Team Penske Reigns Supreme at Mid-Ohio
Source: Honda
Jul 21, 2008 - 1:56:37 PM
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Traditionally a strong team at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with 1-2 finishes
in CART races using Honda power in both 2000 and 2001, Team Penske’s Ryan
Briscoe led teammate Helio Castroneves to a third Honda-powered victory sweep in
Sunday’s Honda Indy 200.
Starting on the outside of the first row alongside pole-qualifier Castroneves,
Briscoe was the final driver to change over to dry weather racing slicks after
late-morning showers led race officials to declare the event a “wet” race,
requiring the entire 26-car field to start on treaded “rain” tires on a damp,
but rapidly drying, track. Most of the field changed over to slicks on the
fourth and fifth laps, but Briscoe didn’t make the swap until Lap 6, dropping
him to 15th.
But a decision by team owner Roger Penske to go “off
sequence” on pit stops and stay on track during a Lap 25-29 caution period moved
Briscoe back up to fourth, and fuel conservation during the next stint got the
Australian into the lead and back onto the same pit sequence as the rest of the
field. Dale Coyne Racing’s Bruno Junqueira attempted a similar strategy, but was
forced by low fuel to pit out of second place with just seven laps remaining. He
finished 13th.
The 26-car field recorded 10,874 miles in practice,
qualifying and racing this weekend at Mid-Ohio, again without a single engine
failure for the Honda HI8R Indy V-8 used by all competitors in the IndyCar
Series. As a result of the larger fields following reunification with the former
Champ Car World Series, IndyCar drivers and teams have run 171,999 miles this
season. Thisequals the total mileage recorded in all of 2007, with five races
remaining in the 2008 championship. There has been just one recorded failure
this year– on the Vision Racing car of Davey Hamilton during practice for the
Indianapolis 500.
Following Junqueira’s late pit stop, Castroneves
finished second for the fifth time this season, making up five championship
points on third-finishing Scott Dixon. KV Racing Technology teammates Will Power
and Oriol Servia completed the top five finishers. Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira
was strong early in the contest. The Brazilian was one of the first drivers to
pit for dry rubber, at the end of the first lap, and went on to lead 21 laps in
the first half of the race. But he lost ground during the mid-race pit stops to
finish sixth.
Next week, the IndyCar Series concludes this stretch of
six consecutive race weekends with the Saturday, July 26, Rexall Edmonton Grand
Prix, on a 1.973-mile temporary circuit laid out on the grounds of the City
Centre Airport.
Ryan Briscoe(#6 Team Penske Honda) Started 2nd, finished
1st, 2nd IndyCar Series victory of 2008:
“What a great weekend for the
team. It couldn’t get any better. We probably stayed out too long on rain tires
at the start, but what great pit strategy by [team owner] Roger Penske to get us
to the front of the field.”
Scott Dixon(#9 Target
Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Started 6th, finished 3rd, continues to hold a
58-point lead in the IndyCar Series drivers’ championship:
"It was
kind of a strange race for us, right from the start there seemed to be no real
rhythm to it, for us, anyway. I think a lot of teams started thinking ‘fuel
mileage’ and ‘pit strategy’ right from the start. The car was good, and the pit
stops were great, but we could never get enough momentum to make a serious run
at either Helio [Castroneves] or Ryan [Briscoe]. But third was great for the
championship, and we’re taking a healthy lead into Canada next week.”
Will Power (#8 Team Australia/PK Racing Honda)
Started 12th, finished 4th, best finish since winning the Grand Prix of Long
Beach in April:
"It seems like we had a lot of traffic to contend with
in this race, but that’s been true on the short ovals, too! This was a great
comeback for the team, as we didn’t start the weekend with a very quick car, but
the team never gave up and kept making improvements all the time. In the race,
both KV cars were really quick, and that’s why we both ended up in the top five
today.”
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IRL IndyCar Series
Round 12: Mid-Ohio Sports Car
Course, Mid-Ohio
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| 1 |
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Ryan Briscoe (Team Penske) |
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| 2 |
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Helio Castroneves (Team Penske) |
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| 3 |
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Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi) |
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| 4 |
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Will Power (KV Racing Technologies) |
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| 5 |
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Oriol Servia (KV Racing Technologies) |
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| 6 |
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Vitor Meira (Panther Racing) |
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| 7 |
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Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 8 |
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Darren Manning (A.J. Foyt Racing) |
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| 9 |
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Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 10 |
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Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) |
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| 11 |
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Justin Wilson (Newman Haas Lanigan) |
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| 12 |
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Danica Patrick (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 13 |
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Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 14 |
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Jaime Camara (Conquest Racing) |
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| 15 |
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Ed Carpenter (Vision Racing) |
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| 16 |
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Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan) |
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| 17 |
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Dan Wheldon (Target Chip Ganassi) |
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| 18 |
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A.J. Foyt IV (Vision Racing) |
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| 19 |
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Mario Dominguez (Pacific Coast Mtrsprts) |
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| 20 |
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Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 21 |
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Marty Roth (Roth Racing) |
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| 22 |
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EJ Viso (HVM Racing) |
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| 23 |
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Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 24 |
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Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 25 |
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Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing) |
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| 26 |
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Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest Racing) |
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