Jack Hawksworth careens through Turn 10 on the 1.8-mile St. Petersburg street circuit. [Joe Jennings Photo]
For the 13th time, Indy cars will take to the streets of downtown St. Petersburg, Florida on Sunday as the Verizon Indy Car Series opens its season with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Following several years of sports car racing in this bay-front community, CART arrived in 2003 with Paul Tracy capturing the inaugural event as Sebastien Bourdais started on the pole. A dispute between race promoters caused the event to be dropped the next year, but the Indy Racing League brought the race back in 2005 as Tampa Bay resident Dan Wheldon captured a popular hometown win; IRL’s first-ever street/road course event.
Switching to 2015, Juan Pablo Montoya was the St. Pete victor for Team Penske/Chevrolet starting a season during which he captured the Indianapolis 500 in May but lost the championship to Scott Dixon in the season finale’ at Sonoma.
2016 finds Indy Car again opening its season at the beautiful 1.8-mile, 14-turn downtown street course with 22 entries (24 last year) headed by Dixon, Montoya, Will Power and a quartet of rookies who promise to make the season interesting.
Three teams dominate the entry list with Team Penske (Montoya, Helio Castroneves, Power and Simon Pagenaud), Target Chip Ganassi (Charlie Kimball, Tony Kanaan, Dixon and rookie Max Chilton) and Andretti Autosport (Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Carlos Munoz and American rookie Alexander Rossi in association with Bryan Herta Motorsports), accounting for more than half the twenty-two car field.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan (Graham Rahal and part-timer rookie Spencer Pigot), Dale Coyne (Luca Filippi and rookie Conor Daly), Schmidt Peterson (James Hinchcliffe and Mikhail Aleshin), A J Foyt (Takuma Sato and James Hawksworth), Ed Carpenter (Josef Newgarden) and KVSH (Sebastien Bourdais) make up the rest of the series’ roster.
Rossi crossed the Atlantic after brief stints in Formula One and Chilton also had a brief F1 fling before competing in Lights last season. Pigot is the reigning Indy Lights champ while Daly finally gets a full-time shot at the series after just six races over the past three seasons. Pigot’s part-time deal with Bobby Rahal is for three events (St. Pete, Angie’s List Grand Prix and the Indy 500) but he hopes to impress and add more starts.
As with baseball spring training, hopes of racers soar and past season trials are often forgotten. Pre-season testing however has seen more of what happened in 2015 as the Chevrolet aero kits again seem to be quicker than Honda’s despite major design changes that were approved by Indy Car in order to promote more equality in 2016. Honda, led by Graham Rahal’s team made a strong run toward the end last season, but early season testing still points to Chevrolet’s seeming dominance.
Castroneves (3) and Power (2) are multiple winners here on Tampa Bay, each in Penske/Chevys. Team Penske has won here seven times in 12 outings including six of the last nine. On the other hand, Dixon has 38 series’ wins to go along with three runner-up finishes here but has yet to be a St. Pete winner however Dixon’s Ganassi team has won four of the previous 11 season-opening races. Rahal scored his first Indy car win here in 2008 for Newman/Haas/Lanigan, becoming the series’ youngest winner.
Opening race winners are often difficult to predict, but Team Penske makes this one easy. Look for Castroneves to be on top of the podium, with Montoya nearby. Perhaps Rahal or Hunter-Reay will give Honda a lower-step podium finish.
QUICK QUOTES:
- Montoya: “Last year’s win was a great start to the season with winning at Indy and fighting for the championship, but that’s behind us. It should be a fun race Sunday and it will be great to get the season started.”
- Hinchcliffe, (making his first start after season-ending injuries at Indy): “This is probably the most excited I’ve ever been for a season to start. I’m sure that’s a surprise to no one. Ten months is a long time. St. Pete has always been one of my favorite events and this year will be even more special.”
- Chilton: I’m super excited to be starting my first Indy Car race with such an iconic team (Ganassi). I loved the track last year in Indy Lights. I’m hoping to get off to a good start.”
- Rossi: “Finally racing season is upon us after a very interesting winter for me. I haven’t been part of the team (Andretti) very long but I think we have been making progress on a daily basis. I cannot wait to get to St. Pete and continue to build on what we started at Sebring (pre-season testing). I have always had very high expectations of myself. The track looks great to drive and is in a fantastic city.”
BY THE NUMBERS:
- 250- The series record number of consecutive starts Tony Kanaan will reach if he qualifies for Sunday’s race. Streak began at Portland in 2001.
- 9- Number of different series race winners in 2015 (11 in 2014).
- 44- Wins as an owner for AJ Foyt Racing since 1966. Just one since 2003 (Sato).
- 1996- The year Dave Letterman joined Team Rahal as a part owner.
- 110/198- Laps and miles in Sunday’s race.
- 4- Times St. Petersburg winner has gone on to be the series’ champion (Tracy, Wheldon, Dario Franchitti, Power).
TV: ABC Network, 12:30 p.m. ET/ Green Flag 12:52 p.m.
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