AVONDALE, Louisiana – Legendary American author and humorist Mark Twain once uttered the famous phrase, “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Fittingly, in the riverboat town of New Orleans, Honda Performance Development President Art St. Cyr was able to utter the same proclamation after Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana.
The season-opening Verizon IndyCar Series race at St. Pete left Honda officials feeling despondent after Chevrolet swept the top six positions in the race. The highly anticipated “Aero Kits” used by Honda and Chevrolet teams had very mixed results. Honda requested and was granted approval by INDYCAR to strengthen the various bits and pieces that make up its Aero Kit after the race. Chevrolet teams also reinforced its parts before Sunday’s race at NOLA Motorsports Park.
Although the term “race” should be used loosely when describing Sunday’s contest at NOLA - as 26 of the 47 laps were run under the yellow flag with only six laps of green flag racing between Lap 19 and 47 - Honda will gladly accept the results.
Honda driver James Hinchcliffe pitted just one time and was able to conserve enough fuel to win the race – the fourth of his career. Schmidt Peterson Racing teammate James Jakes finished third giving the manufacturer two of the three positions on the podium. Chevrolet driver Helio Castroneves was second.
Simona de Silvestro equaled the highest finish of her career with a fourth-place effort in the Andretti Autosport Honda. And Graham Rahal’s eighth-place finish gave Honda four drivers in the top 10.
That’s pretty good considering that Chevrolet has more teams and drivers in the Verizon IndyCar Series than Honda.
And even if Sunday’s race was struck with “Yellow Fever,” St. Cyr makes no apologies for the fortunate results.
“Just like St. Pete was one race this was one race,” St. Cyr said. “There are a lot of different circuits out there. We didn’t design our particular Aero Kit or engine for one particular circuit. We look to be good everywhere.
“Talks of our demise have been greatly exaggerated, right?”
St. Cyr believes any time one of his drivers can win it’s a good day no matter what the circumstances.
“We thought we had the race covered,” he said. “We had the speed in the front and fuel economy in the front. If the race had more green flag … we could have been 1-2-3 today.”
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports is one of the Honda teams and is more than equal when battling the power teams of IndyCar including the Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing Chevy teams and the Andretti Autosport Honda operation.
“Sam’s team can win consistently and be really good so this win is not a surprise to me at all,” St. Cyr said. “James Hinchcliffe is a very popular driver and it’s great to see him in victory lane. And James Jakes is a driver a lot of people overlook but he knows how to drive in the rain and he did very well.”
St. Cyr believes there are plenty of adjustments in Honda’s Aero Kit so, even with Sunday’s race plagued by caution periods, it was still a learning experience.
“We learn more in every race,” St. Cyr said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ecstatic after today’s outcome but I’m happy after every win. We are already thinking about Long Beach now and I want to repeat this feeling after Long Beach on Sunday. We have some potential race winners all over the paddock.
“And we’re looking forward to that big race in May – the Indianapolis 500.”
Race winner Hinchcliffe realizes the Honda teams have to stick together to fend off the mighty Chevrolet teams, and his victory on Sunday is a tangible sign of progress, even if it weren’t a race to the finish at high speed.
“Getting Honda back on top was huge,” Hinchcliffe said. “If you look at the times after the first practice, maybe it looked a little iffy, but that's the best thing about IndyCar Racing, is you never know what's going to happen in these races. For us, qualifying getting rained out was unfortunate because I genuinely think we found a decent amount of pace by qualifying whether it was on the wet or the dry.
“Luckily, we got ourselves in a position to run up front, and on those restarts, Honda power was good, the Aero Kit was good, and we were pulling away from a Penske, so we can't really complain at this point.”
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