Tough finish for Tags after quick start
Canadian has cranked up pace in six races since Indy 500
James Hinchcliffe may be the virtual Mayor of Hinchtown, but Alex Tagliani took a major run at being electable in Edmonton with his strong performance Sunday at the Edmonton Indy race.
Tagliani, from Lachenaie, Que., near Montreal, made a fairly impressive bid for something like a wire-to-wire victory, before fading to fifth place in the final 23 laps of the Edmonton stop on the IZOD IndyCar Series.
Tagliani set the pace for 49 of the race’s 75 laps, before fading in a race won by Helio Castroneves of Team Penske, who edged out Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Will Power, Castroneves’ Penske teammate, was third.
The 37-year-old Tagliani moved up to second from his start position of fourth at Turn 1 of the first lap around the 3.6-kilometre City Centre Airport course, evoking a massive roar from the crowd in the bargain.
“Oh, my God, it was out of control,” Tagliani said of the crowd response to his aggressive move to challenge for the lead right from the beginning. “I thought, OK, if they’re screaming like this every, single lap, they’re going to run out of lungs at the end of the race.”
By Turn 13 of the first lap, Tagliani was gunning it past pole sitter Dario Franchitti of Target Chip Ganassi Racing, nailing down the lead as he roared past the start-finish line.
He held the lead for the first 25 laps, lost it briefly after the first round of pit stops, then held it again from Lap 28-51.
If the ecstatic fans were in danger of running out of lung power, Tagliani did, in fact, run out of speed and control after that second pit stop when the big guns of IndyCar, in no danger of running out of fuel, kicked it up a notch or two.
“We had the race pretty much covered for three-quarters of the race,” Tagliani said. “But you have to realize that when we run early in the race, we’re basically saving fuel, trying to make it in two (pit) stops.”
The fuel-saving went rather well for all concerned considering it was a cautionfree race, with no incidents whatsoever.
That didn’t help Hinchcliffe, the Oakville, Ont., native, who started ninth on the grid and tried to move up early on, with unsatisfactory results.
“I didn’t make a great start and made a mistake trying to pass (Simon of Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports) Pagenaud and lost a couple of spots and a couple of seconds.”
Hinchcliffe slid down to 13th after that failed passing attempt and never was in contention the rest of the way. He finished 12th, in the end.
“I think at the end, when everybody knew they were going to make it, everybody kind of turned the knob,” Tagliani said. “Then our balance went to understeer and we hurt the tires quite a bit. And we didn’t have the pace to stay with the other guys.”
That he had sprung a leak was obvious. From Laps 52-57, Castroneves, Sato, Power and Graham Rahal all overtook Tagliani, as he slid to fifth.
“It was a bit unfortunate not to be able to close the deal,” Tagliani said. “But I think a good top five for us is good for the points (they earned 32 points in the standings).
“We’re showcasing that we have speed. You look down the pit lane, four Ganassis, three Penskes, three Andrettis. If you’re in the top five, you’re beating a lot of big names and big teams.”
After switching engines from Lotus to Honda for the Indianapolis 500 on May 27, Tagliani’s Barracuda race car has been competitive, with five Top 10 finishes in the six races since Indy, including a seventh at the Milwaukee Mile and Sunday’s fifth-place result.
Sunday’s result was Tagliani’s best-ever finish in Canada in either IndyCar or Champ Car, its predecessor here in Edmonton.
“It means a lot,” Tagliani. “This was our third (top six) in qualifying in three races
“We had a great race. We’ve been running out of luck a couple of races. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing. This is a very competitive series, with big, strong teams and amazing drivers.
“If we can run like this every, single race, I think we’re going to put ourselves in position to contend. And it’s going to happen before the end of the year.”