INDYCAR: Dixon, Honda Dominate Shortened Detroit Grand Prix

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Dixon, Honda Dominate Shortened Detroit Grand Prix

Scott Dixon, who finished second in a Ganassi 1-2 at Indy, reversed the order to win his first race of the year after earning pole and leading every lap.

Marshall Pruett | Posted June 03, 2012

30,000 fans got to see an afternoon of intense racing on Sunday at Detroit’s Belle Isle, but unfortunately, it only lasted for 40 of the 90-lap race as significant sections of the 2.1-mile street circuit began to break up.

Long strips of the black sealant used to fill seams began to lift, if not fold up into dangerously tall chunks in many corners which led to a violent crash by Andretti Autosport’s James Hinchcliffe on Lap 39.

The Canadian climbed from his car unhurt, but walked back to inspect the football-sized clump of sealant that launched his car hard into the barriers.

Ed Carpenter passes part of the curled Belle Isle track surface. (Photo: LAT)

“I hate to say it, but I don’t know what they’re going to do,” said Hinchcliffe. “The lap before the accident a big chunk hit my wing in Turn 9. I was going to turn in, a piece of [track] folded over and you’re just a passenger at that point.”

With the yellow flag shown on Lap 40, the field circulated until Lap 45 when the red flag was thrown.

Race Director Beaux Barfield came down from Race Control to personally inspect the track, and initially expressed his belief that the race, which started rather late in the day (3:45 p.m. ET), could be restarted.

“There was enough track break-up on some patches that it was beginning to delaminating,” he said. “My goal is to fix the track and get back to racing.” With the INDYCAR rulebook requiring a race to run to half-distance before it can be considered official, Barfield waited for the pace car to complete 45 laps before halting the action.

“The Firestones are too good,” joked Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti. “They’re just sucking up the sealer!” Hinchcliffe suffered the most from the poor track conditions, but very few cars came away unscathed. Damaged wings, mirrors and bodywork dotted the cars stopped on pit lane due to the flying track debris that was kicked up by the 20-plus cars during the race.

Prior to the stoppage, pole-sitter Scott Dixon put on a clinic around the 14-turn circuit, keeping Will Power at bay and leading every lap in his Honda-powered Target Chip Ganassi Racing entry.

Track workers repaired major sections of damaged track surface at Belle Isle. (Photo: LAT)

“I feel so bad for everybody at home watching TV,” said Dixon. “This isn’t something you expect.”

The Kiwi’s lead was never seriously challenged due in part to the raw speed his No. 9 entry possessed, but even if Power was able to match or exceed his pace, the busy nature of the Belle isle track made passing nearly impossible.

Dixon maintained a gap to Power that varied from 1.1 to 1.9 seconds for most of the first stint, but it dipped slightly as the Ganassi driver got caught behind Ed Carpenter on Lap 28 as the American emerged from the pits.

Dixon got by Carpenter a half-lap later, but Power wasn’t as fortunate. “Our tires were finished at the end of the stint,” said the Team Penske driver, who followed Dixon into the pits at the end of Lap 32 with Power a full nine seconds arrears. He’d move the lead out to over 10 seconds when the yellow came out.

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” said Dixon during the red flag. “We hit a few things, and nearly hit the fence, but I hope they can fix it and get back out to put on a show for the fans today. Pretty much been a great day for Team Target, and hopefully we can carry on.”

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Roger Penske, who revived the Belle Isle race after it last ran in 2008, said the same sealer used to fix the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway oval when it suffered similar track surface issues during the 2010 Daytona 500.

“Unfortunately, sorry for the fans, but the track is older and goes through [adverse conditions in] the winter,” he said. “It was obviously wise to stop the race. They’ll use the same epoxy they use in Daytona in about three places, which takes about 25 or 30 minutes to cure, and then we can go back to racing.”

The running order at the time of the red flag was:

Car, Driver
1 Scott Dixon
2 Will Power
3 Simon Pagenaud
4 Tony Kanaan
5 Helio Castroneves
6 Dario Franchitti
7 Ryan Hunter-Reay
8 Graham Rahal
9 Ryan Briscoe
10 Oriol Servia
11 Charlie Kimball
12 EJ Viso
13 Josef Newgarden
14 Mike Conway
15 JR Hildebrand
16 Simona de Silvestro
17 Marco Andretti
18 Ed Carpenter
19 Alex Tagliani
20 Takuma Sato Contact
21 James Hinchcliffe Contact
22 James Jakes Mechanical
23 Sebastien Bourdais Mechanical
24 Justin Wilson
25 Rubens Barrichello Mechanical

After 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 46 seconds of downtime, the track surface was fixed, albeit with a temporary solution, and the series announced the race would be restarted at a shortened length of 60 laps.

Drivers were also instructed by Firestone and the series to bolt on new tires--the same Red or Black compound they were using when the red flag came out—to conclude the race.

Marco Andretti and Alex Tagliani, the two drivers who pitted during the track surface yellow, were certainly disadvantaged by the shortened race distance, but Tony Kanaan, who inspected the patching work with Will Power, said the call for the abbreviated race was the right choice under the circumstances.

“It’s borderline,” said the Brazilian. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable running the full distance.”

Drivers pulled away from pit lane, except for eight-placed Graham Rahal, whose Honda-powered Ganassi car refused to move when a clutch problem intervened.

Just as the cars began to circulate, a downpour began to fall…but the series threw the green with Dixon leading the field.

Simon Pagenaud jumped to second on the Lap 47 restart and Dario Franchitti leapt to fourth as a number of cars spun and crashed behind them, bringing out a yellow.

Helio Castroneves and Ed Carpenter spun and hit each other in the very wet Turn 7, and with the cars packing up before the crash site, JR Hildebrand appeared to turn Ryan Briscoe who then pitted with broken right rear suspension.

Josef Newgarden slid and stalled when he came to a stop, and with some help from the safety team, Castroneves restarted sans his nose and pitted for a replacement, and Carpenter also got running again with visible damage to the nose of his car.

The Lap 51 restart saw Franchitti pass Pagenaud and Power to take second behind his teammate. E.J. Viso spun away eighth place with some help from Marco Andretti, and as he was left sitting in the middle of the track, the yellow flag flew once again.

Franchitti, on new Reds, scythed through four of the five cars ahead of him on the two restarts and seemed poised to go for back-to-back wins after earning his third Indy 500 victory last weekend.

Dixon held the lead on the Lap 54 restart as the green flag waved early and quickly showed the form that allowed the Kiwi to put Power in his mirrors during the first 40 laps. Dixon’s gap after Lap 55 was .87 seconds, and one lap later, moved it out to 1.01 seconds as he made a statement on the harder Blacks.

Pagenaud sat 1.7 seconds behind Dixon in third with three laps remaining, and with little chance of passes being made, Dixon, who finished second in a Ganassi 1-2 at Indy, reversed the order to win his first race of the year ahead of his teammate.

The 31-year-old led every lap on his way to a dominant performance that included pole position and set the second-fastest lap of the race.

Honda also completed a podium sweep of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

"Two weeks in a row a 1-2 finish," said a jubilant Dixon after climbing from his car. "Just happy. It was a long, long day. Good job by the track and IndyCar to get the track ready for a 15-lap shootout."

His teammate was obviously impressed with the performance he witnessed during the final run to the checkered flag.

"I tried to get Dixie, but he's been a different class all weekend," said Franchitti. "And he's a wily little fox there, made some great moves. Those last, however many laps, six, eight laps behind him, that's the hardest I've ever seen somebody drive a car. Over the crest in two; I could see about that much air (measures about five inches) underneath his inside front tire, there were sparks flying off the bottom wall but he was crossed up everywhere. It was a pretty impressive performance."

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