Third race of the 2014 IndyCar season brought victory to Ryan Hunter-Reay, while one of its major newsmakers was the Russian driver Mikhail Aleshin. Viasat Sport’s IndyCar presenter Sergey Bednaruk reviews the results of the race held in Alabama.
Due to pouring rain, which had turned the city course in Barber, Alabama into a mountain stream, the start of the third race of the season was postponed for 2.5 hours. However, the most devoted fans of motorsports were rewarded in spades for tedious waiting — the race on the drying track was predictably exciting.
The current championship leader Will Power, who had taken pole position in Saturday’s qualifying held on a dry track, was dominating the early parts of the race. Having beaten off several attacks performed by James Hinchcliffe, the Australian from the Penske team started breaking away increasing his lead from the rest of the peloton by almost a second each lap. When the gap was rather big, Power made an unexpected mistake, went off the track, missed the wall by some miracle, and came back to the track — however, the leadership was lost.
Ryan Hunter-Reay took advantage of the mistake made by Will. He was demonstrating great results in practice sessions; however, he gave away pole position and was third in qualifying. Nevertheless, he broke through to second position on the first laps by overtaking Hinchcliffe, and then, after Power’s off, he took the lead. After that, the American driver was giving away the first position only during the scheduled pit stops.
Hunter-Reay coped with difficult weather conditions by switching to slicks in time and not making a single mistake in the course of the race. He gained his first victory this season becoming the winner of the race in Barber for the second year in a row. Even the pace car, which was coming out to the track quite often brining Hunter-Reay’s advantage to nought, could not help the competitors of the 2012 champion.
Power, who knew no equal in the beginning of the race when the track was still wet, started losing pace on the drying track and was eventually fifth to cross the finish line. The Australian was overtaken by Marco Andretti, who came second scoring points for the team of his famous father Michael; Scott Dixon, climbing his first podium in 2014; Simon Pagenaud, who was able to finish among top five again in spite of a turnaround and a loss of many positions on the first lap.
Mikhail Aleshin, the French driver’s teammate for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, was one of the newsmakers of the race in Alabama. The Russian rookie managed to get into the second line of qualifying for the first time after scoring 11th position. Due to confident driving under difficult weather conditions Mikhail won back several positions and was taking seventh place.
Unfortunately, all the hopes of the Russian driver to achieve decent results were ruined by Sébastien Bourdais — the experienced French driver, who was later given a drive-through penalty, made a mistake when braking and spun Aleshin’s car from behind sending it into a spin. Mikhail’s Dallara was stuck on the curb and by the time the driver from Moscow got help from the judges, he had already been one lap behind of the entire peloton.
The Russian driver continued the race. He was demonstrating great results after switching to slicks as well. Who knows, if it weren’t for the “bad man” Bourdais, Aleshin could have even climbed the podium, as by the time of that disastrous incident he had been ahead of Marco Andretti, who was eventually second to cross the finish line. Unfortunately, Mikhail was not able to make the finish — with several minutes remaining he lost control over his car and hit the barrier. He was 21st by that time, having overtaken the renowned Juan Pablo Montoya, who also had a good start of the race but after going off the track (which, by the way, also happened after a keen struggle with Bourdais), like Aleshin, was also one lap behind his major competitors.
The next event for Aleshin will be the rookie test at the Brickyard's historic track where the next two IndyCar rounds will be held. First, on May 10, the drivers will take part in the race held on the road course. It will become a prelude to the most prestigious competition in the season of the major overseas formula series — Indy 500, which will be traditionally held on the last Sunday of May. This exclusive 500-mile race will become the first oval race for Mikhail Aleshin.
Three different racing drivers from different teams celebrated victories in the first three races of the 2014 IndyCar season. Power remains the leader in the overall championship standings (125 points). After scoring a victory in Alabama, Hunter-Reay moved to the second position (107). Pagenaud (92) makes top three due to demonstrating consistent results in all races. After a failure in Barber, Aleshin dropped back to 14th position and is now scoring 54 points. The long season is still ahead, and if Mikhail is able to continue developing his professional growth at the same pace, he is definitely bound to succeed.