Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300!!!

AN INDYCAR PHOTO BY SHAWN PAYNE
"Finally!!!" A very emotional and eventually very relieved Danica Patrick as she stands up in her car after winning the Indy Japan 300.
Finally as well...
Danica Patrick wins at Motegi, and how it came to pass...
(4-26-08) Ever since Danica Patrick won at Motegi she has been on a whirlwind media tour, and even though she may never have to answer the question as to when she would win a race again, she is now called upon to justify how she won.

Yes Danica Patrick won on fuel mileage, but to a certain extent so did Graham Rahal at ST. Petersburg. Last year Dario Franchitti won the IndyCar Championship in a race where his closest competitor had fuel issues. Franchitti himself won a couple of 2007 races on fuel mileage, his or those he raced against.

Lets take one final look at how Danica won the Indy Japan 300. I have never seen a race that looked so pre-destined to come down to a fuel mileage related finish. Every caution flag came out just short of the distance needed to run the race distance on three, two or one more fuel stop. The first round of stops usually comes early anyway, because of warm-up laps (there were 4 at Motegi) but then there was an early caution after Marco Andretti spun on the first lap of the race. That yellow flag was out for 6 laps, so without the caution for a Marty Roth on lap 48, the teams should have easily been able to run past the necessary 50-lap mark. I say "should" because Ed Carpenter pitted on lap 45, before the caution, and there was a hint in that for anyone paying attention. Apparently Carpenter had a lot of downforce (wing) dialed into the car, expecting trouble from a very "green" track. Then Carpenter had to adjust his fuel settings to keep up with the pack. The teams would have to get past lap 100 to run the remaining distance on one more stop, and the caution came out on lap 91 after contact between Vitor Meira and Jay Howard, short of the fuel window again. Now for the defining moment of the race. Roger Yasukawa had a right front brake lock up on the front straightaway and he stopped the car just short of the inside wall on lap 141, again 9 laps short of going the race distance on just one final stop, except... The race would go green on lap 149, but on lap 148, Ed Carpenter, Helio Castroneves and Danica Patrick ducked onto pit road again for a top-off. As it turned out, Carpenter wasn't intending to run full-distance, he was just there to get on the same sequence as those that would have to stop again, he was burning too much fuel. Castroneves had led nearly 90 laps early in the race, so he had two options, save fuel and run to finish the race distance, or keep the leaders in sight and remain in the top-six. Patrick on the other hand, looked to have a top-10 car at best, pushing. The crew made adjustments, but her fastest race lap was only 7th best in the field. Danica blew the restart, so if she hadn't been committed to a fuel run already, she was now. Her job was now to draft on everything that moved, and their shadow. Helio had another problem. If he fell back like Danica did, both for spots in the running order and track position, and then the caution came out, he would find himself too far back on the restart to contend for the win and not enough laps remaining to run the leaders down. Helio burned fuel keeping the leaders in sight while Danica was saving fuel running 190 mph laps. Once past lap 180 Helio HAD to start saving fuel. When the leaders headed to pit road Helio needed to go full-distance or he was going to finish far back. When leader Scott Dixon headed for pit road with 5 laps to go, Helio was 10 seconds behind Dixon, and Danica was 8 seconds behind Helio, still running her 190's. With Helio headed for the two laps to go signal, Patrick was more than 100 yards behind him in turn 4 and beat Helio to turn one, in the lead of the race. Forget what Helio said about thinking Danica was a lap down, he didn't have time to think or react, he lacked the momentum to stop her pass or catch her when she went by. Danica's final lap of the race was 190.679, Helio's was 175.820, does that sound like someone that had anything foe Danica? Later it was learned Danica had 8 oz. of fuel left in her tank. Don't believe me yet, this is what AJ Foyt said in his USA TODAY column, "Castroneves was on the same fuel strategy as Patrick but he didn't stick to the numbers as good as she did because when it came time to go, she drove right past him. Her crew made a great call and she did what she needed to win. They worked together and that's what it takes to win races."

***
(The start) They wasted little time getting the cars started and on the track within minutes of the TV coverage beginning... Expect EVERYONE to be very careful at the start on this very green race track... The Tony Kanaan car is showing smoke, heavily... It was a very orderly start until Marco Andretti spun into the turn 1 SAFER. Marco was quickly out of the car and walking around. It is very cold at Motegi, from the T&S feed they are claiming 52 degrees, just 2 degrees above the Firestone minimum for racing... Just before the restart Ryan Briscoe topped off his fuel...
 
(Lap 7 restart) Its Castroneves, followed by Dixon... Look for pit stops just inside of lap 50. So far in the race not one lap has been run above 200 mph, in fact the fastest lap so far was run by race leader Castroneves at 197.920-mph.
 
(Lap 45 ) First to pit under green is Ed Carpenter, earlier than I expected. One lap later Patrick and Hunter-Reay were in as well and then there was a caution for Marty Roth making contact with the SAFER in turn 1. Shortly after that Hideki Mutoh spun into the inside wall after passing the safety car while side-by-side on pit exit with Tony Kanaan as both of them had their pit stops waved off when the caution came out. Early stops on pit road put several drivers including Patrick, Carpenter and Hunter-Reay at the tail end of the leader lap after a wave-around. Hunter-Reay is probably more than one lap down... Castroneves leads, followed by Briscoe, Dixon and Wheldon. Mutoh returned to pit road for fuel and wing repairs.
 
(The lap 56 restart) Somewhere in pit stop confusion AJ Foyt IV ended up just in front of the leaders and has now gone a lap down. Townsend Bell benefited by being one of the last to pit and is running 7th, just ahead of Patrick, Carpenter and Meira. There are 10 cars on the lead lap. Look for the next round of stops around half-way. They will need to get past lap 100 just to be able to run the race on one more stop...
 
(Lap 91) A "contact" caution involving Vitor Meira, this will mean one more FULL pit stop cycle, and perhaps another with no further yellow flags. Meira, who was having brake problems, made contact with the car of Jay Howard as Howard was exiting the pits too wide according to Vitor. Meira said he tried to stop but couldn't... We need a new leader here, even IF on pit road, Castroneves is running away with the race. We got what I was looking for too, due to a poor pit road position because of poor team collective results, Helio Castroneves lost the lead of the race to Scott Dixon. Team Penske pits behind both TCGR cars and at least a couple of AGR cars as well. In addition, Helio was pitting behind teammate Ryan Briscoe as well. There was contact on pit road between Vision Racing teammates Carpenter and Foyt, as Carpenter, who was headed to his pit stall was hit from behind by Foyt, who had completed his stop and was told by his crew to go. Both Vitor Meira and Jay Howard are out of the race...
 
(Lap 97 restart) On the restart Dixon opened up a bit of a lead on Helio, but it was Danica Patrick on the move and past Ryan Briscoe. Patrick now 5th... Jay Howard is out of the race... Look for stops around lap 143 if there are no further cautions... Patrick later lost the spot she had gained on Briscoe, it appeared her car isn't good on long runs. Foyt IV is now out of the race after getting mad about the pit road contact between him and Carpenter and white-walled the car into the SAFER... Lap 134 was ALMOST TK's last lap of the race as he all but lost the car... As poor as Kanaan is handling, Danica Patrick still can't catch him. At this point in the race Danica should have her car sorted out and running better than this.
 
(Pit stops, lap 140) Yellow flag. Roger Yasukawa nearly up against the inside wall on the front straightaway, no contact. Before the caution flag Hunter-Reay, Manning, and Bell were on pit road.   It turned out to be a brake lock-up/fire. Once the rest of the field pitted It was an old fashion drag race off pit road, with Dixon out of the first pit stall holding onto the lead, followed by Briscoe, Kanaan, Wheldon, Castroneves and Patrick.

Three drivers, Castroneves, Patrick and Ed Carpenter have now pitted again to top off their fuel one lap before the race goes green again. I CAN'T SEE ANY OF THEM GOING THE DISTANCE, NOT 75 MILES. (On edit, what do I know, or what do I care that it turned out I was wrong. That was how I felt as I wrote it on the fly, I'll let my opinion stand)...
 
(The lap 149 restart) Either Danica Patrick got a poor restart or she is already playing the fuel mileage game. It will only work if she runs within a half-lap of he leaders and drafts, and she has little around her now worth drafting off of...
 
(25 to go) Patrick is still falling back as they are telling Scott Dixon from his pit that they are three laps short of going the distance. I'm thinking even more laps than that. The most laps/miles I ever remember anyone running is Dario Franchitti going 74.5 miles, a couple of them under caution. At that time I didn't think he would make it either. They went green with 77 miles left... Briscoe pushed high and white-walled his tires and then almost did it again. No caution and Briscoe is slightly off the pace. Danica is more than a half-lap back, Carpenter and Helio, who stopped as well at the same time, are much closer to the lead, Carpenter one spot ahead of Helio. TV types are saying the pace has picked up again, so they all must have figured by now they can't go the distance.
 
(Hunter-Reay pits, 9 to go) Bell now in, now Manning, Carpenter slows, he stopped when Danica and Helio did... Here comes Dixon, 5 to go... Wheldon and Kanaan in now, TV on Helio in the lead, here's Danica behind him, Helio slows, is he out of fuel? Two laps to go. Now Danica has one more lap and there is no one in sight behind her... Danica Patrick  winnnnsssss!
Here is the unofficial order of finish...

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

 

 

Last Lap

 

1

Danica Patrick (7)

 

27.8865

196.224

20

 

 

200

 

2

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

27.6476

197.920

12

 

 

200

 

3

Scott Dixon (9)

 

27.6752

197.722

12

 

 

200

 

4

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

27.6784

197.699

12

 

 

200

 

5

Tony Kanaan (11)

 

27.7906

196.901

21

 

 

200

 

6

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

27.9148

196.025

193

 

 

200

 

7

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17)

 

27.8106

196.760

160

 

 

200

 

8

Darren Manning (14)

 

27.9966

195.452

63

 

 

199

 

9

Ryan Briscoe (6)

 

27.7808

196.971

169

 

 

199

 

10

Townsend Bell (23)

 

28.0012

195.420

69

 

 

199

 

11

Hideki Mutoh (27)

 

27.9311

195.911

68

 

 

199

 

12

Buddy Rice (15)

 

28.0822

194.857

191

 

 

198

 

13

Jay Howard (24)

 

28.1950

194.077

11

 

 

192

 

14

Roger Yasukawa (77)

 

28.6397

191.063

58

 

 

134

 

15

A.J. Foyt IV (2)

 

27.8758

196.299

20

 

 

103

 

16

Vitor Meira (4)

 

28.1452

194.420

12

 

 

92

 

17

Marty Roth (25)

 

28.5088

191.941

39

 

 

44

 

18

Marco Andretti (26)

 

-0.0001

0.000

0

 

 

0

 

TWIN RING MOTEGI WEBCAM
This is the latest Sunday afternoon Motegi webcam view of the track and weather conditions 30 minutes before the green flag. It looks like we are good to go green...
(Friday at Motegi) With a forecast of a 100% chance of rain the remainder of the day, IndyCar practice and qualifying has been rained out. IndyCar no longer sets it's "Q" rainout grids by practice speeds, instead they go by the 2008 entrant points standings. Here is the starting order...

Start

Car #/Entrant/Driver

Start

Car #/Entrant/Driver

1.

#3 Penske/Helio Castroneves

2.

#9 TCGR/Scott Dixon

3.

#11 AGR/Tony Kanaan

4.

#26 AGR/Marco Andretti

5.

#10 TCGR/Dan Wheldon

6.

#7 AGR/Danica Patrick

7.

#20 Vision/Ed Carpenter

8.

#2 Vision/AJ Foyt IV

9.

#27 AGR/Hideki Mutoh

10.

#17 RLR/Ryan Hunter-Reay

11.

#15 D&R/Buddy Rice

12.

#14 AJ Foyt/Darren Manning

13.

#4 Panther/Vitor Meira

14.

#24 Roth Racing/Jay Howard

15.

#6 Penske/Ryan Briscoe

16.

#23 D&R Townsend Bell

17.

#25 Roth Racing/Marty Roth

18.

#77 Beck/Roger Yasukawa
The 2nd practice session has begun...
Amid reports of sprinkles and ominous looking clouds seen from the live streaming video the 2nd session got underway with Marco Andretti setting the early pace. That said, nearly 10 minutes into the session there is still nobody over 200-mph....About 17 minutes into the session Tony Kanaan posted the 2nd 200-mph lap of the day and then bettered it within two laps. Now we also have Dan Wheldon and Helio Castroneves above 200 as well... According to the live video there are some light sprinkles again. We are seeing a Team Penske gear change on pit road on Helio's car, not unheard of, but not seen very often. I think what is happening here is that with a 100% chance of rain tomorrow, this might be the last time these cars are on the track until race time. If the team thinks they are off on the gearing they may as well rush a gear change in and put a few laps on it to see if it is any better... Now we have a yellow flag, it looks like the rain has finally began. Ed Carpenter is out of his car, other teams are holding umbrella's over their drivers... Including Scott Dixon, there are now 4 drivers above 200-mph, but what is alarming is there is a 11-mph speed gap between Tony Kanaan at the top of the chart and the slow-speed of Roger Yasukawa at just above 189 mph. Also, three other drivers, Marty Roth, Jay Howard and Vitor Meira are more than 6-mph below Kanaan's top speed as well. If they do get a chance to run tomorrow it won't matter, but it would be a very uncomfortable way to start the race Saturday... They are going green again, interrupting my TiVo replay of Graham Rahal on the Letterman show, Graham was doing well... They are under a moisture yellow again, closing down a pretty good 4-car pack that included Hideki Mutoh, Ryan Briscoe, Vitor Meira and Tony Kanaan. Somewhere in there and off-camera Scott Dixon got a speed jump and moved into 2nd on the chart. The session is now over, the rain became too problematical, and although it didn't look like they lost the track, they were about to. By then they were in overtime anyway. Here is the final T&S chart

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap