Team Penske leads IndyCar field to inaugural Grand Prix of Louisiana
AVONDALE, Louisiana – In a city that knows how to throw a party, New Orleans is ready to stage its first-ever major auto-racing event as the Verizon IndyCar Series arrived at the 2.67-mile, 13-turn permanent road course at NOLA Motorsports Park on Thursday.
Tony Kanaan and his Chip Ganassi Racing teammates are hoping to become part of the celebration in Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana, as Kanaan was the only driver to break up the Team Penske quartet in the March 29 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete. He finished third just behind race winner Juan Pablo Montoya and second-place finisher Will Power and just ahead of fourth-place driver Helio Castroneves and fifth-place Simon Pagenaud.
Kanaan, the 2004 Verizon IndyCar Series champion and 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner, was the hottest driver at the end of last season and appears to be carrying to momentum into the 2015 season.
“We aren’t starting the season in a hole, that’s the value of what Tony did at St. Petersburg,” said Mike Hull, Managing Director of Chip Ganassi Racing. “I thought Tony started like he ended the season last year. He won at Fontana last year and started this season very well. He had a solid run and validated all the work he did over the winter on the No. 10 car and drove a solid race.
“Guess what? He’s a solid race driver.
“Also, it helps us as a team to understand that through trial and tribulation some of our other guys could be up there. All of the signs are pointing in the right director for Tony and that helps us as a team.”
The addition of Aero Kits to the Verizon IndyCar Series has changed the dynamic of the racing, but the addition of Pagenaud to Team Penske’s already powerful lineup has put the pressure on other teams, such as the equally impressive Chip Ganassi Racing squad, to increase their performance.
“I think they are definitely going to be strong everywhere,” Kanaan said of Team Penske. “But I think we're going to go to tracks that we just tested. The next race is actually NOLA, then Long Beach, then we go back to Barber. I think we're probably going to be able to close the gap.
“We know they're going to be strong all year. We can't let the results like that go away. We're going to have to step it up.”
Kanaan was the highest finishing Ganassi driver two weeks ago after the other three drivers experienced issues in the race. For three-time IndyCar Series champion and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon, it was a broken airjack on the car.
“For Scott, the airjack valve that controls the proportion of air from the front to rear airjacks – the rear part of that valve failed and when it did the front was all that came up,” Hull explained. “We were a bit fortunate most of our stops came under full-course yellow and that put us at the back for each restart. We did our best but it was disappointing that it happened. We’ve never had an issue like that before.”
Charlie Kimball was running a fast pace before Graham Rahal ran into the back of him. And rookie driver Sage Karam finished the race as he continues to recover from a broken hand he suffered in pre-season testing.
“Charlie’s pace was fast enough to run with Tony in the race,” Hull said. “I think he would have been up there at the end of the race. If Charlie had a clean race he would have been up there fighting it out for third place. And Sage is learning how to be an IndyCar driver and racing full-tank events is what you do in this series. It was a great experience for him. Since then we have worked with him to make sure he gets the same amount of fuel mileage everybody else does that you are racing against. Dario Franchitti has spent a lot of time showing him how to do that and at NOLA he should be a lot better at it.”
The Ganassi team is hopeful that, unlike the season-opening race that became a debris field, the next race is without incidents.
“It’s an unfortunate circumstance when anybody runs into anybody else,” Hull said. “If we had the body work from last year’s cars and people ran into each other we wouldn’t be blaming the Aero Kits – we’d be blaming the drivers.
“IndyCar wanted to have a good racing display and what happened at St. Pete took away from some of it. If we raced nine or 10 months out of the year I don’t think that would have happened. In order to make globally recognized race drivers they have to be out in front of the public more than six months a year. I think you saw a lot of pent-up anxiety because of the long offseason in that race.”
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