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2005 INDYCAR IRL - PIKES PEAK

2005 INDYCAR - R12 of 16, Aug. 21, 2005 Pikes Peak International Raceway, Fountain

COURSE:

• Pikes Peak International Raceway, Colorado Springs, Colorado
• 1.mile oval
• 2004 winner: Dario Franchitti, Andretti Green Dallara-Honda
• 2003 winner: Scott Dixon, Toyota, Chip Ganassi Racing
• 2002 winner: DE FERRAN, PENSKE CHEVROLET
• 2004 RACE RESULT:
• 1 Dario Franchitti, Andretti Green Dallara-Honda
• 2 Adrian Fernandez +2.24
• 3 Dan Wheldon +2.6
• 4 Darren Manning +2.9
• 5 Tony Kanaan +7.5
• 6 Helio Castroneves

RACE RESULT

• 1 Dan Wheldon , 225 LAPS
  "It's very important to me to be in Victory Lane, for everybody involved. The car was good. My three teammates pushed me hard. We all want to be in victory lane as much as one another. It just happened to work out for me. I've been tough on the Klein Tools/ Jim Beam boys. I've been frustrated at some of the results. Certainly today, it was a great team effort by certainly those guys and everybody at Andretti Green Racing. It's a nice time for a victory to come. Dario was really strong. I think he was my strongest competitor today. I was a little bit better in traffic at some points. It was a shame for him. He's had some bad luck."
• 2 Sam Hornish Jr. "They got ahead of me when I got caught up to lap traffic. I saw guys were four wide in front of me, and I ended up turning a lap that was six seconds slower than what I was running before. That really killed us, but I didn't want to get back up in there. I figured on a track that's mostly two lanes wide, and some people were wanting to go four wide for who knows what positions, that's asking for trouble."
• 3 Tony Kanaan "Dan did a great job today. He drove like a champion and hats off to him. Now it's our job to clinch second in the championship for Team 7-Eleven. Our other plan was to clinch the manufacturer's championship for Honda, and we accomplished that. I knew that we didn't have the car to win the race, but we had a good enough car to finish as high as second. I had a good battle with Sam, and we raced hard over the final laps. It was fun racing like that."
• 4 Helio Castroneves "Unfortunately, I think we made the wrong choice on our race setup, and the Marlboro Team Penske car had a tremendous push in turns three and four. Those corners were my biggest problem. I could barely touch the throttle going through there. The team made front wing adjustments on both of our pit stops, but it didn't really help. All considering, I'm pretty happy with a fourth-place finish today."
• 5 Vitor Meira "The top five is pretty good for our Menards/Johns Manville Honda. We have struggled with the Panoz on the short tracks this year, but I think we found some things today that will help us in the future. To score a solid fifth is good for the Rahal Letterman Racing team on the short track. It was a good day overall because Honda clinched the IRL Manufacturers Championship. That is important to us. Plus, one of our team's primary sponsors is based in Colorado with Johns Manville, and it is nice to run well for them in their backyard. I know that the race conditions changed a lot from the warmup to the race. We got very loose early in the race, and I was just hanging on at the beginning. But later in the fuel stint, the car came around and it was fast. We were able to move through the field. With the thin air here in Colorado, the car doesn't stick as well with the downforce package. But we did learn some more, and that is a key for us. Again, our pit stops were quick, and I picked a few spots through the crew. Now it is on to Sonoma, and that is going to be a tough race. That place is hard on the body. It is as physical a track in an Indy car as it is anywhere in the world. But I'm happy to get back to road racing next week."
• 6 Tomas Enge "This was a great result that we've all been waiting for this season. We were not completely sure about today because we hadn't been the fastest in practice or qualification. We kept on it and the car came to me during the race, and we were very strong. At the end, we had to keep saving fuel, and we were still very fast, but I think we would have been able to get into the fifth position. I think a lot of people were saving fuel. We are very happy because this is the best finish for us all year. Still, we know our RockStar Chevy can do much better and we want to do that next week at Infineon."
• 7 Dario Franchitti "I was waiting for the ArcaEx car to fill with fuel. I had the clutch pedal depressed but the car slowly started to creep forward and the engine stalled. So another mechanical problem took us from a race that I feel we had the car to win. We just cannot continue to have these things happen."
• 8 Danica Patrick "As a team, we were pretty confident coming into the race after the morning warmup. And the car has improved from earlier in the year. We were looking for a good result after we ran strong in the short oval in Milwaukee. We just ran into a little trouble today that cost us. I got caught up in some traffic with slower cars, and it is hard to get around them on the one-mile tracks. With eight or so cars, trying to get by them on a restart, it can be a complete mess. The track definitely changed throughout the race, and we had to make the proper adjustments as the race ran down. We had a lot of oversteer at the beginning and understeer at the end. We were trying to balance the car, and it isn't easy in the thin air. There were a couple of different points in the race that I felt the car was good. I was able to make up some ground in the middle of the first stint and in the middle of the last stint, too. I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't make up as many spots due to the one bad restart where I got caught in traffic. I was pleased that the car was improved from earlier in the year on the short ovals, and we also learned some things for the road courses too. We are looking for a consistent car on these kinds of tracks. That is important."

QUALIFYING

GRID

• 1 Helio Castroneves , 20.522s, 175.423 mph
  "These short ovals combine a lot of things. You have to look at setup and conditions and, yeah, this pole feels awesome. We took a chance and made the right choices after practice. I'd say we made a calculated guess on the gears this afternoon. The wind here is always a factor and it's difficult to get the car handling well on this short track."
• 2 Sam Hornish Jr. +0.002s
• 3 Bryan Herta +0.021
• 4 Dario Franchitti +0.07
• 5 Danica Patrick +0.12
• 6 Tony Kanaan
• 7 Tomas Enge
• 8 Tomas Scheckter
• 9 Vitor Meira
• 10 Scott Sharp
• 11 Wheldon 12 Rice 13 Dixon 14 Briscoe 15 Yasukawa 16 Matsuura 17 Carpentier 18 Carpenter 19 Foyt IV 20 Barron 21 Kite 22 Lazier

RACE PREVIEW

• WHELDON: "I expect Pikes Peak to be a very difficult weekend. It's always a very, very tough track with the altitude and the bumping in the middle of turn one and turn two; it's always a difficult task to get the car handling to your complete satisfaction. I expect the Klein Tools/Jim Beam team to give me a reasonably handling race car and it will just be a case of fine tuning the car."
• FRANCHITTI: "Pikes Peak is an interesting track. It's very fast for a 1-mile oval, which I think is a product of the banking and the shape of the track. Really it's a quick track. The winters up there create plenty of bumps in the track that make it a bit more difficult to get the car balanced. It's a place I've enjoyed running both times that I've been there. I've had decent results, with the win last year being a highlight. Adjusting to the environment is a challenge. Being as high up as it is, the engine produce a little less power, and there is a little less downforce on the car. Everything plays a role in making the track a challenge. The bumps, the lack of power, downforce, the surface of the track is a bit abrasive. It all adds up to a difficult day on the racetrack. You have to get everything working right. I'm looking forward to running on a short oval because it's been good so far. We've had good cars over the last year on these tracks. There's a bit more driver input there, and maybe my style suits them better. I think it's just the combination of things, but I think any success is really a combination of many things."
• KANNAN: "Pikes Peak is our last 1-mile oval of the season and will be our last chance to win on this type of track. Team 7-Eleven usually has a very good car on the short ovals. After my 'DNF' at Kentucky, I'm very motivated to get back into victory lane at Pikes Peak."