Indy rookies fast so far in St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Robert Wickens has zero IndyCar experience and has never raced through St. Petersburg. To figure out what he needed to do, the Canadian driver turned to YouTube for a two-day binge watch of every previous event around the temporary street course.
By the time Wickens went out in Saturday’s qualifying session, he felt pretty comfortable — and it showed.
The rookie knocked Will Power off the pole position and will lead the field to green in his first career IndyCar race today as a new season gets underway. Wickens is the third rookie since 1993 to win the pole in his IndyCar debut, joining Nigel Mansell at Surfer’s Paradise in 1993 and Sebastien Bourdais at St. Petersburg in 2003.
“I need to polish up on the rules and figure out how to start an IndyCar race, first of all,” Wickens said. “I had planned on going with the flow, and now I’m controlling the race.”
Wickens turned a lap at 1 minute, 1.66 seconds in a Honda for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to win the pole at the buzzer for the Fast Six qualifying session. Power, winner of seven of the past eight poles here, was bumped to second.
It was a stunning result on a surprising day for IndyCar. The Fast Six consisted of three rookies, two former series champions and last year’s Indianapolis 500 winner. The drivers represented six race teams — three apiece from Chevrolet and Honda — and rookie Jordan King broke Power’s track record in the first qualifying group.
Matheus Leist, a rookie for A.J. Foyt Racing, qualified third. King, a rookie for Ed Carpenter Racing, was fourth. Takuma Sato, last year’s Indy 500 winner, was fifth, and 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay was sixth. The rookies likely benefited from both a slick surface — it drizzled on and off during qualifying — and IndyCar’s new universal Dallara.
While the veterans are trying to forget everything they know about the old car, the rookies have no point of reference and simply attacked the streets the best they could. The rookies — there are seven in this field of 24 — insist they brought no expectations, either.
“I was just going to go into this weekend and try to enjoy it and maximize it,” said Wickens, who dismissed the notion that many of the rookies are actually inexperienced drivers.
Wickens was a star in DTM driving for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport, but he made the move to IndyCar this year because Mercedes said it was pulling out of the series. Wickens had spent one day as an IndyCar driver last year when Russian driver Mikhail Aleshin had brief troubles returning to the United States after the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Wickens grew up with Schmidt driver James Hinchcliffe — the two were karting teammates as teens in Canada — and Hinchcliffe recommended Wickens fill in for Aleshin. Wickens drove two practices at Road America before Aleshin made it to Wisconsin, and he enjoyed it enough to make the full-time move when Mercedes said it was leaving DTM.
“I find it a little bit weird to call myself a rookie at 28 years old,” Wickens said. “I always kind of like to consider myself to the normal guys, not the rookies. I am striving to be better than that. I am not here to win a rookie championship, I am here to challenge for wins and the overall championship.”
The first surprise in qualifying came right at the start when reigning series champion Josef Newgarden did not advance into the second round. The Team Penske driver was forced to watch from pit lane as the rest of the session continued without him.
“It just wasn’t enough,” Newgarden said. “I thought I did an OK lap, it just wasn’t enough.” Newgarden will start 13th.
“I think we have what it takes to race our way out,” he said, “and maybe even win this thing.”