World of Sport: Indycar; IMSA; NASCAR; Super Formula
INDYCAR SERIES POCONO (USA) AUGUST 19 ROUND 13/16
The most dominant performance of his Indycar career put Alexander Rossi within striking distance of Scott Dixon in the 2018 championship battle with just three rounds to go, the last of which offers double points.
The Andretti Autosport Dallara-honda driver, who qualified third, passed Josef Newgarden at the start of the race. He then jumped Will Power at the first restart and left him behind on the second – two hours later – going on to lead 180 of 200 laps.
The reason for that yawning gap between first and second restart, despite coming just six laps apart, was a red flag caused by a vicious shunt for Robert Wickens – he kept his nose alongside Ryan Hunter-reay’s Andretti Autosport car for just a tad too long going through the kink that is Turn 2 on the famous tri-oval. The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver’s right-front wing made light contact with the left-rear of Hunter-reay but, on cold tyres and in low-downforce trim, it was enough to tip the yellow car up and into the wall. Wickens’s car then launched off the rear of the stricken Hunter-reay, rode (mercifully belly-first) along the catch fencing and the top of the SAFER barrier. It shed wheels and large parts of bodywork as the car viciously gyrated through several 360-degree spins.
Wickens was reported to be suffering from broken legs, a broken arm, a bruised lung and a spine injury (see Pit & Paddock).
James Hinchcliffe spun to try and avoid the accident ahead but an unsighted Takuma Sato, his car and helmet covered in oil from the torn-open Honda engine of Wickens’s car, found himself striking the wall while trying to avoid Hinchcliffe, who’d had falling debris cut and bruise his hands in the cockpit. Pietro Fittipaldi’s Dale Coyne Racing machine thumped the gold SPM car hard enough to hurt his own ankles, yet thankfully without adding to the injuries incurred while qualifying for May’s World Endurance Championship race at Spa.
The repairs necessary to replace 90 feet of damaged catch fencing brought the race to a halt for almost two hours. But when it restarted, Rossi rocketed away from the Team Penske entry of Will Power, who on Saturday had joined AJ Foyt in second place in Indycar’s all-time pole-winners’ list with his 53rd. Power, who won the previous two Pocono races, gave valiant chase throughout, clearly the only driver with the wherewithal to apply pressure to the leader – although he didn’t have the front-end grip to keep up with his rival through traffic.
This point was brought home soon after his lap 137 pitstop, when the super-swift
#12 crew was able to get Power out in front of Rossi, who’d stopped a lap earlier and been mildly baulked by traffic on his out-lap. Like almost all drivers, Power had long since discovered that the wing-flaps and wickers that Indycar had introduced to the superspeedway version of the 2018-spec Dallara aerokit were not enough to prevent front-end washout. Two momentumsapping moments of understeer at Turn 1 in consecutive laps while running in the wake of backmarkers were enough to drop Power within slipstreaming reach of Rossi, who duly drafted past the Penske car to take the lead into Turn 2 on lap 141.
While Rossi then swiftly picked off the backmarkers, Power took far longer to do so. The gap between the lead pair went out to six seconds. Yet as the final stops approached, Rossi was hitting more traffic and Power had a clear track, allowing him
to whittle the lead down to under two seconds. He then stayed out two laps longer than Rossi, but that was to prove Power’s undoing. He encountered Max Chilton’s Carlin machine, which was on an out-lap and occupying the line Power needed for a swift in-lap. The silver Chevrolet-powered Penske car bobbled off-throttle through Turn 3 and skated up the track before its driver could wrestle it back down to pit entry. By the time he emerged from the pitlane, Power was over seven seconds back and the race was effectively over. Despite setting a couple of 216mph laps, Power could only reduce his deficit to 4.5s by the chequered flag.
Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing car, meanwhile, was a further 36s adrift but still claimed third place, just ahead of the Dale Coyne Racing version of Sebastien Bourdais. As an exercise in damage limitation, it was a fine performance from the points leader, given that not only did he start 13th, but he also made a precautionary stop to change the right-side tyres having run over some of the debris from Wickens’s shunt. Swift laps in clean air and strong pitstops meant Dixon moved up the order, but he couldn’t pass Marco Andretti even when the native Pennsylvanian throttled back to save fuel. By the time Andretti’s momentum was checked by impressive rookie team-mate Zach Veach and the struggling Newgarden, Dixon was over half a minute adrift of the two leaders, and the absence of further caution periods meant he simply never had a chance to catch up.