The first race in the history of IndyCar held on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway turned out to be very eventful and brought victory to Simon Pagenaud who became fourth winner in four races of the current season of the major American formula series.
This year the organisers of the IndyCar series decided to run two races in the famed Indianapolis. Apart from the Indy 500 race held on the oval track, which is considered to be the ‘gem’ of the entire championship, this season’s calendar also features one more race held on the road course which used to host Formula 1 in the beginning of the previous decade. As envisioned by the organisers of the Indianapolis Grand Prix, which is the full name of the competition, this race had to serve as a prelude to the legendary 500-mile race.
And the race did manage the expectations of the audience as it featured all the necessary ingredients — keen struggle, beautiful overtakings, various strategic solutions. Unfortunately, accidents have also come around. The biggest crash happened right on the start of the race, when the car of the pole-sitter Sebastián Saavedra stalled and was hit by two other drivers — his countryman from Colombia Carlos Muñoz and the Russian pilot Mikhail Aleshin.
The racing weekend went on just fine for the driver from Russia — during the practice sessions he was always among top ten drivers. Aleshin could have had a decent result in qualifying, however, he was assessed a penalty for a disputable interference with Sébastien Bourdais (the one who had offended Mikhail during the previous race) and lost his two best laps dropping him back on the grid. Circumstantially, it became the reason of Aleshin’s misfortune at the start of the race, as the Russian driver found himself in a blind zone behind the cars of his competitors — when stalled Saavedra’s car appeared out of nowhere right in front of Mikhail, he just had no place for a manoeuvre.
Climbing in speed, Aleshin hit Saavedra’s car really hard. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries and the pilot was able to get out of the wrecked car on his own. “The speed was rather high by that time”, said Mikhail Aleshin, “so by the moment Saavedra’s car appeared right in front of me, I didn’t have enough time either to change my trajectory, or to stop. It’s a sad story, but it’s sports. It’s a rare chance that no one got hurt. It’s my second birthday from now on. There are still a lot of interesting races ahead and the major of them — the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race — will take place quite soon. We’ll keep on fighting!”
Meanwhile, Simon Pagenaud, Aleshin’s teammate at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, had more luck in this race. The French pilot was fourth on the starting grid but his pit-stop strategy during multiple yellow flag sections turned out to be truly beneficial. Unlike his competitors, Pagenaud was able to save fuel and did not stop in the pits for refuelling on the final laps of the race. He had to slow down on the last lap to make it to the chequered flag using every last drop of fuel. But he managed to cross the finish line less than a second faster than the winner of the previous race in Alabama Ryan Hunter-Reay from Andretti team. The top three was completed by Brazilian driver Hélio Castroneves from Penske team, who was doing his best to catch up with the leaders but was eventually left behind their backs.
Jack Hawksworth, this season’s rookie, was leading confidently in the first part of the race; however, the British driver was pushed back to seventh position, giving way to Sébastien Bourdais, Charlie Kimball, and Ryan Briscoe. Meanwhile, Will Power, the current championship leader, settled for ninth place.
The Australian driver is still taking the first position in the overall standings, however, his competitors got really close to Penske’s pilot — Ryan Hunter-Reay is only one point behind and Simon Pagenaud, the winner of the race in Indianapolis, has 6 points less than Power.
The Indianapolis Grand Prix will be also remembered for a spectacular crash of two drivers who had been invited by their teams for one race only. Those were an ex-F1 driver Franck Montagny and a former LMP2 winner at Le Mans Martin Plowman.
An unpleasant incident happened to James Hinchcliffe when his helmet got struck with loose bodywork from another car. The Canadian driver suffered a concussion and was taken to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway medical centre. Fortunately, the injury was not serious; however, he had to miss the first practice before the Indy 500 race, which have already started this week.
The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, which makes the top three most prestigious motor races in the world together with the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 hours of Le Mans, will be traditionally held on the last Sunday of May. 33 cars will qualify this Sunday to determine final starting positions.
The Russian fans of motor sports will be able to watch all three qualifying sessions and the race itself live on Viasat Sport channel. Never before had the Indy 500 received such wide coverage on Russian television!