While two Penske drivers on the podium in the opening round of the IndyCar series might suggest that the big teams will dominate in 2014, the race was captivating for several reasons and sets the stage for an interesting season ahead.
Will Power won his second St. Petersburg event on Sunday, racing to the front from the fourth spot on the starting grid and making a fantastic pass on Takuma Sato for the lead. The long cold winter has done nothing to cool Power’s determination. There was a shift in his mindset last season to not worry as much about championship points and focus on going for it. That certainly worked this past weekend.
Power’s Penske teammate Helio Castroneves did not qualify well, but had a strong car throughout the race and gained seven positions from his starting spot (10th) to finish on the podium. The potential for a championship battle between these two teammates is intriguing.
However, the race wasn’t completely about Penske domination. Seven different teams were represented in the top-ten finishers, including a couple of single car outfits. Josef Newgarden started at the back of the field and climbed all the way to ninth at the finish. Sato claimed the pole position and led for 30 laps before surrendering the lead to Power. The Japanese driver wound up seventh.
The switch to Honda for Andretti Autosport worked just fine for 2012 Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, who finished as runner up. But for Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe, the Honda power plant was a source of angst from the drop of the green flag. Hinchcliffe was down on power all day long and told Sportsnet afterwards that the team tried everything they could during the race to correct the problem but couldn’t find a solution. Initial indications are these are just growing pains that shouldn’t be difficult to correct.
The opening event of the year is often filled with excitement and anxiousness which leads to on-track incidents but this race went well past the halfway point before the first caution flag was thrown, which was for Charlie Kimball who went off course. The second caution came on the restart when eventual winner Power slowly led the field back to green. All the cars stacked up and Marco Andretti and rookie sensation Jack Hawksworth came together, putting both out.
A new restart procedure may have been partially to blame. Power admitted to easing up a bit on the throttle and should accept some fault; he also said the green flag was waved earlier than it should have been. There’s plenty of blame to go around in a situation like that, but it shouldn’t be an issue going forward, especially with restarts being single file once again.
IndyCar has made some positive adjustments to the rule book this year and that may have been a factor in the way drivers approached the event — racing hard but clean. Simply put, IndyCar has stated they want to officiate with a lighter hand and make drivers more responsible for their actions.
That approach may have been why Power was able to race wheel-to-wheel with Sato through two corners and make a pass, and how Graham Rahal passed four cars on the opening lap without incident.
We’ll see if this respect for one another continues at the next event, another tight street circuit in Long Beach, California.