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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Hunter-Reay Wins Baltimore; Title Heads To Finale
Ryan Hunter-Reay looked like he was out of the title hunt after Sonoma, but the American shot back into contention after taking his fourth win of 2012.
Team Penske's Will Power entered Sunday's Grand Prix of Baltimore IndyCar Series race with a 37-point lead over Ryan Hunter-Reay in the drivers' championship.
After 75 laps of dry-wet-dry racing, nine caution flags, mechanical failures, crashes and at least one blown engine, not to mention some risky and questionable strategy calls, Hunter-Reay cut Power's lead down to 17 points by taking an emphatic, hard-fought win for Andretti Autosport to keep his championship aspirations alive.
"We still have a shot," said the 31-year-old American who won his fourth race of the season. "We all want it bad enough, we can go get this thing. The team deserves it; it's a matter of if we can put it together.”
Power could have easily clinched the title in Baltimore, but the resolve and determination within the Andretti team to keep it from happening was nothing short of staggering.
"It is an unbelievable day," said Hunter-Reay, who collected his ninth career Indy car win and sixth with the Andretti team. "We had one thing we could do to keep this championship and that's win, and we did that.
His Team Penske rival, who ended up sixth, wasn't surprised to see his pole position and early dominance turn to naught.
"I knew it would be a day like this," said Power, who's been locked out of the win column since April 29th. "It never comes easy. We just have to do our best and fight like a dog till the end. We'll come out swinging."
Power's teammate, Sonoma winner Ryan Briscoe, took second ahead of Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports' Simon Pagenaud, who earned his fourth podium of the year.
Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon claimed fourth, but now sits at 400 points to Power's 453, essentially ending his championship bid with a maximum of 53 points available at the finale.
One week after claiming a career-best fourth-place finish, Formula One veteran Rubens Barrichello followed it up with a heady drive to complete the top 5.
Hunter-Reay’s path to the win involved two pivotal events—one that required a lot of faith and another that took a lot of balls.
With rain in the forecast, a drizzle began to fall around Lap 15, and by Lap 19 it was heavy enough to have the top 6 drivers pit for rain tires. Hunter-Reay, who started 10th and had moved up to seventh, was told to stay out by Michael Andretti, his team owner and strategist, who believed the rain would quickly pass and the track would dry faster than expected.
“You know, especially when the rain came out and you know we took a little bit of a gamble but we thought that, you know, most likely, because it's so bad, but yet we saw that the rain was going to stop,” said Andretti.
“So we thought if we could get through one restart and basically get to three or four corners, because we thought there was going to be another yellow right away, let's just go for it and we told Ryan, just keep it on the track, don't try to beat anybody but just keep it on the track and I think if we do that, it's going to go yellow again and then it's going to have time to dry out. That's actually what happened.”
PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Baltimore 2012
RHR was handed the lead as those in front of him, including race-leader Will Power, took on wets.
The Andretti team would pit Hunter-Reay on Lap 23 under yellow for a fresh set of Firestone Red slicks, surrendering the lead to Takuma Sato, but the big leap in track position had worked in RHR’s favor.
Behind him—well behind him—Power went from looking like a man just over an hour away from winning his first championship to a driver who just got beat by a daring strategy call. 23 seconds behind RHR and 49 seconds from Sato, Power was down and RHR's team looked to keep him as far back as possible.
After 75 laps of dry-wet-dry racing, nine caution flags, mechanical failures, crashes and at least one blown engine, not to mention some risky and questionable strategy calls, Hunter-Reay cut Power's lead down to 17 points by taking an emphatic, hard-fought win for Andretti Autosport to keep his championship aspirations alive.
"We still have a shot," said the 31-year-old American who won his fourth race of the season. "We all want it bad enough, we can go get this thing. The team deserves it; it's a matter of if we can put it together.”
Power could have easily clinched the title in Baltimore, but the resolve and determination within the Andretti team to keep it from happening was nothing short of staggering.
"It is an unbelievable day," said Hunter-Reay, who collected his ninth career Indy car win and sixth with the Andretti team. "We had one thing we could do to keep this championship and that's win, and we did that.
His Team Penske rival, who ended up sixth, wasn't surprised to see his pole position and early dominance turn to naught.
"I knew it would be a day like this," said Power, who's been locked out of the win column since April 29th. "It never comes easy. We just have to do our best and fight like a dog till the end. We'll come out swinging."
Power's teammate, Sonoma winner Ryan Briscoe, took second ahead of Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports' Simon Pagenaud, who earned his fourth podium of the year.
Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon claimed fourth, but now sits at 400 points to Power's 453, essentially ending his championship bid with a maximum of 53 points available at the finale.
One week after claiming a career-best fourth-place finish, Formula One veteran Rubens Barrichello followed it up with a heady drive to complete the top 5.
Hunter-Reay’s path to the win involved two pivotal events—one that required a lot of faith and another that took a lot of balls.
With rain in the forecast, a drizzle began to fall around Lap 15, and by Lap 19 it was heavy enough to have the top 6 drivers pit for rain tires. Hunter-Reay, who started 10th and had moved up to seventh, was told to stay out by Michael Andretti, his team owner and strategist, who believed the rain would quickly pass and the track would dry faster than expected.
“You know, especially when the rain came out and you know we took a little bit of a gamble but we thought that, you know, most likely, because it's so bad, but yet we saw that the rain was going to stop,” said Andretti.
“So we thought if we could get through one restart and basically get to three or four corners, because we thought there was going to be another yellow right away, let's just go for it and we told Ryan, just keep it on the track, don't try to beat anybody but just keep it on the track and I think if we do that, it's going to go yellow again and then it's going to have time to dry out. That's actually what happened.”
PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Baltimore 2012
RHR was handed the lead as those in front of him, including race-leader Will Power, took on wets.
The Andretti team would pit Hunter-Reay on Lap 23 under yellow for a fresh set of Firestone Red slicks, surrendering the lead to Takuma Sato, but the big leap in track position had worked in RHR’s favor.
Behind him—well behind him—Power went from looking like a man just over an hour away from winning his first championship to a driver who just got beat by a daring strategy call. 23 seconds behind RHR and 49 seconds from Sato, Power was down and RHR's team looked to keep him as far back as possible.
INDYCAR BRAZIL
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