Mikhail Aleshin, the SMP Racing programme pilot, had his debut in the North America’s racing championship named the IndyCar Series. He took part in the first race held in St.Petersburg, Florida on March 30th and came 12th to finish line demonstrating the best result among four rookies of this season.
The first round of the 2014 IndyCar Series was held on March 28–30 in St. Petersburg (Florida). The 1.8-mile (about 2.9 km) race track goes along the streets of the city business centre and continues to one of the landing strips of the local airport. A rather narrow roadway with two difficult corners often causes problems among many drivers but Mikhail Aleshin was able to avoid common mistakes. After two practice races held on Friday he was second among four rookies and 14th among all 22 pilots in the overall standings (best time demonstrated by Mikhail was 01:03.2045 which is just 0.643 seconds behind the leader of qualifying Takuma Sato (01:02.5615)). On Saturday March 29th Mikhail Aleshin was eighth in the first qualifying group. All in all, Mikhail had the fifteenth grid position right after his teammate in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Simon Pagenaud.
The season-opening race started on Sunday 3:20 PM local time (11:20 PM Moscow time). The races in IndyCar Series begin with a rolling start unlike “formula” classes in which Mikhail Aleshin used to participate. That is why several more experienced competitors were able to overtake him but he continued the struggle trying to win back positions. After two-thirds of the distance Aleshin was keeping the pace with the peloton, and when a mistake was made by one of the pilots and a safety car appeared on the track, Mikhail’s team called the Russian pilot in for a pit-stop as the scheduled one had to be done during the next lap. As a result, Aleshin won back a few positions and came close to the top ten. Mikhail continued the struggle in the final quarter of the race dealing successfully with the attacks performed by his closest competitors and was 12th to cross the finish line scoring 18 points. It was the best result among all four rookies of this season.
Mikhail Aleshin: “I guess start was the most difficult part of the race for me as I have never had an experience with the rolling start before. After the first corner I thought the race might end up without any success but we had a good strategy and a quick pace which helped making up for the lost positions”.
Sergey Zlobin, SMP Racing sports director: “Mikhail has done a great job — he didn’t make any mistakes on the unfamiliar and difficult track, demonstrated good time results, went through the entire race, competed with experienced rivals and finished 12th. It is truly the best result among all rookies. Here, at the SMP Racing, we are really happy for his success. Mikhail has proved once again that he is a talented driver who can give the race his full concentration and demonstrate excellent results. The IndyCar season has just begun and we are sure Aleshin will continue having a steady progress”.
The second IndyCar race will be held on April 11–13 at Long Beach, California.
