edit: Apparently Wilson hit something and terminally damaged the car. Confirmed to be suspension failure from scraping the wall.

Will Power's car damage was from colliding with Josef Newgarden. Tagliani having a terrible race after qualifying 6th, he's only in front of Power and Ernesto Viso who have had 2 extra pitstops each.

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:21

"Diabetes" (aka Charlie Kimball) taking second from nowhere. :eek:

More than three seconds faster than Kanaan and Pagenaud on the last lap.

Mike Conway has now improved to 9th. Kanaan falling back very quickly.

Josef Newgarden crashes into the wall. Sarah Fisher audibly unimpressed with her driver.

Flibster · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:28

I was wondering how many times they need to mention his diabetes... but it's just like mentioning the tyre rule in F1... every race... over and over...

Blocking? Maybe a little. Newgarden's overambition? Perhaps a bit more.

Flibster · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:29

Nice to see Bourdais up the front too, shows how bad the Lotus engine was.

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:30

Flibster said:
I was wondering how many times they need to mention his diabetes... but it's just like mentioning the tyre rule in F1... every race... over and over...

Well, for once he's justifying the coverage.

Flibster said:
Blocking? Maybe a little. Newgarden's overambition? Perhaps a bit more.

Yeah, hence the "****" from his team boss. He is a rookie though, he'll learn.

Flibster said:
Nice to see Bourdais up the front too, shows how bad the Lotus engine was.

Other than a 9th in Barber, he's not had much in the way of results even after the engine swap.

Flibster · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:31

Having said that, Bourdais into the wall at the restart.

And it's chaos!

That was what? 7 cars scattered around the first half of the track?

Flibster · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:33

I think Kimball was tagged pushing him towards Bourdais.

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:35

Looks like Hunter-Reay will win another race under caution at this rate. Briscoe in the pits with damage.

Flibster · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:36

Really? Officials looked at all those incidents in 3 minutes and managed to decide they were all racing incidents? Damn thats fast.

That was looking to be a great fight for the last couple of laps, but that was taken away from us.

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 19:38

Well, if the results stand, Ryan Hunter-Reay is now leading the championship after his hat-trick of wins. Unusual podium with Kimball and Conway.

Seems Mike Conway hit the back of Kimball's car before the contact with Bourdais. I think the restart rules need to be tightened up, as it stands the rest of the field is allowed to pass before the start/finish line. Double file is no good either. The restart rules as they stand encourage crashes\over-exuberance.

Flibster, if you really think the series is as bad as GP2, which is full of rich guys that have no experience in high-level formulae (unlike Power, Bourdais etc) and blank cheques...well I'm afraid that's bull. As for the crashes this race, that's about the same number that Valencia had a week or two ago

a shame as 95% of the race was clean until Newgarden brought out the late caution...

Indy500 · 8 Jul 2012 at 20:42

Top ten in the championship standings after Toronto:

1) Ryan Hunter-Reay 335
2) Will Power 301
3) Helio Castroneves 289
4) Scott Dixon 281
5) James Hinchcliffe 268
6) Tony Kanaan 267
7) Simon Pagenaud 264
8) Dario Franchitti 230
9) Ryan Briscoe 217
10) Oriol Servia 215

Race highlights:

Post-race interviews with the top 3:

Results:

1) Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:33:26.5096
2) Charlie Kimball 85 laps
3) Mike Conway
4) Tony Kanaan
5) Oriol Servia
6) Helio Castroneves
7) John Hildebrand
8) James Jakes
9) Takuma Sato
10) Alex Tagliani
11) Rubens Barrichello
12) Simon Pagenaud
13) Josef Newgarden 84 laps
14) Sebastian Bourdais
15) Will Power
16) Marco Andretti
17) Dario Franchitti
18) Ed Carpenter
19) Ryan Briscoe
20) Ernesto Viso 81 laps
21) Justin Wilson Contact
22) James Hinchcliffe Mechanical
23) Graham Rahal Contact
24) Simona de Silvestro Mechanical
25) Scott Dixon Mechanical

Guerrilla · 9 Jul 2012 at 19:12

Managed to catch up tonight... Luckily the recording of the rerun was alright

Was getting ready to type how it was a race with very little in the way of incidents, and then the last few laps happened

Felt sorry for Wilson he was having a good run, same for Bourdais, was on course for a decent finish after that restart.

Good to see that one remaining Lotus car proving to be a contender... feel real bad for Simona now, she can't look forward to racing at the moment, even when the car does run it's dog slow.

I suppose if nothing else the last few results have certainly shaken the championship up more!

Indy500 · 9 Jul 2012 at 20:29

Guerrilla said:
Managed to catch up tonight... Luckily the recording of the rerun was alright

Was getting ready to type how it was a race with very little in the way of incidents, and then the last few laps happened

The penalties were a bit off as well, Pagenaud got a drive-through for the Newgarden kamikaze...but Franchitti and Conway weren't penalised for the lap 82 pileup. Still, Hunter-Reay and Kimball deserved their first and second place. Now if the commentators would just shut up about his diabetes

Penske didn't call Will Power in early enough before the first caution, and left him stuck in the midfield for most of the race (then losing the front wing pretty much ended his race).

Guerrilla said:
Good to see that one remaining Lotus car proving to be a contender... feel real bad for Simona now, she can't look forward to racing at the moment, even when the car does run it's dog slow.

It's unreliable too - 6 mechanical DNFs in the 9 races so far.

Guerrilla said:
I suppose if nothing else the last few results have certainly shaken the championship up more!

RHR's made zero driver errors and had high reliability, thats usually a pre-requisite for a championship challenge

but he's also a lot faster than the several years he's spent in the upper midfield eking out the odd win. If he does take this year's title, he'll be the first American driver to do it since Sam Hornish Jr in 2006.

Guerrilla · 10 Jul 2012 at 10:30

sr4470 said:
Now if the commentators would just shut up about his diabetes

Oh god yes, it's getting a bit ridiculous now

sr4470 said:
It's unreliable too - 6 mechanical DNFs in the 9 races so far.

It's been a total disaster when alls said and done, can't see them being around next season... Or the end of this season even!

sr4470 said:
RHR's made zero driver errors and had high reliability, thats usually a pre-requisite for a championship challenge but he's also a lot faster than the several years he's spent in the upper midfield eking out the odd win. If he does take this year's title, he'll be the first American driver to do it since Sam Hornish Jr in 2006.

It's pretty amazing, Indycar seems so American in some ways, but isn't dominated by Americans, it's quite nice really that it is totally international when it could have ended up quite different.

Indy500 · 10 Jul 2012 at 12:41

Guerrilla said:
It's been a total disaster when alls said and done, can't see them being around next season... Or the end of this season even!

HVM's a joke outfit, de Silvestro needs to drive for a better team or her talent's being utterly wasted. Maybe Chip Ganassi can be persuaded to let go of Graham Rahal from his B-team (he's had mediocre results for 5 seasons now).

Guerrilla said:
It's pretty amazing, Indycar seems so American in some ways, but isn't dominated by Americans, it's quite nice really that it is totally international when it could have ended up quite different.

The days of Rick Mears, Al Unser (senior) and Bobby Rahal are long gone. To be honest though, Nascar's always been the preferred career path for them. The split and the subsequent demise of CART\Champ Car just accelerated that process.

Indy500 · 19 Jul 2012 at 15:51

It's almost time for the next Indycar event at Edmonton. Sky Sports is free to all Sky subscribers this weekend, and Sky Sports 4 will be hosting the IZOD Indycar Series (7pm on Sunday for the race broadcast).

Schedule

Friday, 20th July

10.50-11.50 Indycar practice 1
14.30-15.30 Indycar practice 2

Saturday, 21st July

8.00-8.45 Indy Lights qualifying
9.00-10.00 Indycar practice 3
13.00-14.15 Indycar qualifying
14.30-15.10 Star Mazda race 1
15.32-16.35 Indy Lights race

Sunday, 22nd July

8.00-8.30 Indycar warm-up
9.30-10.15 Star Mazda race 2
10.30-11.45 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race
12.45 Indycar Edmonton race

Times are local to Edmonton (UTC -6 hours)

Track map:

http://www.indycar.com/en/News/2012...7-July/7-18-Edmonton-P2P-Track-Layout-Std.jpg

Drivers' preview:

As a bonus I'll throw in a video about the HANS device (contrary to popular forum belief this was compulsory in CART/Indycar before F1):

Oh, and here's an event promo featuring Simona de Silvestro:

Guerrilla · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:14

Cool

Nice time it's on too, means I have chance to get everything sorted I need to do after the F1 before this starts

Skeeter · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:15

I was hoping to watch this one with the free weekend, but I'm out Sunday night so if the Sky encryption will lock down my recording of the show when the free weekend ends I wont be able to

Indy500 · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:16

Skeeter said:
I was hoping to watch this one with the free weekend, but I'm out Sunday night so if the Sky encryption will lock down my recording of the show when the free weekend ends I wont be able to

I'm sure it'll be around on Youtube or something like that, most of the races are and Indycar has better things to concern themselves with than DMCA takedowns.

Indy500 · 21 Jul 2012 at 21:44

Practice highlights from all three sessions:

Timesheets are at the end of each video. The 2011 pole position time was already improved upon by both Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves. Josef Newgarden (sporting a blue livery for Edmonton) spun off during practice 3.

Full statistics are available at http://www.indycar.com/en/Stats for Indycar, Indy Lights, Star Mazda and US Formula 2000.