April 4, 2012
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Will Power (No. 12 Team Penske Verizon Chevrolet) stormed back from ninth on the grid after having his fast lap for the weekend disallowed in Saturday's qualifying round to win the Honda Grand Prix of Alabama for the second consecutive year. Power finished 3.3709 seconds ahead of Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda).
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Scott Dixon has finished race runner-up all three years that IndyCar has run at the Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. He broke a tie with teammate Dario Franchitti with 27 second-place finishes on the all-time list and is one behind Castroneves.
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Helio Castroneves (No. 3 Team Penske AAA Chevrolet) sat on the pole and finished third in Alabama. Helio has the 2012 points lead after a very disappointing 2011 season.
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
A very racy Graham Rahal (No. 38 Service Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) finished fourth, just 0.2245 of a second behind Castroneves.
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
"Impressive run" will be the phrase you hear often this year when it comes to Simon Pagenaud. He finished fifth in his No. 77 Schmidt Hamilton HP Motorsports Honda.
(Camden Thrasher/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Get used to seeing the GoDaddy machine in the hunt this year. James Hinchcliffe (No. 27 Andretti Autosport Team GoDaddy.com Chevrolet) was sixth after starting on the front row for the first time in his IZOD IndyCar Series career.
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Sebastien Bourdais (No. 7 Lotus Dragon Racing Lotus) drove extremely well. Okay, he drove his ass off to finish ninth giving Lotus its first top-10 finish as an IZOD IndyCar Series manufacturer. "It was a really good race," Bourdais said. "I honestly didn't believe we were going to hold off Justin (Wilson), Jakes and Franchitti and all these guys and race them this close because we know we're at a big power disadvantage. Every time we get in traffic, we get swallowed up like we don't exist, so I was a little down before the race. Expectations were not super high and it turned out extremely different. I was very happy with my car. Initially, the track was green enough that I could make moves on them, but when the other cars lost their tires, it really helped me put the moves of them. Our car held its tires very well and that put us in that position. We passed a lot of people and it was a pretty exciting day."
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
The Honda Grand Prix of Alabama marked the 16th victory of Will Power's meteoric IndyCar career. "Yeah that was an awesome race," Power said. "Tim Cindric kept putting me in such a good position so we could use our speed. That last restart was kind of hairy. I knew Scott was going to be really quick and hounded me for a couple laps there. It's good to get the Verizon 12 car in victory lane with a Chevy engine. It was awesome." Next up? Long Beach on April 15th.
(Phillip Abbott/INDYCAR/LAT USA)
Sebastian Saavedra (No. 27 Team AFS) won the 40-lap Firestone Indy Lights Grand Prix of Alabama. Tristan Vautier (No. 77 Mazda Road to Indy/Sam Schmidt Motorsports) finished second and Esteban Guerrieri (No. 11 Pistas Argentinas/Sam Schmidt Motorsports), finished third.
(Chrysler)
Editor-in-Chief's Note: Scott Atherton could barely contain himself before the Viper media unveiling because he knew that SRT was also going to announce that the Viper would be returning to American Le Mans competition in the GT classification. That's a very good thing for the sport of road racing in the U.S. and it's a very good thing for the ALMS. Does it solve the overarching issue of dueling road racing series in this country? No. Not by a long shot. I would love to see the ALMS just go rogue and put on a premier all-GT series but it's never going to happen. In the meantime all the Viper racing enthusiasts have every right to be jacked. And if the ALMS GT class gets even more cutthroat competitive - if that's possible - then that is fantastic. We'll take the little victories in the sport of road racing in this country whenever and wherever we can get them. - PMD
Editor-in-Chief's Note: Check out Michelin's racing website - "Michelin Alley" - and get in on all of the behind-the-scenes buzz. Go here. - PMD
THE ALL-NEW AE STORE IS HERE!
CLICK ON THE PIC BELOW TO CHECK IT OUT!
See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" with hosts John McElroy, from Autoline Detroit, and Peter De Lorenzo, The Autoextremist, and guests this Thursday evening, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv.
By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to the Autoline After Hours podcasts, click on the following links:
Subscribe via iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=311421319
Subscribe via RSS:
http://www.autolinedetroit.tv/podcasts/feeds/afterhours-audio.xml