Written by:
Justin Wilson
Hello again and welcome to my Long Beach column for SPEEDtv.com!
It’s always great to go back to Long Beach - it’s a fantastic place that has a great atmosphere. It’s not the first race of the year and therefore not the mad rush to organize hard cards, photo shoots, Interviews, etc., and that makes it much more enjoyable than in Champ Car when it kicked off the season. This year I was able to relax more and take in the buzz around the event and I am now seeing what everyone else sees (though I still don’t recognize most of the celebrities!)
The weekend started off strong, but left Justin Wilson wanting for more. (LAT)
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Before the weekend actually started, I joined Dario and Marino Franchitti in Salt Lake City for a Travis concert. I’d been a big fan of them for as long as I can remember, so to finally see them play live was brilliant and a night to remember. Secretly I think the boys wanted to be at the Britney Spears concert across the road, but they didn’t let on!
I flew to Long Beach on Thursday and as I walked around with my wife Julia and daughter Jane, I realized that Jane has more fans than I do! It was great seeing all the old fans and catching up with some friends we hadn’t seen for a year or two.
Back to the racing.
We started the season off strong with a podium finish in St. Pete. Between then and Long Beach, my team owner Dale Coyne had finalized a deal with Z-Line Designs Furniture. After being a part of the team last year, and seeing what we’re capable of now, it’s great to have them back on board for 2009. One of the key areas for them is to continue to build their brand awareness though racing and that’s great for me and the team.
We all know that the best way to do that is to win races, and I’ll be trying my best to do that for them.
Though Long Beach and St Petersburg are both street circuits, it was a different feeling for us this time because of all the high expectation from the media, the fans, our rivals, and worse, from ourselves! The main challenge was not to let this distract us and to focus on the same logical decisions that we made in St Pete.
Often these expectations can turn into negative pressure and after a good result it can seem as if your world is crumbling around you if you don't repeat a similar performance next time out. Fortunately we were able to focus in just the same way and things were looking good as the weekend progressed.
It was nice to see Helio back in the car. He’s a wonderful guy who's fun to be around as well as a fan-favorite. He did an amazing job to jump back in the car after no pre-season testing and be on the pace in the first hour of driving. It may have been his car, but he hasn’t driven it for six months. I’m sure Helio must have felt a bit lost for a lap or two -- like when you rent a car and leave the airport in a strange city while looking for directions! But after a while you adjust and relax.
Mind you, I thought he was just a bit too relaxed at the start - we had a really close call when he left the pits and joined the track a bit too early in the brake zone at turn one. With all four wheels locked up, I got a close-up view of his rear wing before he turned the corner as I continued sliding down the run off…
I can’t blame Helio for it really, as he missed the drivers briefing on Friday morning. I was just happy not to bend my race car.
Long Beach is a fun track, but very challenging. We found out quickly that we had some work to do to enable us to tune the car for its low grip surface. There are ripples and bumps on the exit and entry of the important corners. I find that LB will highlight any weakness you have with the car’s handling. We made some ground on Friday, but deep down I had the fear that we were not going to live up to our performance in St Pete as we were over 1 second off the pace.
The pressure was growing but everyone kept their cool and overnight we made a few more adjustments to get closer to the front of the field. This put the car back in the operating window, and by the second round of qualifying we were the 2nd quickest car of the weekend, only 0.02 seconds off the fastest. We had made it to the Firestone Fast Six again which is an achievement in itself.
There are so many good car and driver combinations this year, and it’s easier to get it wrong than to get it right in knock-out qualifying. Unfortunately, I couldn’t repeat my best time once I’d made it to the Firestone Fast Six. I’d used up my option tires on the first run, and it was impossible to get a second decent run out of them. But we weren’t too disappointed. Qualifying 5th wasn’t the end of the world - in the 85 laps of Long Beach, a lot can go wrong...
As always, the inside line for turn 1 was the place to be. I got a great start and was able to pass E.J. Viso just after start/finish. I was able to sneak down the inside of Dario under braking too. Turns out he’d had a pretty awful start, but I didn’t know that at the time, but I soon gave that spot back to him exiting the hairpin when I had a missed up-shift. After the initial worry that I had a problem with my gear box, I settled in and waited for the next opportunity to arise.
Z-Line Designs Furniture joined Dale Coyne Racing for 2009, bringing much needed sponsorship to the small team. (LAT)
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On lap 16 Dario headed to the pits, and as we approached turn one, a yellow flag came out -- I thought the Ganassi guys must have psychic powers to make such a great call! Then as we exited turn one and saw the green flag was still out – turns out that yellow was only for turn one -- Raphael Matos and I passed Will Power before he realized it was still green. Unfortunately with all the confusion, there was a coming together which brought out the real full course yellow! Confusing stuff, but I was now up to second place as half the field pitted.
It was going to be really mixed up because so many cars stayed out on alternate strategies, but unfortunately we had a problem in the pits and lost a lot of ground. I was now deep in the pack, 17th I think, where it would be easy to panic! I’ve been in these situations before and stayed calm because I knew there was still a long way to go and my car was fast enough to give me another opportunity for a good finish. I put all my energy into saving fuel in hopes of going a lap or two longer that the guys around me. This way I could take advantage of being low on fuel and on hot tires while the others would be leaving the pits with brimmed tanks on cold rubber, just like we were able to do at St. Pete.
Unfortunately…I didn’t make it that far!
