“We had a great race going, had some good clean racing there with (Graham) Rahal, (Will) Power — even (Simon) Pagenaud, we went side by side through Turn 10 there, it was some good racing. Then we got down to Turn 3… I’m peddling the car all the way out, it’s loose, there’s just no more room for (Pagenaud) to be out there. (Sebastien) Bourdais, is on my left, I don’t know where to go at that point. I’m using my regular racing line – (Pagenaud) stuck his nose out there (and was off the racing line)… And just cleans us all out. I’m happy all three of us are uninjured. (Pagenaud) said I ran him out of room, but there just was no room in the first place. I don’t know what to say to that — it’s certainly a racing incident but there wasn’t a whole lot of room there to begin with. Disappointing way to end the day, we were looking for a strong finish with the DHL Honda.”
It was a soggy day in New Orleans as weather delays caused the planned 75-lap inaugural Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana to be cut to a timed event. The 105-minute timed race allowed for just 47 laps of racing — with six caution periods resulting in 25 laps of yellow flag conditions. It was a battle of patience and attrition for the mere 22 laps of green flag racing for the field of 24 Indy cars.
Ryan Hunter-Reay was on his way to a second consecutive top-eight finish when he was collected in an on-track incident, leaving him sidelined with just eight minutes of racing remaining and too much damage on the 28 machine to return to the track.
The Verizon IndyCar Series packs up and heads west for Round Three of competition at the prestigious Grand Prix of Long Beach next weekend.
No comments yet.