Mid Ohio Indycar 2016

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is best known to the Indycar nation for its high speeds and many turns.  As Indycars took to the track that so many call Scott Dixon's playground, Graham Rahal looked to defend his 2015 win there.
  As the green flag dropped, Simon Pagenaud, the pole sitter, led the field through the first corner for the sixth time this year.  He took the early lead as he and teammate Will Power pulled away from the field.  Around lap ten, strategy calls were made as teams decided to gamble and come to the pits early.  After pit stops, top contender Scott Dixon had contact with the #3 of Helio Castroneves, and Dixon's day was over.  At the restart, Josef Newgarden got clipped from behind and lost a rear bumper pod (sounds familiar).  He had to come into the pits, and lost a lap, but battled the leader and got back onto the lead lap around halfway through the race.  As strategy started to play out, Mikhail Aleshin took the lead and was driving away from the field.  Rookies Conor Daly, RC Enerson and Spencer Pigot all spent time near the front of the pack.
 As the end of the race neared, Mikhail Aleshin's team sent him out of his pit box and into Josef Newgarden, thus ending Aleshin's hopes at his first Indycar win. 
Simon Pagenaud regained the lead, and teammate Will Power put up a fight, but at the end, Pagenaud took his 4th win of the season.

Top Ten

1. Simon Pagenaud: Back on top for his fourth win of the season.

2. Will Power:  Has not finished lower than second in the past five races!

3. Carlos Munoz:  A great run all day for his second podium of the season.

4. Graham Rahal:  Another strong finish at his home track.
5. James Hinchcliffe:  His seventh Top Ten in 12 races this season.

6. Conor Daly:  Led 22 laps for a total of 56 laps led this season.

7. Spencer Pigot:   The best finish of his young Indycar career.
8. Charlie Kimball:  Ran strong after starting fifth.  His 8th Top Ten this season.

9. Takuma Sato:   A great run till a incident with Bourdais took them both out of the Top Five.
Sorry @TakumaSatoRacer . I just got too close and locked up behind, my bad...

— Sébastien Bourdais (@BourdaisOnTrack) July 31, 2016

 10. Josef Newgarden:  A great run to finish tenth after two incidents that were not his fault, had him fighting from the back all day.

Different Teams: 8 ( Penske, Andretti Autosport, Rahal-Letterman, Schmidt Peterson, Dale Coyne Racing, ECR, Ganassi, A.J. Foyt Racing)

Different Countries: 7 (France, Australia, Brazil, USA (5), Canada, Japan)

 

FUN FACTS

 Average Speed:  110.853 mph

 Time: 1 hour 50 Minutes

2 Cautions for 10 Laps

Lead Changes: 7 among 5 drivers (Mikhail Aleshin, Pagenaud, Daly, Montoya, Power)

Best Lap: 105.728 mph by Helio Castroneves

THOUGHTS:

RC Enerson did a fantastic job all weekend in his first Indycar race.  The nineteen year old got up to speed quickly in practices and racing strong till he unfortunately ran out of fuel.

Huge shoutout to my teammate @RCEnerson , the dude was fast all weekend and made no mistakes. Should be really proud of that #USA #youngguns

— Conor Daly (@ConorDaly22) August 1, 2016

Mikhail Aleshin ran a super race and we really hoped to see him win his first Indycar race.

Kudos to Roger Penske for letting his drivers race out on the track and not giving any team orders.
 

Josef update at Mid-Ohio

Josef had one of the best races of his Indycar career at Mid Ohio.

He qualified 2nd in wet conditions, then went on to stay up front and raced for the lead all day, Battling with the likes of Scott Dixon and Sebastien Bourdais.

Unfortunately (there seems to always been an 'unfortunately' in our Josef posts....) there was an error in the pits on his last pit stop.  A hose was laying in the middle of his pit box and he couldn't avoid hitting it.  He got a drive through penalty that ruined his day.

He finished 12th.

 

 

 

 

Apparently the race results did not dampen Josef's usual fun self or appetite as he hit the Indiana State Fair with Mikhail Aleshin, Simon Pagenaud, Robin Miller and Dave Furst the next night.

 

AND

 

On his off weekend of August 10th Josef took part in and won the Formula F 45th Anniversary Race at Barber Motorsports Park.

 

 

 

Now if he can continue that winning momentum at the Milwaukee Mile this weekend.

 

GP of Indy recap

Lots of action today at the IMS for qualification and practice for the GP of Indy

The top six in quals:

Sebastian Saavadra

Jack Hawksworth

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Simon Pagenuad

Will Power

Scott Dixon

More about it:

* Ryan Hunter-Reay crashed exiting turn 14 that ended his day

* Josef ended up 15th

* Mikhail Aleshin got a penalty for interfering and got bumped out of the top twelve putting Graham Rahal in

 

Had a blast checking out all the views from around the track and can't wait till the race!

 

2014 Indycar Season Begins

The 2014 Verizon Indycar Season
starts this weekend in St. Petersburg, FL!!!
 

 

And as long, cold, snowy and snowy and snowy

as this offseason was, it's hard to believe Indycars are back already.

 

 

And as bummed as we are that we can't be there (thank you Pennsylvania State School Assessments),

we will be glued to the tv and Indycar.com site all weekend to follow the action since

 we'll be guest posting for Pocono Raceway's site about the race.

 

 

There will be lots of Racing action all weekend in St. Pete:

 

Pro Mazda
USF2000
Indy Lights

 Pirelli world challenge

 Stadium super trucks

All Leading up to the INDYCARS on Sunday afternoon!

 

 

 

  

   Some new drivers to the Indycar series in 2014:

 

Mikhail  Aleshin

 

Ryan  Briscoe (back from a one year hiatus)

 

Jack  Hawksworth (from the Indy Lights Series)

 

 Carlos  Munoz (runner up in the 2013 Indy 500)

Carlos Huertas (from Formula Renault 3.5)


WATCH THE FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX of ST. PETE

at 3:00 EST on ABC

and follow along all weekend at

INDYCAR . com