Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama

[DanicaFan]

Race 2 of 17

Race - Honda Indy Grand Prix Of Alabama

Location - Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama

Date - Sunday, April 10th

Time & TV Schedule - 3:00PM Eastern -Green Flag -3:45PM Eastern -Versus

Course Type - 2.38 Mile Road Course

Distance - 90 Laps / 214.2 Miles

Practice Sessions -
Friday, April 8th -2:20PM -3:05PM Eastern (Rookies & Outside of Top 10 Entrants ) & 3:05PM-3:35PM Eastern (All Cars) & 5:00PM-6:00PM Eastern
Saturday, April 9th - 9:00AM -9:20AM Eastern
Sunday, April 10th Warm-Up Session -10:00AM -10:30AM Eastern

Qualifications - Saturday, April 9th -10:25AM -11:40AM Eastern

2010 Pole Sitter - Will Power - Lap Time -1:10.1356 / Speed -118.057

2010 Winner - Helio Castroneves

[DanicaFan]

Map of the track layout..

[NaBUru38]

Ana Beatriz Figueiredo is still injured, so she will be replaced next weekend at Dreyer & Reinbold by no less than 2010 ALMS LMP1 champion Peugeot LMP1 works driver Simon Pagenaud, who last raced open-wheelers in 2007 Champ Cars.

[DanicaFan]

Here is the entry list for the race..

[Yannick]

Here's hoping for a full and quick recovery for Bia. I hope she'll be back in time for her home race.

[NaBUru38]

Here in Uruguay and several other Hispanic countries, it seems that ESPN will be showing the Augusta Masters on the main channel and French football on the other (Olympique Lyonnais vs. Lens, that is 4th vs 19th)

Update: ESPN will have only ABC races!!! The rest will go on Speed, which is an expensive channel that nobody around here has!!! Damn it!

Update 2: Speed's official website shows nothing about IndyCar...

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Here in Uruguay and several other Hispanic countries, it seems that ESPN will be showing the Augusta Masters on the main channel and French football on the other (Olympique Lyonnais vs. Lens, that is 4th vs 19th)

Mmmmmm....Golf and French soccer.....

[DanicaFan]

Practice Session 1 Results..

[DanicaFan]

Here are the qualifying groups for tomorrow..

Group 1

#2 Oriol Servia
#3 Helio Castroneves
#4 JR Hildebrand
#6 Ryan Briscoe
#10 Dario Franchitti
#12 Will Power
#14 Vitor Meira
#18 James Jakes
#24 Simon Pagenaud
#28 Ryan Hunter-Reay
#38 Graham Rahal
#78 Simona De Silvestro
#83 Charlie Kimball

Group 2

#5 Takuma Sato
#7 Danica Patrick
#9 Scott Dixon
#17 Raphael Matos
#19 Sebastien Bourdais
#22 Justin Wilson
#26 Marco Andretti
#27 Mike Conway
#34 Sebastian Saavedra
#59 EJ Viso
#77 Alex Tagliani
#82 Tony Kanaan
#06 James Hinchcliffe

[DanicaFan]

2nd session underway. Track is still wet due to the rain earlier.

[DanicaFan]

Practice Session 2 Results..

[icemachine]

PT retweeted this that a fan sent him. It was my laugh for the day

@PaulTracy3 I thought you would like this pic of JV looking at the damage, do you think that EJ has Geico Ins? http://twitpic.com/4iimv8

[icemachine]

PT retweeted this that a fan sent him. It was my laugh for the day

@PaulTracy3 I thought you would like this pic of JV looking at the damage, do you think that EJ has Geico Ins? http://twitpic.com/4iimv8

[DanicaFan]

Here is the starting grid..I am shocked Danica didnt qualify better.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by DanicaFan

I am shocked Danica didnt qualify better.

OK, someone has to do it -

I'm not.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Rick

OK, someone has to do it -

I'm not.

Nor me - she really does seem to struggle when there is a need to turn both left and right.

If she keeps doing this "well", it might be time for her to start posing in the bikini again to keep the attention on her.

Don't think that I mind it when she does that!

[AUSRSR]

Woo! All Australia front row

[Jamesy-18]

Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Here is the starting grid..I am shocked Danica didnt qualify better.

What's there to be shocked about?

Oh and look. There's Simona De Silvestro ahead of her. Again.

[bjohnsonsmith]

I've finally got feed so now I can watch the race and the season. .

[bjohnsonsmith]

Sato over did it but he managed to keep the car going and not prang it.

[DanicaFan]

Congrats to Will Power for the win. Im still heartbroke but it was a gutsy call and thats what they had to do to get Danica some track position. She ran a great race despite her finish.

[Senninha24]

Well done Will Power, glad to see him with such a dominant performance. Pleased for good ol' Oriol as well, a top 5 for him, I'm always so happy when he's driving a solid car and is given the chance to fight for a season!

Otherwise I must say I'm still not really sold on these double file restarts. Then again I don't even know if it's more the restarts or the drivers themselves...but I just don't understand the amount of touching that's going on with these cars. Always some incident, or someone pushed off. They really have to settle down. F1 cars I would imagine are even more twitchy and sensitive in each individual movement just because they're even quicker and most starts are relatively solid. So I don't know but I was just getting tired of seeing every restart potentially turning into another yellow...

...Which brings me to the yellows. A lot of the full-course yellows to me aren't even worthy. With a track with as a much runoff as Barber, I don't know why there aren't marshalls hopping over the barriers and pulling the cars further into the runoff areas, but every time a car stopped it was a full-course yellow. Road-courses are spread out enough to give you time to take care of a situation, while they are also long enough to make full-course yellows a frustrating, tedious extension of race-time. I know it's nothing new but it was just frustratingly apparent and bugging me lol (with the camera showing SO much runoff to pull the car into and avoid slowing that whole field down, which only leads to more wrecking with these double-file things)

The Briscoe/Hunter-Reay situation was also quite annoying, that just wasn't a smart overtaking area, just too risky to try a divebomb. I mean Briscoe did give some room, but he also didn't try to let up or anything, it was still HR's judgement call to say, "you know, I've got these reds, I'll pass him before the end of the lap. this just isnt the place." I know him getting by Danica in anger was probably a little feather for his cap for him to say "you see...it CAN be done!" but I mean it's your teammate, and her car was sinking like a stone through the field.

Well, can't wait for Long Beach, wish I could be there. (which just pangs me that I didn't go more often when I lived in LA!)

[DanicaFan]

Here are the final results..

1. #12 Will Power
2. #9 Scott Dixon
3. #10 Dario Franchitti
4. #26 Marco Andretti
5. #2 Oriol Servia
6. #82 Tony Kanaan
7. #3 Helio Castroneves
8. #24 Simon Pagenaud
9. #78 Simona De Silvestro
10. #83 Charlie Kimball
11. #19 Sebastien Bourdais
12. #14 Vitor Meira
13. #4 JR Hildebrand
14. #28 Ryan Hunter-Reay
15. #77 Alex Tagliani
16. #5 Takuma Sato
17. #7 Danica Patrick
18. #38 Graham Rahal
19. #22 Justin Wilson
20. #17 Raphael Matos
21. #6 Ryan Briscoe
22. #27 Mike Conway
23. #59 EJ Viso
24. #06 James Hinchcliffe
25. #18 James Jakes
26. #34 Sebastian Saavedra

[bjohnsonsmith]

A solid drive from Will Power a great job keeping Dixon at bay on that restart. Also a great drive by TK, looks like he's adjusting well and TBH KV needed someone with TK's experience.

[Senninha24]

Oh forgot to mention Pagenaud, love the guy, you could see all that Enduro experience show, with all the right moves to get the car to the end, and a top 10 no-less.

TK really doing great, hopefully he can coup up those drivers and try to straighten things out a bit and make this Lotus backed KV racing squad a fresh REAL threat. Sato could use his advice on the intricacies of these cars and EJ Viso can obviously benefit from a countryman as respected as TK. He never ceases to amaze me with his great, calculated drives. He's such a great guy to watch onboard!