INDYCAR: Briscoe and Penske Roll at Mid-Ohio

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Briscoe and Penske Roll at Mid-Ohio

Leads Castroneves in 1-2 sweep of Honda Indy 200.

David Phillips | http://www.racer.com/speedtv | Posted July 20, 2008 Lexington, Ohio

Ryan Briscoe shook off his recent misfortune to claim his second win of the year. (LAT photo)

In a race that began with the field on rain tires on a rapidly drying track, Team Penske didn’t necessarily make the perfect calls in the early stages of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. But in a race that developed into one where pit and fuel strategy proved be critical, Team Penske -- as in Roger Penske (aka The Captain) -- got it perfect when most mattered. As a result, Ryan Briscoe drove to his second 2008 IndyCar Series win and, with teammate Helio Castroneves right behind him at the finish, led a team Penske one-two ahead of championship leader Scott Dixon.

“It was an interesting race,” said Briscoe who, like most of the early front runners, played it safe on the change to slick tires. “At one point we fell back in the pack because we stayed out one too many laps on the wets.

“But I knew we could get back to the lead with Roger calling the strategy. He’s awesome. My experience with Penske Racing all through last year in the ALMS taught me that when you have those situations where something would happen and you fall back in the pack. Through his experience Roger always finds a way to have you pit at the right time and get you back to the front. Today was a perfect case of that.”

Although it may not have seemed critical at the time, the key pit stop came with 62 laps remaining in the race. Having waited until Lap Six to switch to slick tires, Briscoe was mired in midfield when Penske made the call to stop again on Lap 23.

“After we were on slicks, for us it was all about pitting as soon as we thought we could do the race with one more stop,” said Briscoe. “So it became a three-stop strategy, as opposed to the two-stop strategy it would have been for a full-on dry race. We took the gamble of pitting a bit early on that second stop to try and gain track position . . . and a couple of laps later a full course yellow came. We had already done our stop so when everybody else pitted we just cycled to the front. That was the turning point in the race. From that point on it was all about speed.”

Junqueira's chances of second slipped away at the finish, but it was a heartening run for the Dale Coyne Racing driver. (LAT photo)

Briscoe had plenty of speed, in fact he only lost the lead again for three laps when he made his final stop on Lap 55. But in the latter stages of the race he also had a buffer in the form of Bruno Junqueira. The Brazilian was working a gambling strategy of his own -- in concert with team owner Dale Coyne -- that saw him try to stretch his fuel load from his second pit stop on Lap 44 through to the finish on Lap 85. He would need a bevy of full course yellows, but also superb fuel mileage.

“I was making better fuel mileage than anyone in the paddock could,” said Junqueira. “3.5 miles per gallon. But we had radio transmission problems and I couldn’t hear when the yellows came, when the restarts were coming . . .but I still didn’t have any problems keeping Helio behind me. He didn’t even try to pass me.”

Junqueira may have made the mileage, but he didn’t get the yellows he needed and had to stop for fuel on Lap 77. By then, Castroneves and Dixon -- who had fallen behind Briscoe by playing a more conventional pit stop strategy and making their second stops on Lap 27 during a full course yellow -- were more than a dozen seconds behind the leader.

“It’s one of those races that even if you try, it’s like you’re swimming, you’re swimming; you’re never going to get there because the current is so strong,” said Castroneves. “Once you fall back between fifth and sixth and everybody’s on pretty much the same strategy, we were waiting for a situation or an opportunity. Unfortunately, that opportunity is sometimes hard to happen. We just have to sit and wait.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Phillips

Senior writer, RACER Magazine

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