Round 4: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, 22nd-24th April.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 4: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, 22nd-24th April.

This Sunday will be the 7th 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 IR5-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 Josef Newgarden got his debut IndyCar win, the first of two wins last season, as the Penske juggernaut faltered with bungled pitstops for Castroneves and Power. However, the highlight of the race had to be Graham Rahal's charge, after he pitted on lap 70, for second place.

Some trivia:
The driver with most wins: 2.
Will Power, 2011, 2012.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2013, 2014.
The team with most wins: 3.
Team Penske, 2010, 2011, 2012.

Track layout:


Length: 2.30 Miles (3.70 Km)
Turns: 15
Lap record: Scott Dixon, 6 April 2013. 1:06.7750, 123.999 Mph (199.557 Km/h), Chip Ganassi Racing, Dallara DW12-Honda, Izod IndyCar Series. 2.38 Miles (3.83 Km)

Last year's winner:
Josef Newgarden,
CFH Racing,
Dallara DW12-Chevrolet.

Laps: 90
Distance: 207 Miles (333.134 Km)
Race Time: 1:55:53
Average Speed: 107.176 Mph (172.483 km/h)

Race Broadcast:
NBCSN. April 24, 3:00pm EST.

[Purist]

Check your maths on some of those items. Barber is 2.300 miles around. The race distance is 207 miles. Also, that average race speed is WAY too high; I don't think there's been a race that fast at Texas, or even Indy.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Purist

Check your maths on some of those items. Barber is 2.300 miles around. The race distance is 207 miles. Also, that average race speed is WAY too high; I don't think there's been a race that fast at Texas, or even Indy.

When I Googled Barber Race distance it came up with 2.38. Anyway I'll change it.

Otherwise, I think need to check on my cutting and pasting, as I put the race speed where the race distance should be and vice versa. Oops.

[D.R.T.]

Cracking track and has produced some great races.

Looking forward to the early morning alarm

[canamman]

7 Hondas in the top 10 in practice today. Somewhat
encouraged. I can't imagine the Chevys were collectively
sandbagging but we will see in Quali tomorrow. Looking
forward to getting there in the morning.

Hawksworth # 2 in practice (P1). Be interesting to see if he can keep that
going through out the weekend. Munoz 3rd. Hmmmmmm.

http://www.imscdn.com/INDYCAR/Docume...results-p1.pdf

[Purist]

Power's lap of a 1:06.727 in Group 2 of Round 1 in Qualifying is a new lap record. We'll see if that gets knocked down further in the ensuing rounds.

Montoya, strangely, knocked out in Round 1. Nine Chevy runners and three Hondas move on to Round 2.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Purist

Power's lap of a 1:06.727 in Group 2 of Round 1 in Qualifying is a new lap record. We'll see if that gets knocked down further in the ensuing rounds.

Montoya, strangely, knocked out in Round 1. Nine Chevy runners and three Hondas move on to Round 2.

Just got broken by Bourdais, 1:06.6001.

[Purist]

Yup.

Rahal is the only Honda to make the Fast Six.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Rahal is the only Honda in the Fast 6.

[Purist]

Pagenaud on pole.

[canamman]

JPM will have his work cut out for him if he wants
to keep his 3rd place in the points. He finished 14th last year
and the year before that 21st. Today he starts from the back.
Someday he will need to figure out his Barber program.
It will be fun to see how far up the grid he makes it today.

All the races have been good this weekend . If the front 3
had it under control , there was good racing mid pack.
Race of the day for me was the USF2000. 23 cars , lots
of excitement. Even Pro Mazda put on a good show
with 10 entries.

With Simon on the pole, he may be too tuff to beat.
He just seems in the zone. Tire strategy will be key here
as it was last year. With tissue in hand, Will Power looks like he was
battling a cold or allergies at the autograph session. Nothing
worse than blowing a big sneeze in a closed full face helmet.

Weather is superb!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying Result:

1 Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m06.7262s
2 Will Power, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m06.9421s 0.2159s
3 Josef Newgarden, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.0283s 0.3021s
4 Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.2083s 0.4821s
5 Sebastien Bourdais, KVSH Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.2965s 0.5703s
6 Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.6388s 0.9126s
7 Helio Castroneves, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.0129s 0.2867s
8 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.0955s 0.3693s
9 Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.1715s 0.4453s
10 Charlie Kimball, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.3020s 0.5758s
11 Max Chilton, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.0728s 1.3466s
12 Luca Filippi, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.3655s 1.6393s
13 Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.2417s 0.5155s
14 Jack Hawksworth, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.2360s 0.5098s
15 Carlos Munoz, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.2435s 0.5173s
16 Takuma Sato, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.2385s 0.5123s
17 Conor Daly, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.2974s 0.5712s
18 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.4449s 0.7187s
19 Marco Andretti, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.6570s 0.9308s
20 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Herta. Dallara/Honda. 1m07.5612s 0.8350s
21 Juan Pablo Montoya, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m07.5627s 0.8365s

[10TENTHS]

Texas had an average speed over 200mph in the 2011 split race (the second one was caution-free).

The 2013 Barber race averaged almost 111mph (86 consecutive green flag laps).

[bjohnsonsmith]

It's very sunny at Barber and very dry.

[bjohnsonsmith]

That was a clean start at the front but Munoz punted Aleshin up the rear and Hawsworth almost got taken out.

It's an FCY after an aborted re-start.

[bjohnsonsmith]

3rd time lucky and it's a clean start but Dixon got stuck on the track at Turn 5, after being clipped by Bourdais but he's up and running in 20th.

[bjohnsonsmith]

A great pass by Rahal, I noticed Newgarden was using P2P to defend but to no avail.

[rwintle]

Why the heck did Aleshin and Hawksworth get demoted to the back of the field? It was Munoz who wrecked everyone, not those guys.

Also - how is this pit stop timing working? Some cars, the timer stops as they start leaving the box, others it seems to run on a bit. Equally fast looking stops can be recorded as almost a second different, seemingly.

[Nikki Katz]

Is there commentary this week? I can't hear

[Nikki Katz]

I'm an hour back to skip the many many ads, but Munoz drives into aleshin and hawksworth, so they penalise aleshin and hawksworth?!?

[Nikki Katz]

Oh. Bt sport have started putting commentary in the ad breaks instead of an ad break like sky used to do, and they're actually audible. Is it just the uk that's having sound problems or is everyone?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Nikki Katz

Oh. Bt sport have started putting commentary in the ad breaks instead of an ad break like sky used to do, and they're actually audible. Is it just the uk that's having sound problems or is everyone?

I'm in the UK watching a stream and no sound issues.

[bjohnsonsmith]

That's a racing incident.

[rwintle]

Oh great. Pagenaud and Rahal touch with 9 laps to go.

I'm going with Rahal being too aggressive on that move... but arguments could be made either way.

[bjohnsonsmith]

That was rash and will cost Rahal the win.