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After a rock ‘em, sock ‘em brawl on the streets of Long Beach, California, the Verizon IndyCar Series went into the deep south for its next event – the Honda Grand Prix of Alabama.
Originally built as a motorcycle racing track the picturesque Barber Motorsports Park track has become famous because there isn’t a grandstand anywhere in the joint.
Fans sit on hillsides all around the 2.38-mile circuit near Birmingham, which features plenty of elevation change, overtaking opportunities and speed.
Fresh off a second-place finish at Long Beach, Australia’s Will Power put his #12 Team Penske Chevrolet on pole on Saturday, in fairly good conditions. But overnight and into Sunday, the weather deteriorated. Right around the time the green flag was supposed to wave, the track was inundated by a fierce storm so violent and torrential that there existed the very real possibility that the race wouldn’t go ahead.
Eventually, the weather cleared up, and the race was on, a timed event running 1 hour and 40 minutes. And it was tough going from the start. IndyCars are hard to drive at the best of times, but going through the spray around the 15-turn race track (and with puddles of standing water in some places) really tested the skills of some of the most talented drivers in the world.
At times, it was chaotic – cars had very little visibility. But those fans who braved the shocking weather were treated to quite a display, particularly from Juan Pablo Montoya who scythed through the field during the wet first stint. Back from NASCAR, it was JPM’s first wet-weather race in seven years.
Despite all the adversity, Power skipped away to a lead of over four seconds – potentially a race-winning lead in the conditions – as a dry line began to appear. But disaster struck on lap 15. The Toowoomba native ran off the road and, somehow, managed to both drive through the gravel trap and narrowly miss clipping a tire wall as he re-joined the circuit.
It was a supreme piece of driving from Power, his exit from the kitty litter doubtless helped by it being so sodden, and therefore easier to navigate through. But it wasn’t enough to stop American Ryan Hunter-Reay from driving past and into the lead. From there, the 2012 IndyCar Series champion was unstoppable. Before a late-race caution flag bunched the field up, RHR had built up a lead of more than five seconds. Thus, the final box score will not accurately memorialise how dominant Hunter-Reay was.
For RHR and the Andretti Autosport team, who switched from Chevrolet to Honda in the off-season, this was a drought-breaking win on a wet day. It was their first victory of the year at a race sponsored by Honda, which will surely make the powers-that-be at Honda Performance Development very happy.
Moreover, it was a crushing victory for Hunter-Reay, who has all the tools to challenge for the IndyCar Series championship this season.
In further pleasing news for team boss Michael Andretti, his son, Marco, came second in the Honda Grand Prix. Granted, it would have been a distant second without the final caution, and Marco admitted that he had nothing for Hunter-Reay, but it was a much-needed solid finish for the third generation racer.
Andretti has great potential. I saw it in his rookie year and I still see it now, albeit only in flashes. Sadly, he’s yet to really burst out of the blocks with a season-long performance to catapult him to a series championship. Ditto for Graham Rahal, son of Bobby, whose nightmare start to the season continued, recording a desultory seventeenth.
As we head for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the legendary Month of May, both next-generation racers, who IndyCar promoters doubtless hope will come on strong, have work to do. Yet, a win at the Speedway on Memorial Day weekend would make all those issues disappear. It’s happened before, and will happen again: Indy 500 redemption.
Other notable finishers: New Zealand’s Scott Dixon came home third, and Will Power finished fifth to hold onto the IndyCar Series points lead. Australia’s Ryan Briscoe was rarely in the hunt, finishing eleventh. Montoya faded in the dry, finishing a lap down in twenty-first.
The next race, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, is on Sunday, May 10, at 5.30am.
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