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Although it
is late in the afternoon here, it's still 83 degrees in St. Pete.
Fortunately there was a brisk cooling breeze all afternoon, but
times and speeds are still far short of what we have seen on the
opening day of practice in the past. We're still seeing a good mix
or regular ICS drivers former CCWS guys in the top-ten, but this
time around it is Will Power in 4th setting that pace after
struggling in 19th on this morning's chart.
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Late in the
session, with the McDonalds car 10th on the chart, the N/H/L crew
but a "hot setup" front wing on the car, but didn't have enough
time left in the session to sort it out, as Marty Roth did his
thing and plowed up some dirt and dust somewhere on the course,
probably turn 12-13. I knew N/H/ had the wing because I saw the
team in a wing building thrash late yesterday afternoon. It will
interesting to see which wing the team will use in morning
qualifying tomorrow, since I don't think there is a morning
practice. The photo below shows the team wingin' it last night. |
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Good
afternoon from the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg. The first
practice session is over and we are already beginning to see where
the consolidation of the two rival series in Indy type racing
might pay huge dividends on the competition side. Former CCWS
Championship Team Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing and their new driver
Justin Wilson has just "won" the first practice session.
Temperatures were unusually hot as the first practice session
began at 10:45 this morning. Even though this was the 1st ICS run
of the day, the course wasn't s green as you might expect, since
there had been over 90 minutes of practice by both the ALMS cars
and those of the Firestone Indy Lights series.
I'm not surprised with Wilson's results, instead I am amazed, this
is a team that has a total of 90 minutes of road course testing in
IndyCar equipment. Still, N/H/L Racing is a veteran team,
accustomed to running at the top of the charts. The real surprise
of the session was Vitor Meira in the Panther Racing/National
Guard sponsored Dallara. Make no mistake, Vitor is a very good
road racer, bur he is driving for what is known as a oval track
team. Still, usually you expect Team Penske, AGR and TCGR to be
atop the speed chart after the first practice session. Looking
back at the 1st session last year, Scott Dixon had quick time, and
he was more than a full second quicker than the times run today,
running 1:02.3478. Remember though, as I said, it was very hot
this morning, hotter than I can ever recall here. Looking at the
ICS T&S chart below, once you look past Wilson and Meira, things
look fairly "normal" and customary until you get to the
unsponsored D&R Racing #15 of Buddy Rice in 8th. Bruno Junqueira
posted the 2nd quickest time on the former CCWS drivers, Ryan
Briscoe was a disappointing 10th on the chart, followed by four
transitional drivers. In truth, knowing that the HVM car of
Ernesto Viso was heavily damaged late in the Homestead race, I
think their 12th-n-the-chart result might be the most impressive
of the session, while Dan Wheldon in 15th would be the most
disappointing. |
