Week 2 – Dallara Indycar at Indianapolis Oval
Friday, November 20th, 2009
- Dallara Indycar
Having missed week 1 at Barber I was keen to get my first race in the Dallara under my belt.
I’m not sure 75 laps of Indianapolis Oval would be my first choice for my rookie race but having done a few races at the track in the Lotus in week 13 I at least knew what to expect.
With a bit of expert help with my set-up I knew I had reasonable pace but couldn’t quite get it together in qualifying and was a little off my PB.
I think grid position at Indy is pretty important to try to avoid any problems in the first few laps, it’s a dangerous track.
I was fully prepared to start from the pits but there were 54 registered for the race so I ended up in the lower split, 12th on the grid as the #10 ranked driver.
The first 25 laps of the race was very slow going with (what felt like) almost constant yellow flags. I was managing to keep out of trouble though and stayed pretty much on pace in the top 10 so it felt like I could manage a decent finish if I could keep out of trouble.
Because of the constant yellows, my pit strategy never really came into play. We ended up doing 26 of the 75 laps under yellow so there was plently of opportunity to keep the tyres fresh and the fuel topped up.
On lap 42 and under yellow, much of the field pitted. Only half the field remained on the lead lap and I found myself leading, thinking we’d all have to stop again. We managed a short run to lap 50 when we went yellow again so I pitted, knowing I’d be OK to the end of the race and still thinking everyone else would have to stop again.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, I was back down in 12th and made a horrible restart, dropping back considerably fron the pack. Unluckly, this was the longest green spell of the race. Only a couple of drivers had to pit so I was back up to 9th, steadily catching the 2 drivers in front.
I was right on the tail when yet another crash brough the yellows out through to the end of the race so I had no further opportunity to improve my position and ended in a slightly frustrating 8th place.
Finishing at Indy with zero incidents is no mean feat though so I ended up with +0.15 SR (4.62), +36 iRating (1734) but only 70 points which seemed scant reward for a gruelling race of 1h 45mins!
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