PRUETT: Triple Stint, 10.13

IndyCar

PRUETT: Triple Stint, 10.13

Er versucht es mit der Brechstange, Perfection Required, Fuelish Franchitti Channels The Professor, Red White and Bob, Hall's Heroes, and more.

Marshall Pruett | Posted October 13, 2009 Oakland, CA

He'll still drive a GT car if asked, but after his performance in Monterey, Johnny Mowlem should be thought of as a full-fledged prototype driver. (LAT)

It was another packed weekend of action…here’s a Triple Stint that once again struggles to keep up with it all. As usual, if you have questions or comments, please .

"Er versucht es mit der Brechstange."

My friend Nic emailed me after Saturday’s ALMS race to share his thoughts on the Magnussen/Bergmeister crash at start/finish on the final lap (and the numerous instances of contact that preceded it). He sided with Jörg in the incident.

According to Nic, there’s a great saying in German that sums up the contretemps: "Er versucht es mit der Brechstange," which translates to "He attempts it with the crowbar."

Jan is known for his pace and unquestionable skills, but he also has a reputation as a man that’s not afraid to use body contact to gain an advantage. I’ve never been opposed to cars trading paint, provided they aren’t mean-spirited about it, but it looked to me like some of the back and forth between Jan and Jörg wasn’t necessary. Bergmeister has earned a reputation closer to Bambi than Rambo, but as he dueled with Magnussen up to the final corner, he too showed he wasn’t afraid to use body contact to gain an advantage.

Their actions leading up to the final corner were amusing, but everything managed to go pear-shaped soon after.

The Dane appeared to become infused with the spirit of ‘The Intimidator’ – himself a former Corvette Racing driver – and set into motion a very costly chain reaction. It’s worth noting that while I’m a big fan of Magnussen’s body of work, I grew up watching Dale Earnhardt win races by moving people out of the way with well-timed taps to the rear fender, and never cared for that brand of winning by ‘bump and run.’

We’ve even seen the Corvette Racing boys bump and bang fenders to gain an advantage over each other (see: O’Connell vs. Beretta, Mid-Ohio, 2008), so Saturday night’s drama wasn’t a complete shocker.

In Turn 11 on the last lap Saturday night, the cameras showed Magnussen appearing to use the ‘bump and run’ to take the win, and that’s where a lot of the controversy surrounding the crash stems from.

Magnussen says Bergmeister parked his Porsche at the apex – a common tactic to force a pursuing car to hit their brakes and slow their momentum onto a straight – which caused his Corvette to hit the Porsche’s bumper. Without seeing their data traces, I can’t say with complete conviction whether Magnussen’s claim is accurate, but after watching the Turn 11 sequence like it was the Zapruder film, I think Jan might have a point. Jörg’s start-stop-start routine wasn’t very subtle.

If you’ve seen the steaming pile of Corvette left parked on driver’s right on the front straight at Laguna, you know that Bergmeister’s move (call it whatever you want…retaliation…retribution…) was as extreme as they come. He got kicked in the backside, and rather than simply kicking Magnussen back, he threw a haymaker and dropped him.

Or did he?

Let’s forget everything that happened before Turn 11 and any of the retaliation/retribution talk for a moment. There’s a bit of track configuration worth looking at that I think played a role in the crash.

Once the cars exited Turn 11 Bergmeister steered hard left to try and block Magnussen from passing on the inside. Most of the conjecture about Magnussen’s crash revolves around Bergmeister hitting him and spinning him, but as I’ve done my Zapruder routine, Bergmeister appears to veer left, hold Magnussen tight against the wall, and then maintain driving straight forward.

Because Laguna’s front straight is between three and four cars wide at the beginning and narrows down progressively as you reach start/finish, Magnussen saw the pit wall closing in on him more and more as the two cars rocketed to the finish.

Rather than keep steering his car to the left, Bergmeister knew that if he aimed his car straight, Magnussen would have to eventually brake and fall behind, or run the risk of hitting the pit wall as the track narrowed. Bergmeister forced Magnussen to play a game of ‘chicken’ with the pit wall – ‘hold your line and you hit the wall, or brake and you’ll be safe.’ The ploy almost worked, but if I’m having to pick someone to play a game of chicken with, Magnussen would be well outside my top-100 choices.

Magnussen’s stronger launch off Turn 11 nearly allowed him to clear Bergmeister before the funnel effect of the wall and the Porsche required him to brake, and as he reached the point of smacking the wall, he started to move right, hoping he’d cleared Bergmeister.

The two cars bumped as Jan tried to move over, and because he was slightly ahead, Magnussen’s steering input to the right spun him across Bergmeister’s left front bumper. Once Jörg saw Jan was spinning across his bow, he hit the brakes to keep from being collected in the incident. At that point, it was game over for the Corvette.

We learned two things from the accident. First, all of the time and money Pratt & Miller and GM put into the safety developments for the GT1- and GT2-spec Corvettes was well spent. Not only was the C6.RGT tested in a nasty front-end impact, Magnussen was able to walk away without major injury. Everyone at P&M and GM Racing should be proud of themselves.

Second, we learned that Jörg Bergmeister has grown a pair – big ones – since allowing himself to be bullied out of the win at Sebring in 2007. On Saturday night, the gangly German determined he’d taken one too many jabs from his Danish rival and wasn’t afraid to use the chrome horn for a change, but neither of them should come away from Monterey feeling proud of the roles they played in the accident.

A mix of frustration and desperation led Magnussen to use the tactics he employed to get past Bergmeister, and Jorg surely tapped into his own frustration and memories of Sebring to send a message – a very expensive message – that he’s also willing to use a cunning version of the ‘bump and run’ to his advantage.

One thing is for sure: After the probation announced by IMSA today, Jan and Jörg will be on their best behavior at the first two rounds next year. Let’s hope these two haven’t spoiled what should be another titanic GT2 battle to start the season off at Sebring.

and share your take on the situation – who was at fault? Do they share the blame equally? Should they have been fined or had points taken away?

Perfection Required

As I wrote before the Homestead finale, near-perfection was needed to win the championship, with the most error-free team and driver most likely to rear the rewards.

The GT2 battle between Porsche and Corvette ended in tears at Monterey, but who is to blame, or was it purely a racing accident. (Doug Werner)

The math behind the bodies of work for Franchitti, Briscoe and Dixon in 2009 shows that only the smallest difference in results made all the difference.

Of the 17 races held, the numbers played out like this:

Franchitti: 5 wins, 9 top-3s, 13 top-5s, 15 top-10s, 5 poles, finished 16 of 17 races
Briscoe: 3 wins, 11 top-3s, 13 top-5s, 13 top-10s, 4 poles, finished 17 of 17 races
Dixon: 5 wins, 10 top-3s, 10 top-5s, 14 top-10s, 1 pole, finished 16 of 17 races

Worst finishes:

Franchitti: (18th – Kansas, 15th – Watkins Glen)
Briscoe: (13th – Long Beach, 15th – Indy, 19th – Richmond, 18th – Motegi)
Dixon: (16th – St. Pete, 15th – Long Beach, 13th – Infineon)

Average Finishing Position:

Franchitti: 4.64
Briscoe: 5.52
Dixon: 5.00

The recipe for championship success was a complicated one this year, but there are some lessons to be drawn from these figures.

Briscoe was on the podium more than both Target drivers, but those podiums were more often for seconds than wins. Consistency kept him in title contention, as did the extra points for four poles, but a spate of poor finishes – four times outside the top-10 – and two fewer wins are what limited the effectiveness of his 11 top-3s.

When he finished inside the top-10, Briscoe was always near the podium, if not standing on it. But when he had a bad day he was out in the wilderness, adding very little to his points tally. In contrast, other than Franchitti’s two trips outside the top-10, his bad days resulted in a sixth or seventh. They weren’t wins, but they showed the type of maturity Briscoe is close to achieving. If Ryan can overcome the boom or bust results in 2010, next season could end quite differently for him.

Dixon mirrored Franchitti’s season in almost every way – they both failed to finish one race, had the same number of wins had nearly identical stats for top-3s and top-10s – but when it came to scoring points for pole, Dario won the battle 5 to 1. Most IndyCar followers wrote Dixon off after crashing out of the first two races, but his comeback from thereafter was appropriately hailed as miraculous. In the end, the points left on the table at St. Pete and Long Beach could have pushed him over the top to earn a second consecutive title. I’d have a hard time seeing Dixie start off 2010 in the same manner he did the 2009 season, which could be a nightmare for the rest of the field.

Franchitti’s numbers tell the tale of a veteran driver that had fewer poor finishes than his rivals, used those additional finishes to put more points in the bank, used raw speed to score more poles than anyone, and tied his teammate for the most wins in 2009. His mind switched to championship mode when he wasn’t capable of winning, and grabbed all the points available whenever he was the class of the field.

And just as he did in 2007, he reminded everyone that he knows how to slow down when it matters most...

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