-
Home
- TV Shows
- TV Schedule
- NASCAR
-
Formula 1
- Auto Racing
- Moto Racing
- Cars
- Bikes
- Store
- Social
- Games
- Mobile
- Deals
- Videos
- Photos
- Home
- TV Shows
-
TV Schedule
-
SPEED Showcase
-
- NASCAR
- Formula 1
- Auto Racing
- Moto Racing
- Cars
- Bikes
- Store
- Social
- Mobile
- Deals
- Videos
- Photos
IndyCar
INDYCAR: Barber Preview
Round 2 of the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series championship starts Friday as 26 cars practice for Sunday’s 90-lap Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.
Can Target Chip Ganassi's Scott Dixon improve upon his second-place finish at St. Pete to score the win at Barber Motorsports Park, or will Team Penske's Will Power run away and hide? (Photo: LAT)
Round 2 of the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series championship kicks off on Friday as 26 cars practice for Sunday’s 90-lap Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.
Circuit: Barber Motorsports Park, 2.38-mile, 17-turn road course located in Leeds, Alabama.
Entry List: Click Here
Event Schedule: Click Here
Live Timing & Scoring: Click Here
Social: Follow @marshallpruett, @BarberMotorPark and @indycar for updates.
Television: Daily trackside updates Friday through Sunday by Robin Miller on SPEED Center, race broadcast Sunday, April 1st, 1 p.m. ET, NBC SN.
Tickets: Click Here
2011 Race Winner: Will Power
2011 Pole Winner: Will Power, 1:11.45 seconds (IndyCar Series lap record: 1:10.13 seconds, Will Power, 2010)
Event Preview:
Team Penske’s Will Power flat dominated the 2011 Barber IndyCar race, scoring pole by a staggering .281 seconds over his teammate Ryan Briscoe, and if that wasn’t enough of a statement on Saturday, Power went on to deliver 90 laps of flag-to-flag dominance on Sunday.
Based on comments after last weekend’s race at St. Pete, there’s no reason to believe things will change when he returns to the circuit in his Dallara DW12-Chevrolet.
Of those expected to give chase to Power, it could be another Penske party up front. Briscoe and St. Pete winner Helio Castroneves should provide plenty of heat, Target Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon was the top man in his team, Graham Rahal should come away with a top 5 and I’d expect all three Andretti Autosport cars to be in the thick of the fight.
KV Racing looked a bit discombobulated on their season debut, making it hard to predict how they’ll fare, but it’s hard to see Tony Kanaan, Rubens Barrichello and a maturing E.J. Viso too far out of the picture. As a unit, they’re the biggest wildcards this weekend.
Amongst the single-car teams, Simon Pagenaud, who made his series start at Barber last year, is my top threat to the multi-car programs. Mike Conway should shine and I think JR Hildebrand and his Panther Racing engineers will carry their improved pace from St. Pete into Barber.
St. Pete isn’t the hardest puzzle to solve, so it will be interesting to track whether rookie Josef Newgarden--who starred on the street circuit--and his Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing team can deliver the same kind of performance on a proper road course.
Reigning series champion Dario Franchitti admitted that he and the team missed the setup window at Round 1, and if there’s one track that just doesn’t seem to like the Scot, it’s Barber. He doesn’t make many mistakes, but there’s something about Barber—at least in testing or practice—that pulls the No. 10 into the barriers.
Coming off a 13th-place finish at St. Pete, he can take solace in the fact that he’s qualified seventh and finished third at the two previous Barber races, which should help him to grab some of the points that were lost on Sunday.
Sebastian Bourdais was a surprise star last weekend and owned the slow-speed corners, but the fast, flowing Barber circuit will reward the engines making the most power, which could slow his charge.
Misc Notes:
• After St. Pete’s allotment of an extra set of tires, the series is back down to eight total sets for Barber, with five sets of primaries (Blacks) and three sets of alternates (Reds). Other than the rookies who need the track time, the first practice session could see a lot of cars parked on pit lane until the very end as teams conserve tire mileage for the race.
• The Firestone Reds caught a lot of teams by surprise in qualifying at St. Pete. Using what they’d learned with the previous Dallara, adjustments were made with drivers expecting the back of the car to be more settled, but ended up having to deal with wicked amounts of oversteer. With that setup lesson learned on the DW12, look for some of the bigger names that qualified poorly last weekend to be back at the sharp end of the grid at Barber.
• A fair amount of ECU-to-engine communications errors struck the Lotus-powered cars at St. Pete, and with just three days between leaving Florida and loading in to Barber, there’s a chance some of those issues could persist.
• On that theme, the Lotus teams have been unable to use the full 12,000 rpms permitted in the regulations due to shortcomings in the manufacturer-supplied ECU shift-cut strategy, which is another item testing mileage would help to resolve.
• With a few sections to stretch its legs, Honda's single-turbo engine should be more of a match for twin-turbo Chevrolet at Barber.
• Versus, now the NBC Sports Network, will get its first crack at television the new-look IndyCar Series this weekend, and will have driver Townsend Bell in the mix for the first time. As one of the more opinionated people in the paddock, Bell should add some extra bite and insight to the broadcast.
Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett on Twitter.
Circuit: Barber Motorsports Park, 2.38-mile, 17-turn road course located in Leeds, Alabama.
Entry List: Click Here
Event Schedule: Click Here
Live Timing & Scoring: Click Here
Social: Follow @marshallpruett, @BarberMotorPark and @indycar for updates.
Television: Daily trackside updates Friday through Sunday by Robin Miller on SPEED Center, race broadcast Sunday, April 1st, 1 p.m. ET, NBC SN.
Tickets: Click Here
2011 Race Winner: Will Power
2011 Pole Winner: Will Power, 1:11.45 seconds (IndyCar Series lap record: 1:10.13 seconds, Will Power, 2010)
Event Preview:
Team Penske’s Will Power flat dominated the 2011 Barber IndyCar race, scoring pole by a staggering .281 seconds over his teammate Ryan Briscoe, and if that wasn’t enough of a statement on Saturday, Power went on to deliver 90 laps of flag-to-flag dominance on Sunday.
Based on comments after last weekend’s race at St. Pete, there’s no reason to believe things will change when he returns to the circuit in his Dallara DW12-Chevrolet.
Of those expected to give chase to Power, it could be another Penske party up front. Briscoe and St. Pete winner Helio Castroneves should provide plenty of heat, Target Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon was the top man in his team, Graham Rahal should come away with a top 5 and I’d expect all three Andretti Autosport cars to be in the thick of the fight.
KV Racing looked a bit discombobulated on their season debut, making it hard to predict how they’ll fare, but it’s hard to see Tony Kanaan, Rubens Barrichello and a maturing E.J. Viso too far out of the picture. As a unit, they’re the biggest wildcards this weekend.
Amongst the single-car teams, Simon Pagenaud, who made his series start at Barber last year, is my top threat to the multi-car programs. Mike Conway should shine and I think JR Hildebrand and his Panther Racing engineers will carry their improved pace from St. Pete into Barber.
St. Pete isn’t the hardest puzzle to solve, so it will be interesting to track whether rookie Josef Newgarden--who starred on the street circuit--and his Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing team can deliver the same kind of performance on a proper road course.
Reigning series champion Dario Franchitti admitted that he and the team missed the setup window at Round 1, and if there’s one track that just doesn’t seem to like the Scot, it’s Barber. He doesn’t make many mistakes, but there’s something about Barber—at least in testing or practice—that pulls the No. 10 into the barriers.
Coming off a 13th-place finish at St. Pete, he can take solace in the fact that he’s qualified seventh and finished third at the two previous Barber races, which should help him to grab some of the points that were lost on Sunday.
Sebastian Bourdais was a surprise star last weekend and owned the slow-speed corners, but the fast, flowing Barber circuit will reward the engines making the most power, which could slow his charge.
Misc Notes:
• After St. Pete’s allotment of an extra set of tires, the series is back down to eight total sets for Barber, with five sets of primaries (Blacks) and three sets of alternates (Reds). Other than the rookies who need the track time, the first practice session could see a lot of cars parked on pit lane until the very end as teams conserve tire mileage for the race.
• The Firestone Reds caught a lot of teams by surprise in qualifying at St. Pete. Using what they’d learned with the previous Dallara, adjustments were made with drivers expecting the back of the car to be more settled, but ended up having to deal with wicked amounts of oversteer. With that setup lesson learned on the DW12, look for some of the bigger names that qualified poorly last weekend to be back at the sharp end of the grid at Barber.
• A fair amount of ECU-to-engine communications errors struck the Lotus-powered cars at St. Pete, and with just three days between leaving Florida and loading in to Barber, there’s a chance some of those issues could persist.
• On that theme, the Lotus teams have been unable to use the full 12,000 rpms permitted in the regulations due to shortcomings in the manufacturer-supplied ECU shift-cut strategy, which is another item testing mileage would help to resolve.
• With a few sections to stretch its legs, Honda's single-turbo engine should be more of a match for twin-turbo Chevrolet at Barber.
• Versus, now the NBC Sports Network, will get its first crack at television the new-look IndyCar Series this weekend, and will have driver Townsend Bell in the mix for the first time. As one of the more opinionated people in the paddock, Bell should add some extra bite and insight to the broadcast.
Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett on Twitter.
INDYCAR BRAZIL
LATEST HEADLINES: AUTO-RACING
-
INDYCAR: 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh To Pace The Indy 500
Jim Harbaugh, head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, will drive the… -
MILLER: Dinner With Legends
It’s become an annual event and, as my pal and longtime Indy… -
VIDEO: Dyson Tech Talk - Tires 101
The art of going fast: what kind of feedback does a driver want from… -
VIDEO: SPEEDing Through Hinchtown, Episode 2
Andretti Autosport IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe utilizes the… -
LE MANS: Driver Lineups For LM24 Finalized
Seats at Delta-ADR, Morand Racing, JMW Motorsport and others confirmed… -
PHOTOS: V8 Supercars COTA Gallery
UPDATED: View more than 150 photos from Austin as V8 Supercars Austin… -
GT: Black Falcon Mercedes Wins Rain-Soaked Nurburgring 24
Sean Edwards, Bernd Schneider, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Nicki Thiim… - More News
