Indianapolis Month of May 2015

The month of May 2015 is here!!!

 

Opening Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was Sunday, May 3 as Indycar teams took to the oval track
to test out the new oval aero kits.

Robin Miller interviews Juan Montoya (Chevy) and Marco Andretti (Honda)  to see what they thought of the new cars.

 

 

 

Juan Pablo Montoya

 

 

And here is a more comedic take
on the first day of practice at IMS.

ICYMI: @TonyKanaan, Miller on #Indy500 test, ConorDaly busts up Hinchcliffe impression [WATCH] http://t.co/0o7GEKHsPA pic.twitter.com/8SuOxn5qMe

— Dave Furst (@DaveFurst) May 4, 2015

 

 

 

 

Practice begins Thursday, May 7th on the Indianapolis road course

for the GP of Indy on May 9th.

GP of Louisiana recap

The inaugural Grand Prix of Louisiana had Indycars thundering through the swamps of Louisiana. (Literally)

Qualifying got cancelled because of lightning, so the starting positions were determined by entry points, giving Juan Montoya the pole.

The race was timed because of an impending rainstorm, and James Hinchcliffe was able to take home his first win since 2013.  
He won on only one pit stop!

The top 10 Finishers

1. James Hinchcliffe.  His first win since joining Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in 2015.

2. Helio Castroneves. His second top 4 in the 2 races this season.

3. James Jakes.  Finished a strong 3rd after returning to Indycar after a year off.  It was the second podium of his career.

4. Simona De Silvestro.  Another driver returning to the series after a year hiatus.  Is currently 6th in the Indycar season standings.

5. Juan Montoya.  Led the most laps of the race.

6. Tony Kanaan.  Passed by Simona in one of the few green flag laps in the second half of the race to drop out of the top five. 

7. Will Power. Fuel strategy left him in 7th. 

8. Graham Rahal.  Another strong run.

9. Josef Newgarden. A solid top ten finish leading into one of his strongest tracks at Long Beach.

10. Luca Fillipi.  Two top ten finishes to start his first full Indycar season.

Top Ten included..

* Drivers from 6 different teams

* Drivers from 8 different countries

* 6 Chevys, 4 Honda

* Both of the CFHR drivers

* Both SMP drivers

* No rookies

Robin Miller's interview with a very happy winner, James Hinchliffe.

Can't wait till the Grand Prix of Long Beach on
Sunday, April 19th on NBCSN.

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 St. Pete Recap

Will Power continued his winning streak from last season to three races by winning the GP of St. Pete by holding of Ryan Hunter Reay and teammate Helio Castroneves for his 22nd career win.
Scott Dixon and Simon Pagenaud rounded out the top five.  (Mikhail Aleshin was the highest rookie finishing in 12th)

It was great seeing the cars back in action and with only two cautions (back to back) after the first 75 laps were run under green, it was a lot of good racing. 

Love hearing Paul Page announcing again, check out this highlight video to hear him.

A few of the reasons why the GP of St. Pete was so awesome:

      ·         The top ten included drivers from 7 different teams and 7 different countries

·         To keep it interesting there were 5 Chevys and 5 Hondas in the top 10

·         It was cool to see Dario Franchitti back at the track helping the Ganassi drivers (but boy we really miss watching him drive)

·         It was great to see A.J. Foyt smiling as his driver (Takuma Sato) led the first 26 laps of the race

·          It was Will Powers 22nd career Indycar win tying him for 19th on the all-time win list with Tony Bettenhausen and Emerson Fittipaldi.

·         Josef Newgarden started last and got off to a slow start but it was exciting watching him move up 13 spots to finish 9^th

Other Stuff:

            *   Juan Pablo Montoya finished 15^th in his first race back in an Indycar in more than a decade

·         It’s going to take us a while to get used to the team changes and new car paint schemes, like Bourdais is driving Kanaan’s car and Kanaan is driving Dario’s car and Dario isn’t driving a car at all. 

·         Will Power gave his fellow racers an ‘accordion lesson’ they won’t soon forget. But everyone knows restarts can be tricky.

·         We saw Tricky made his rounds in St. Pete and tweeted lots of cool selfies with drivers and VIPs over the weekend….way to go Tricky!

·         Great to see Kurt Busch win at Martinsville, can’t wait to see him driving in the Indy 500!!!

Don’t miss the next Indycar race,
the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 13^th!

4:00 pm on NBCSports
Indy Lights race on at 2:30