Well, the Shell Grand Prix of Houston isn’t one that we’ll forget anytime soon.
The circuit around Reliant Stadium, home of the NFL’s Houston Texas, delivered a memorable double-shot of Verizon IndyCar Series contests, proving that the series is still the best-kept secret in four-wheeled racing.
Saturday’s race was particularly epic, made so by the apocalyptic storm that Mother Nature unleashed over the 1.6-mile temporary street circuit. Despite the opening race being scheduled to run a full 90 laps, it was reduced to a timed event of just under two hours.
Like we’ve seen with sports car racing in the Tudor Series this year, timed races allow for some wild and wacky strategy. Combine that with the weather, which required controlled driving through treacherous conditions – no mean feat in a high-powered IndyCar – and the stage was set for a classic.
These double-header weekends are tough at the best of times, particularly on the bumpy, bruising temporary street circuits, and throwing in the downpour only made it more exciting. Bad weather, of course, is racing’s great equaliser.
We saw it with Australian Ant West winning the Moto2 race at Assen over the weekend, and IndyCar fans witnessed similar underdog win on Saturday in Houston, with Carlos Huertas, driving for the perennially under-funded Dale Coyne Racing, emerging from the big wet to record a memorable win on a quickly-drying racetrack, with serious competition from behind.
The young Colombian, who started in nineteenth, is an IndyCar rookie this season, but showed moxie that belied his relative inexperience as he held off his countryman/boyhood idol Team Penske superstar Juan Pablo Montoya, with another Colombian, Carlos Muñoz from Andretti Autosport, rounding out that country’s domination on the streets of Houston.
In every way, Huertas’ win was shocking, but that’s the beauty of wet weather racing, and the strategy mash-up that ensues. Even the one-car teams, minnows in comparison to the Penske’s Ganassi’s and Andretti’s of the IndyCar world, have a chance at victory. All credit, though, must go to Huertas, whose level-headed final stint when under pressure from Montoya and others, was one of the drives of the season so far.
As Dale Coyne said, a timely strategy call got Huertas to the lead, but he still had to stay there, and hold off an awful lot of very good drivers, which he did, aided by a yellow flag at the end after a frantic last fifteen minutes in drying conditions, with cars making passes like it was going out of fashion. Make no mistake, Huertas fully deserved his maiden trip to Victory Lane. One can only imagine the feeling of beating home Montoya, who – and deservedly so, for his exploits – is a Colombian national treasure.
As can often be the case at street circuits, people’s tempers are about as short as run-off areas around the track, and the legendary AJ Foyt had occasion to blast Marco Andretti’s driving abilities – or lack thereof, if you listen to the big Texan – after Foyt’s driver, Takuma Sato, was held up by Andretti, allowing teammate James Hinchcliffe to get close and eventually assume the lead. The third-generation racer, Andretti, was black-flagged (and later fined) for disobeying a black flag. It hardly mattered to Sato, who crashed out later, ending a promising run.
Sunday’s race was conducted in dry conditions, and those big names who struggled on Saturday returned to the pointy end of the field in the wicked humidity of a summer’s day in the Lone Star State. Helio Castroneves led early for Team Penske and sponsors Shell and Pennzoil – also sponsors of the event in Houston – and Graham Rahal, who seems to be followed everywhere he goes by bad luck, was running strongly, sitting in third when his gearbox gave way. As Paul Tracy said in the booth, Rahal just can’t catch a break this year.
Just like on Saturday, a surprise winner headed to victory lane, with Frenchman Simon Pagenaud scoring his second victory of the season – he also won the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis – and leading home his Schmitt-Peterson-Hamilton teammate, Russian rookie Mikhail Aleshin home ahead of another rookie, Englishman Jack Hawksworth, who has impressed this year for Bryan Herta Autosport.
Young American Charlie Kimball finished fourth, leading home the Ganassi squad. Another Frenchman, Sebastien Bourdais was next in fifth, and Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, a victim of a very up and down season, was sixth. It’s feast or famine for RHR at the moment, with no middle ground.
So close to a big win on Saturday, Juan Pablo Montoya came home in seventh on Sunday, one position ahead of Australia’s Ryan Briscoe. The way the Colombian has been driving of late, I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t have at least one win before the season is over – and watch out for next year.
Australia’s Will Power also enjoyed a timely resurgence on Sunday, after a disaster in the wet compounded by a shocking qualifying session. Eleventh doesn’t sound like much to write home about, but compared to finishing a lap down in fourteenth after finding the wall, Power would have left Texas a little happier, and at least maintains his points lead as the IndyCar Series gets set for a serious run of races.
Saturday and Sunday began a stretch of eight races in ten weeks, including another double-header weekend in Toronto. Next weekend, though, it’s the second leg of the reinstated Triple Crown, at the triangular, three-turn super speedway in Pocono, Pennsylvania for a 500-mile event.
There’s plenty to look forward to as the IndyCar Series really hits it’s summer stretch, and we’ll have a much better idea of who may win the championship – Australia’s Will Power still holds a timely advantage – after a month of hard, season-defining racing.
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