Round 3: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, April 21-23.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 3: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, April 21-23.

Barber Motorsports Park is owned by George Barber, an accomplished driver, who raced Porsches in the 1960s and early '70s and successful businessman. Over the years he amassed a collection of motorcycles and after establishing a non-profit foundation in 1994 opened a museum, displaying 325 motorcycles from around the world and some vintage cars a year later. In 1998, he sold the family business and donated $54 million to the foundation in order to build a new museum and a road course, on which to run the collection.

By 2002, a 740 acre site in the hills east of Birmingham was chosen. A new museum was built, housing the expanded collection of 1,200 motorcycles, with Up to 600 on display at any one time. It's been certified by Guinness as the largest museum of its type. The road course was designed by South African race track designer Alan Wilson, with three layouts. The main circuit, which is a 15-turn, 2.370-mile (3.70 km) road course, plus the short circuit and club circuit. The venue, opened in 2003 and has hosted Grand-Am, Vintage Racing Series events and AMA Superbike. It serves as the home of the Porsche Sport Driving School and the Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School. One feature that stands out are the series of metal sculptures around the track. The large spider alongside Turns 5/6 has lead to this section of track being nicknamed 'Charlotte's Web'.

This Sunday will be the 8th running of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park. The race was first held on April 11, 2010 and was won by Hélio Castroneves driving for Team Penske, in a Dallara IR05-Honda. Prior to that, Barber Motorsports Park hosted a testing session in October 2007, the success of which led to a full-field, three-day testing session in March 2009. An open date became available in the 2010 season's race calendar and Barber Motorsports Park made a successful bid to hold the race, over Cleveland (Burke Lakefront Airport), Houston, Baltimore, Nashville, Charlotte and Portland.

Last year's race was completely dominated by Simon Pagenaud, by first taking pole but the final 10 laps of must have felt rather like a repeat of the 2015 race for Graham Rahal, when he closed on Josef Newgarden to finish 2nd. This time, Rahal closed the gap on Simon Pagenaud to within a second and now with only 8 laps to go, Rahal used one of his remaining 8 push-to-passes as he exited Turn 5. As both drivers went through Turn 6, Rahal and Pagenaud touched. Pagenaud went off into the gravel and Rahal took the lead. There was no penalty as Race control decided it was a racing incident. Pagenaud, caught up with Rahal with five laps to go and was handed victory after Rahal clipped Hawksworth's rear tyre guard on the run into Turn 6, destroying most of his front wing. Pagenaud passed Rahal's damaged car, to take the lead and the win. However unlike the year before when he finished 2nd, Rahal finished 6th.

Edit: Rahal finished 2nd last year, like he did in 2015.

Some trivia:
The driver with most wins: 2.
Will Power, 2011, 2012.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2013, 2014.
The team with most wins: 4.
Team Penske, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016.

Track layout:


Length: 2.3 Miles (3.7 Km)

Turns: 15

Lap record: Sebastien Bourdais, 23 April 2016. 1:06.60, 124.324 mph (200.080 Km/h), KVSH Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6. Verizon IndyCar Series.


Last year's race:

Pole:
Simon Pagenaud. 1:06.72, 124.089 mph (199.701 km/h)

Winner:
Simon Pagenaud,
Team Penske,
Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6.

Laps: 90
Distance: 207 Miles (333.134 Km)
Race Time: 1:48:42
Average Speed: 114.254 Mph (183.878 km/h)
Caution periods: 1
Caution laps: 1

Race Broadcast:
NBCSN. April 23, 3:00pm ET.

[10TENTHS]

Rahal finished 2nd in 2016: http://www.imscdn.com/INDYCAR/Docume...r-boxscore.pdf

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

Rahal finished 2nd in 2016: http://www.imscdn.com/INDYCAR/Docume...r-boxscore.pdf

So he did. I must have looked at qualifying. It was a late night.
Thanks.

[JHamilton]

Conflicts with The Mitty again, so I won't be there or be watching. Hopefully, this conflict will get resolved one day.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Unfortunately, I may have to miss the race as well but hopefully not all of it.

[RWill2073]

Qualifying was virtually unwatchable. Footage kept freezing and cutting out every couple minutes. Just ridiculous.

Bourdais might be in for a special year. From what I gathered through the freezes, they haven't been good all weekend and Bourdais didn't think they could make it out of first round, but they did. So if they can be mid-pack on off weeks, that's going to be interesting.

I guess this year will be for Newgarden what Pagenaud's first year at Penske was. Look forward to him winning a championship next year

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying:

Can any of the top three Penske drivers capitalise on qualifying and win? Not too sure what happened to Rahal.

1 Will Power, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m06.9614s
2 Helio Castroneves, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.1429s, 0.1815s
3 Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.3817s, 0.4203s
4 Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.5817s, 0.6203s
5 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.6851s, 0.7237s
6 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.8710s, 0.9096s
7 Josef Newgarden, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.5941s, 0.6327s
8 Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.9467s, 0.9853s
9 Max Chilton, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.9788s, 1.0174s
10 Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.0305s, 1.0691s
11 Ed Jones, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2034s, 1.2420s
12 Sebastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2726s, 1.3112s
13 Marco Andretti, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.5405s, 0.5791s
14 Takuma Sato, Andrett Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.6928s, 0.7314s
15 Charlie Kimball, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.7033s, 0.7419s
16 Carlos Munoz, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.7007s, 0.7393s
17 Spen er Pigot, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.9211s, 0.9597s
18 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Herta. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.7483s, 0.7869s
19 Zach Veach, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.4681s, 1.5067s
20 Conor Daly, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.0104s, 1.0490s
21 Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.0499s, 1.0885s

[owrforever]

It looks like they have changed the camera angles between turns 6 & 7 because now you can see "Georgina's" high heels dangling from under the pedestrian bridge, somewhat unnerving to the uninformed!

[Akrapovic]

Haven't watched Indycar for a few years, but I always come back to series I've stopped watching to see how they are. Is there any legit stream for UK viewers?

[NaBUru38]

IndyCar airs in the UK on BT Sport, I think.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

IndyCar airs in the UK on BT Sport, I think.

BTSport/ESPN. They have a good commentary team, including David Hobbs and no commercial breaks.

[bjohnsonsmith]

As luck would have I will get to watch the race and Marco Andretti is already in the pits before the race starts.

It's a clean start but something came off someone on Turn 2.

[bjohnsonsmith]

That was a great pass by Newgarden on Pagenaud.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Pigot goes off and that's the 2nd FCY.

[gert]

still FCY ... WHY oh WHY does it take this long?

There is NOTHING on track...

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by gert

still FCY ... WHY oh WHY does it take this long?

There is NOTHING on track...

Seems to be a regular feature these days.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Power pits. That's it, race over.

[bjohnsonsmith]

I think Dixon's tyres are shot.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Newgarden, a worthy win but that was Power's race and all down to that tyre but that's racing.

Penske and Chevrolet get their first win of the season.

[Marcus666]

Despite the absence of JPM, I've tuned in today, and oh my god:
The amount of passes was insane. It IS almost unbelieveble how racey this circuit is. COngrats to Newgarden. Roll tide!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Result:

All in all, I thought that was a pretty good race. Shame about Power, I thought he had this one. That was an excellent drive from Rossi; started 18th, finished 5th.

1 Josef Newgarden, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1h54m08.7076s
2 Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1.0495s
3 Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 2.5706s
4 Helio Castroneves, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 11.1592s
5 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Herta. Dallara/Honda. 12.0469s
6 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 12.5905s
7 Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 15.4105s
8 Sebastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 16.0651s
9 Takuma Sato, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 20.1764s
10 Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 20.7064s
11 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 22.2061s
12 Max Chilton, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 22.9713s
13 Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 24.3457s
14 Will Power, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 26.3177s
15 Charlie Kimball, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 35.4868s
16 Ed Jones, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 39.5644s
17 Carlos Munoz, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 50.3679s
18 Conor Daly, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 51.2029s
19 Zach Veach, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 56.2545s
20 Spencer Pigot, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1 Lap
21 Marco Andretti, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 3 Laps

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Seems to be a regular feature these days.

Sweeping the track weren't they?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by D.R.T.

Sweeping the track weren't they?

It took long enough, considering Pigot spun off on to the grass.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

It took long enough, considering Pigot spun off on to the grass.

Sweeping the marbles rather than Pigot debris

[Yannick]

It's only shortly after Round 3 of the season, and it already looks like the championship is down to just 5 competitors who still have a chance at winning it, and maybe a 6th if he can make up some ground:

Bourdais 117
Dixon 111
Newgarden 110
Pagenaud 106
Hinchcliffe 102

then, there's a gap to the 6th placed

Castroneves 84

which adds to a large gap between 5th and 7th placed

Hunter-Reay 65
Sato 65
Jones 62
Rossi 60

And that's your Top 10 after Barber.

At the time, it looks like Honda has got the upper hand at the street circuits whilst Chevy appears really good at undulating road courses like Barber. Given that Honda made their gains at the street circuits not through aero development, it seems likely they have retained some advantage on the superspeedways from last year. Up next with Phoenix is a short oval which is a type of track on which Chevys excelled last year. Most likely, it will have an effect on the championship if they continue to do so. That should be interesting to watch but I cannot because, living outside of the US, Phoenix is held way out of my time zone.