There was plenty of action packed into the doubleheader for the IndyCar series in Detroit over the weekend. Wet weather wreaked havoc with the schedule and race strategies for everyone in both races. Juan Pablo Montoya still holds the overall championship lead, but now at the halfway mark it’s a tight battle for the title.
It was the drivers and teams that managed their equipment in ever-changing weather and race conditions that benefited during the two days, when twice as many championship points were up for grabs.
Sebastien Bourdais won Sunday afternoon, his first victory of the year when his fuel mileage gamble paid off and he was able to stay ahead of the late race carnage behind him. Takuma Sato was second and Graham Rahal collected his third podium finish in the last five races moving up to fourth in the overall chase.
Shockingly, Team Penske was not among the top finishers on Sunday. Montoya appeared to have the field covered in the early part of the race, however a need to save fuel held him back and eventually he dropped back finishing 10th, just as he did Saturday.
Teammates Will Power and Helio Castroneves went out together — after Power was tapped by another car he slid into the wall and collected Castroneves. Target’s Scott Dixon was a victim earlier in the race and all missed out on the chance to tighten the points race even further after they had respectable finishes the day before.
Carlos Munoz gambled Saturday afternoon on an early switch from rain tires to racing slicks and it paid off as he captured his first ever series win. Teammate Marco Andretti, who made the change a few laps before Munoz, collected his best result of the year as runner-up.
With less than optimum conditions both days we also saw the benefit of experience as many of the caution periods both days were caused by drivers who were too aggressive for the conditions.
Conor Daly impressed filling in for James Hinchcliffe this weekend, leading laps and showing more maturity than some other young drivers. Daly isn’t likely to be in the car this coming week at Texas but does believe he’ll fill in again for the Canadian in Toronto.
After a gruelling stretch of May in Indianapolis, a doubleheader is tough enough on teams stretching resources to the limit. When there are cars to repair overnight and weather to battle it makes the crews’ jobs even tougher, but all handled it very well.
The groups that may deserve the most credit for having the race weekend come off as well as it did with the challenging conditions are the organizers and the army volunteers who worked happily through the cold and wet weather and couldn’t do enough for those in attendance.
With the heavy rain that fell Saturday and into Sunday, the parking areas became muddy swamps and it was a battle to keep it all together. Yet all the while staff was pleasant and courteous right to the end. The final words I heard before leaving were “Thanks for coming, we’ll see you next year.”
I haven’t been to every track on the circuit but each and every one could take a lesson from how well this race is operated.