A weight miscalculation on his No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing machine is going to cost Justin Wilson his Row 3 starting position and send him all the way to 26th on the grid for today’s race in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Wilson was slated to start sixth today but following qualifying on Saturday, but according to Autosport, his car was found in violation of Rule 14.4.13.3 of the IZOD IndyCar Series rulebook, which states that all cars must have a camera or dummy camera.
However, the driver himself also tweeted this on Sunday morning:
“Unfortunately we forgot one of the camera ballast weight in qualifying yesterday, so we will be starting 26th.”
Either way, this is a big blow to the Englishman and his team after Saturday’s solid effort in quals. Wilson was fourth-quickest on the charts during this morning’s warmup session.
As a result of Wilson’s penalty, Graham Rahal will slip into sixth position on the grid. In addition, two of the Lotus drivers, Oriol Servia and Sebastien Bourdais received overnight engine changes and will absorb 10-spot penalties along with Katherine Legge and Takuma Sato, who both also needed new engines.
Thanks to all of this, your official starting grid for today’s race looks like this:
Row 1
Will Power (Chevy), Dario Franchitti (Honda)
Row 2
Scott Dixon (Honda), James Hinchcliffe (Chevy)
Row 3
Ryan Hunter-Reay (Chevy), Graham Rahal (Honda)
Row 4
Mike Conway (Honda), Josef Newgarden (Honda)
Row 5
Ryan Briscoe (Chevy), Marco Andretti (Chevy)
Row 6
Tony Kanaan (Chevy), Rubens Barrichello (Chevy)
Row 7
E.J. Viso (Chevy), J.R. Hildebrand (Chevy)
Row 8
Charlie Kimball (Honda), Simon Pagenaud (Honda)
Row 9
James Jakes (Honda), Helio Castroneves (Chevy)
Row 10
Ana Beatriz (Chevy), Ed Carpenter (Chevy)
Row 11
Simona de Silvestro (Lotus), Sebastien Bourdais (Lotus)
Row 12
Oriol Servia (Lotus), Katherine Legge (Lotus)
Row 13
Takuma Sato (Honda), Justin Wilson (Honda)
