Alex Palou is on the podium in 2nd place in the opening round.Takuma Sato fighting in the new system finishes in 10th place
The 2022 IndyCar Series kicked off in late February, earlier than usual. Still, the race weekend in St. Petersburg, Florida was blessed with fine weather for all three days, with temperatures rising to nearly 30 degrees Celsius. The sun was so strong that I could get a sunburn in one day.
In the St. Petersburg race, where many fans returned to the grandstand and the liveliness of street racing returned, 2021 series champion Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing) finished second on the podium.
The 1.8-mile course in downtown faces the yacht harbor and is unique in that it also uses the airport runway. In the race that was contested for 100 laps, Parrow moved up from 10th to 6th at the start by the 25th lap when his first full-course caution was issued. Through the efforts of the crew, they raised three positions at the pit stop and continued the battle to save fuel consumption and speed.
The rival who was at the top made a pit stop first, and Parrow emerged to the top on lap 64. When he made the second pit stop on the next lap, rivals with different pit timings took the lead, and his position dropped to 5th, but with 20 laps remaining until the goal, he was 2nd. He cut off the difference of more than 2 seconds from the top at that time at a stretch in the final race, and put pressure on the remaining 2 laps just behind him.
Parrow jumped into the goal line in 2nd place, 0.5095 seconds behind. For him in his third season of IndyCar, second place was one more than his personal best on the street course. Given that he was 10th in qualifying, he had a very auspicious start to defending the series title.
As for Honda drivers, Colton Herta (Andretti Autosport w / Curb-Agajanian) finished in 4th place from the 3rd place start, and Romain Grosjean (Andretti Autosport) in the second year of the race was 5th place, the same as the qualifying, and 3 people Goal in the top five. In addition, Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) is 7th from 11th place, Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) is 7th to 8th in qualifying, and Marcus Ericsson (Chip Ganassi Racing) is 8th to 9th in qualifying. Rank. Seven people finished the race in the top ten.
Takuma Sato, who will be running in Dale Coyne Racing with RWR from this year, suffered an unlucky accident in Saturday’s practice and drastically reduced his running time. Takuma Sato’s star was unable to make sufficient preparations for the qualifying, such as evaluating tires with two types of soft and hard, and setting the machine according to them, and also encountered traffic in the qualifying. The ting grid was 22nd, which was a tough one.
However, Takuma Sato and the team, who improved the machine settings for the race at once in the warm-up session in the morning of the race, showed a battle to steadily improve the ranking in the race. Even in the rear start, the strategy adopted an orthodox one, steadily managed two pit stops, raised the position by 12, and finished in 10th place. Takuma Sato was the driver who moved up the ranking the most.
The first race after the team transfer was Takuma Sato’s 200th IndyCar race. Things didn’t go well until the qualifying, but he regained his position with the crew and was able to fully demonstrate his strength in the 100-lap race.
The next race will be the first oval race of the season in Fort Worth, Texas. The 375-mile race at the Texas Motor Speedway, which has a highbank with a total length of 1.5 miles and a maximum slope of 24 degrees, will be held on March 20th.
Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing)
“First of all I would like to celebrate Scott McLaughlin (Chevrolet)’s first IndyCar victory. He was competing in a great race. I had a good car and I am very happy to have a good day now. We didn’t get off to a good start on the weekend, but we got a good result like this. Chip Ganassi Racing made an incredible job and we made a comeback, the first of the season. We were on the podium. We weren’t one step closer to winning, but we were really close to it. I would be very happy if this was our worst race of the season. “
Takuma Sato (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR)
“My first race at Dale Coyne Racing with RWR was in the top 10 finish. The crew did a fantastic job. It started as a difficult weekend and the qualifying was as good as I had hoped. We couldn’t. We started the race from the grid near the end and gradually moved up our position. We moved up two places with an exciting start and from there we were stable in all stints. We continued to perform well. Races in Stint Petersburg used to happen, but this year it wasn’t, and we’ve become the highest ranked team in the race. It ’s great because it ’s the result of the team ’s great strength. I ’m really looking forward to Round 2 of Texas. It ’s been very good this weekend and I feel that I ’ve been able to blend in well with the team. ”
Category: Category: F1 / Indycar