Before someone comes along and says "Why are the IRL racing in Russia"

It was boring in 2006 and is still boring today....


This weekend see's the unified IndyCar series go to the street circuit at St Petersburg, Florida

There has been a couple of changes for this race, Graham Rahal is set to make his debut and Townsend Bell replaces Milka Duno in the #23 Dreyer and Reinbold entry

Ryan Hunter Raey and Darren Manning are picks to surprise some people here but other then that it will be road course experts Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan and Ryan Briscoe that will be out front

I don't particulary like St Pete or any of the IRL/Champ Car road races so i have little to say on it

I'm just glad Sky Sports are showing the NASCAR from Texas live whilst this will be shown delayed

<roflmao> <roflmao> <roflmao>

There’s a new qualifying format for this race but I can’t remember what it is

Good of Sky to show the series where there is one home driver who might not even qualify over the one where there is a half reasonable chance of winning.

At least next year the IRL has a large menu of road courses to pick from.

Sky are just giving the people what they want


I was pleased when Tony George said that the IRL will retain at least a 50% oval share in 2009, that’s excellent news

Of the Champ Car tracks, Road America is about the only one I’d like to see on the schedule, maybe Cleveland

As Champ Car embarrassingly showed last season, it staged some incredibly weak events at various road and street courses

Mid Ohio, St Pete and Sears Point should be dropped off the schedule in 2009

Watkins Glen, Belle Isle, Surfers Paradise, Long Beach, Road America and Cleveland are the only non ovals that IndyCar needs to visit

All the rest are crap, dull, processional tracks

Phoenix and Michigan ovals would be a welcome addition to 2009 as well

I have to confess that's what I thought the first time I saw the race publicised...

However, not *all* IRL races are boring, just some of them, like any other series....

Nothing wrong with Mid-Ohio, however, Sears Point can bugger off....

Is NASCAR more popular than the IRL in the UK? <huh>

I kind of hoped we'd have more sense.


I'd have Mid-Ohio too. Houston is pretty certain though.

quali is currently under way

the Firestone fast six are

Helio Castoneves
Ryan Briscoe
Justin Wilson
Will Power
Ryan Hunter Raey
Tony Kanaan

these drivers will now have a 10 minute session for the pole

i'll post the full grid when it's done

The grid for the Honda GP of St. Petersburg

Row 1
Tony Kanaan (AGR)
Will Power (PK)

Row 2
Justin Wilson (NHL)
Helio Castroneves (Penske)

Row 3
Ryan Briscoe (Penske)
Ryan Hunter Raey (RLR)

Row 4
Oriol Servia (PK)
Dan Wheldon (Ganassi)

Row 5
Graham Rahal (NHL)
Franck Perera (Conquest)

Row 6
Darren Manning (Foyt)
Marco Andretti (AGR)

Row 7
Scott Dixon (Ganassi)
Hideki Mutoh (AGR)

Row 8
Ernesto Viso (HVM)
Buddy Rice (DRR)

Row 9
Vitor Meira (Panther)
Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest)

Row 10
Danica Patrick (AGR)
Jay Howard (Roth)

Row 11
Ed Carpenter (Vision)
Mario Moraes (Coyne)

Row 12
Townsend Bell (DRR)
AJ Foyt IV (Vision)

Row 13
Marty Roth (Roth)
Bruno Junqueira (Coyne)

TK, what can you say? Class act

The bigger story though is the superb performance of Will Power and Yorkshire's own Justin Wilson

They were on the pace all day with Power top of the timesheets for a long time before Kanaan pipped him

Scott Dixon never got a clean run, twice being caught by yellow flags after various Marty Roth calamities and he will start down in 13th

The field is much closer here as the champ car guys are at home on these tracks, they of course run a full season of road/street courses whilst IRL just use 5 a season and that's only been for a couple of years.

Just goes to show that ovals aren't as easy as people think they are

Other impressive performances are from Ryan Hunter Raey (6th), Oriol Servia (7th), Graham Rahal (9th) and Franck Perera (10th)

Race will not be live as Sky are showing real racing from Texas on the mighty oval for the NASCAR boys

Think this race is being shown delayed at about 11pm


Just a note, Jeff Simmons who was sacked by RLR in the IndyCar series last season will return to the Indy Lights Series today for this weekend only

Simmons, who hasn't driven a car of this type for 3 years qualified the Team Moore car in 5th position

Raphael Matos who has 2 wins at this track is on the pole, last weeks winner and Englishman Dillon Battistini starts down in 12th just ahead of teammate and ex NASCAR driver Brent Sherman

The Indy Lights race can be seen live on Indycar.com at 9.35pm UK time

Is this somehow implying that road racing is artifical whereas NASCAR is "real"? <roflmao>

just a joke mate

get over it

do you know what a joke is? You should do because you are one

your a forum host mate, stop being a big baby, none of your posts on here are constructive and I for one am getting fed up with it

Anyway,

Back to the action

and it was 3 wins from 3 St Pete starts for Raphael Matos yesterday in the Indy Lights series

Matos of course won the double header here 2 years ago

He dominated the race to beat Richard Anitinucci (Eddie Cheever's nephew), Ana Beatriz and Jeff Simmons

it was a good race with lots of exicting talent for the future

Homestead winner Dillon Battistini would suffer fuel pump issues and finish 21st

Race 2 for the Indy Lights is today at 4pm UK time, Jeff Simmons is on the pole, Matos starts 4th in this one

Graham Rahal takes the win in his first start in an IRL car.

The rain didn't hurt him, but a good win by the youngster none the less. 6 of the top 10 finisher are former Champ Car guys. Are we going to see a season where the IRL guys own the ovals and the former Champ Cars shine on the road courses?

The strategy of the champ car teams was far superior to the IRL teams

Rahal drove brilliantly and so did EJ Viso who came in 4th and Enrique Bernoldi got 5th

give a shout to AJ Foyt IV who has the least road course experience of anyone apart from Marty Roth so to bring his car home in 11th out of 26 is a decent effort


Pos. Driver/Car No C/E/T S Qual
Speed Laps XL LL Status Pts
1 Graham Rahal
Hole in the Wall Camps 06 D/H/F 9 103.165 83 0 19 Running 53
2 Helio Castroneves
Team Penske 3 D/H/F 4 103.438 83 0 0 Running 40
3 Tony Kanaan
Team 7-Eleven 11 D/H/F 1 103.627 83 1 15 Running 35
4 Ernesto Viso
PDVSA HVM Racing 33 D/H/F 15 102.359 83 1 12 Running 32
5 Enrique Bernoldi
Opes Prime/ Sangari 36 D/H/F 18 102.117 83 1 3 Running 30
6 Hideki Mutoh
Formula Dream 27 D/H/F 14 102.409 83 0 0 Running 28
7 Oriol Servia
KV Racing Technology 5 D/H/F 7 103.279 83 0 0 Running 26
8 Will Power
Aussie Vineyard-Team Australia 8 D/H/F 2 103.499 83 0 0 Running 24
9 Justin Wilson
McDonald's Racing Team 02 D/H/F 3 103.444 83 1 18 Running 22
10 Danica Patrick
Motorola 7 D/H/F 19 101.924 83 0 0 Running 20
11 A.J. Foyt IV
Vision Racing 2 D/H/F 24 100.466 83 0 0 Running 19
12 Dan Wheldon
Target Chip Ganassi Racing 10 D/H/F 8 103.191 83 0 0 Running 18
13 Darren Manning
ABC Supply Co./AJ Foyt Racing 14 D/H/F 11 102.835 83 0 0 Running 17
14 Jay Howard
Roth Racing 24 D/H/F 20 101.656 82 0 0 Running 16
15 Buddy Rice
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 15 D/H/F 16 102.274 82 0 0 Running 15
16 Mario Moraes
The SONNY Car 19 D/H/F 22 100.999 82 0 0 Running 14
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay
Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol 17 D/H/F 6 102.845 81 1 4 Running 13
18 Ed Carpenter
Menards/ Vision Racing 20 D/H/F 21 101.566 80 0 0 Accident 12
19 Vitor Meira
Delphi National Guard 4 D/H/F 17 102.131 75 1 1 Accident 12
20 Franck Perera
Ares/ Opes Prime 34 D/H/F 10 103.062 75 0 0 Accident 12
21 Townsend Bell
Dreyer and Reinbold William Rast 23 D/H/F 23 100.640 75 0 0 Accident 12
22 Scott Dixon
Target Chip Ganassi Racing 9 D/H/F 13 102.472 74 0 0 Mechanical 12
23 Ryan Briscoe
Team Penske 6 D/H/F 5 103.338 56 1 11 Accident 12
24 Bruno Junqueira
The Z-Line Car 18 D/H/F 25 93.392 44 0 0 Mechanical 12
25 Marco Andretti
Gillette Fusion 26 D/H/F 12 102.460 41 0 0 Mechanical 10
26 Marty Roth
Cirrus - Roth Racing 25 D/H/F 26 95.711 0 0 0 DNS 5

Especially dealing with the rain. Good on him.

it was a good thing for IndyCar that Rahal won

both because of his name and because it's a new winner from a new team, proving that the Ganassi-AGR-Penske grip can be broken

it's Motegi next so no champ car teams will be there

Roger Yasukawa will be there though so I guess that means 18 cars for Motegi

This'll probably be a sign of things to come over the this and next season.
The ChampCar teams will probably win the road courses while the IRL teams will win the Ovals. Or at least until either driver parity or team parity asserts itself.

That's not saying that IRL drivers can't win on the road nor CC drivers on ovals - it's just where the driver and team experience has been over the last number of years.