Leads 102 laps, holds off Danica for Texas win
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Ryan Briscoe’s dreams of an IZOD IndyCar Series title are still alive.
After a rough start to the championship that saw him throw away potential victory in the March season-opener at Sao Paulo and crash out of last Sunday’s Indy 500, Briscoe may have been feeling some pressure to perform going into last night’s Firestone 550k at Texas Motor Speedway. But the ‘Thunder from Down Under’ came through in the clutch as he pulled away from fan favorite Danica Patrick in the closing laps to score his first win of 2010 by 1.4629 seconds.
Patrick passed Briscoe shortly after he made his final pit stop and held the point at Lap 192 to bring the crowd to its feet. But Briscoe quickly answered back and took the lead back one lap later and slowly built a gap that wouldn’t be enough for her to overcome. Later, Briscoe admitted that he wasn’t sure he had the speed to get P1 again from Patrick, who had a solid drive from green to checkers.
“She had been running strong all night long,” he said. “That whole second-to-last stint, she was in my mirrors and attempted a couple of times to get around me. I knew she had a very strong car. She must have had a good pit stop as well. I was hoping having gone the lap extra, I was going to be able to pull some distance. But she got me in [tunrs] three and four as I was coming out of the pits. You know, I let her go. But I was able to sort of slingshot back, carry some momentum, use the Honda ‘push to pass’ button on the exit of [turn] four which really helped me.
“Instead of hitting the limiter, I sort of drove through it and was able to clear her into [turn] one. That was key. If I didn’t get her there, I’m not sure if I was going to get her at all. That was huge. I knew it was going to be an important time and that’s why I was being aggressive, to get right on her while I had fresh tires and the high line was still going to work.”
With the win, Briscoe vaulted himself from seventh to fifth in the championship and salvaged the night for Team Penske. Will Power (finished 14th) battled hard after having to go in the pits for debris removal from underneath his car, but that knocked him off pit sequence and caused him to pit for fuel late in the race. As a result, he lost the championship lead to Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti, who has a three-point edge after finishing fifth.
Helio Castroneves, the defending Texas champ, had it even worse. On Lap 130, he made contact coming out of Turn 4 with Mario Moraes and both cars were sent spinning across the tri-oval. Rookie driver Bertrand Baguette was forced to squeeze between both of them, but hit Castroneves’ rear wing on the way out to sustain terminal damage to his car.
After the crash, Castroneves hopped out of his car and presumably gave Moraes a piece of his mind; when asked about what he said on the TV broadcast, he said that he didn’t think he could repeat it.
“We were very lucky to be honest,” he said afterwards. “At a speedway like this, you do not only rely on just your spotter. You have to have your whole line in each mirror [and] be sure that you are clear before you go wide. Clearly, [Moraes] didn’t do that. It takes experience. With only 130 laps in the race, there’s still a lot to go. It’s just a shame.”
“I couldn’t hear my spotter say anyone was on the outside,” Moraes said about the incident. “Then I got hit and started spinning. I thought I was by myself.”
The wreck was one of three on the night, but it may not have been the scariest one. Earlier, on Lap 97, the right side of Simona De Silvestro’s machine became engulfed in flames after she hit the wall at Turn 2. The car came to rest in Turn 3, and the Holmatro Safety Team appeared to have serious trouble extricating her from the car before finally pulling her out and dousing the fire. She sustained burns to her right hand.
“The car was pretty loose for a couple of laps,” said De Silvestro, who took her first DNF of 2010. “It was pretty hard coming out of Turn 2. I was able to catch it a couple of times, but this time it got away from me and I hit the wall. The car caught on fire and it wasn’t really extinguishing. I feel bad for the guys because the car was pretty good, just a little loose. Now I know what a loose car is.”
Marco Andretti, who came up with another third-place run, said he was relieved when he saw her out of the inferno.
“I was glad she was out of the car,” he said. “At first I’m like, ‘Please, tell me she’s out of that car. It’s going to be hard for those guys to get in there and pull her out.’ I’m sure it looked a lot worse than it was. It looked pretty frightening.”
At that point, Franchitti was dominating the proceedings like he did at Indianapolis one week ago. But after his pit stop following the Castroneves/Moraes/Baguette crack-up, he found that his No. 10 Target/Energizer special wasn’t as strong in dirty air as it was up front. He faded back into the lower reaches of the top ten before rallying to finish in the top five, one spot behind Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon.
“Great car in the front tonight, not as much in traffic,” said Franchitti, who led 106 laps but became the first Indy 500 winner in three seasons to not follow up with a victory at Texas.
Tony Kanaan — who didn’t appear thrilled with teammate Patrick after she chopped him on the backstretch, costing him track position — finished sixth, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay (in what may be his last race of the year) in seventh. Alex Lloyd held firm in the top ten and finished eighth, while Dan Wheldon came home ninth. Vitor Meira rounded out the top ten.
Video credits: Indy Racing League, ‘MT89Motorsports’ on Youtube.
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IZOD IndyCar Series
Firestone 550k at Texas Motor Speedway
Final results
(Car #-Driver, Team, Deficit)
1. 6-Ryan Briscoe, Penske, avg. speed of 159.508 m.p.h.
2. 7-Danica Patrick, Andretti, -1.4629 seconds.
3. 26-Marco Andretti, Andretti, -2.3162 seconds.
4. 9-Scott Dixon, Ganassi, -3.0770 seconds.
5. 10-Dario Franchitti, Ganassi, -7.5882 seconds.
6. 11-Tony Kanaan, Andretti, -8.0664 seconds.
7. 37-Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti, -13.9390 seconds.
8. 19-Alex Lloyd, Coyne, -14.3084 seconds.
9. 4-Dan Wheldon, Panther, -15.0859 seconds.
10. 14-Vitor Meira, Foyt, -15.8250 seconds.
11. 8-E.J. Viso, KV Racing Tech., -18.8687 seconds.
12. 06-Hideki Mutoh, Newman/Haas, -23.0449 seconds.
13. 24-Tomas Scheckter, Dreyer & Reinbold, -1 lap.
14. 12-Will Power, Penske, -1 lap.
15. 67-Sarah Fisher, Fisher, -1 lap.
16. 2-Raphael Matos, DFDragon, -2 laps.
17. 34-Mario Romancini, Conquest, -2 laps.
18. 77-Alex Tagliani, FAZZT, -3 laps.
19. 22-Justin Wilson, Dreyer & Reinbold, -3 laps.
20. 3-Helio Castroneves, Penske, Contact at Lap 129.
21. 32-Mario Moraes, KV Racing Tech., Contact at Lap 129.
22. 36-Bertrand Baguette, Conquest, Contact at Lap 129.
23. 18-Milka Duno, Coyne, Mechanical at Lap 116.
24. 78-Simona de Silvestro, HVM, Contact at Lap 97.
25. 5-Takuma Sato, KV Racing Tech., Contact at Lap 56.
26. 66-Jay Howard, Fisher, Mechanical at Lap 37.
Race Statistics
Winners’ average speed: 159.508 m.p.h.; Time of race: 2 hours, 4 minutes, 47.1555 seconds; Margin of victory: 1.4629 seconds; Cautions: 4 for 36 laps; Lead changes: 10 among 7 drivers; Lap leaders: Briscoe 1-7, Franchitti 8, Briscoe 9-47, Franchitti 48-132, Tagliani 133-165, Power 166-169, Briscoe 170-189, Wheldon 190, Mutoh 191, Patrick 192, Briscoe 193-228.
Point Standings
Franchitti 246, Power 243, Dixon 235, Castroneves 211, Briscoe 208, Hunter-Reay 201, Wilson 179, Kanaan, 179, Andretti 169, Wheldon 164.
