IndyCar opener packed with problems, excitement
It was a wild season opener for the IndyCar Series, with track problems offset by exciting racing that brought hopes of another competitive year on the circuit.
The inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 was marked by a slick straightaway that made driving unsafe and jeopardized the race, but when the green flag dropped, there was enough action and overtaking to keep fans on the edge of their seats.
Australian Will Power won the rain-shortened race by getting past American Ryan Hunter-Reay with three laps to go. Organizers said there were 95 passes throughout the 61 laps, extremely high for a street circuit.
There was also a scary accident involving Marco Andretti at the start, and a red flag caused by pouring rain that flooded parts of the newly built track in South America's biggest city.
``Despite the limited time to design and execute this track, it ranks with the best quality and the best racing environment of any (other street circuit we race on),'' said Brian Barnhart, the Indy Racing League's president of competition and racing operations.
Three drivers battled for the victory in the final minutes of the race in Sao Paulo, creating an exciting finish that was reminiscent of last year's season finale.
``It was one of the best starts you could ever have for the season,'' said Randy Bernard, the new CEO brought in to help boost the series in the United States and abroad. ``From my standpoint, when you are able to please the fans and the drivers, it's a win-win situation. It was a great place to start the season.''
The series said ratings in the U.S. for the opening race were up 76 percent compared to last year's start in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Coming off a thrilling year in 2009, when Dario Franchitti won the title on the final laps of the season in a battle with Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe, the IndyCar Series opened 2010 looking for more excitement, at a track that was supposed to be appealing to fans and drivers alike.
For the first time in South America, there was the novelty of a race going through a stadium-like Sambadrome, and the allure of the series' longest ever straightaway at just short of a mile.
The hype was there. But so were the problems.
It was clear that something was wrong only a few laps after the cars made it to the track for the first time on Saturday.
The front stretch at the Sambadrome so slick that the drivers could not fully accelerate without losing traction on the concrete surface. Several drivers crashed there in practice, and the complaints soon started pouring in. The section was dangerous, like driving on ice, the drivers said.
``I was confident that it was going to rubber up, but it didn't,'' track designer Tony Cotman said.
Likely there would be no inaugural race if the problem wasn't fixed, and officials were forced to work overnight to add grooves to the track in hopes of saving the race. Qualifying had to be moved from Saturday to Sunday, marking the first time it was held the day of the race.
Cotman said he had been confident the race would take place as scheduled, but only when the cars took to the track for a test session on Sunday did it become clear it was safe.
``Thankfully it all worked well,'' third-place finisher Vitor Meira said. ``It would have been hard to race they way the track was before.''
The track allowed for a lot of overtaking, especially at the long back straightaway. Organizers said nearly half of the passes happened there, and it was at the straight that Power made the final move over Hunter-Reay, marking the seventh lead change of the race.
``If you were fast you could pass, because there is such a good track layout here,'' Power said. ``I'm pretty sure it was an exciting race for the fans.''
But the process of adding the grooves led to another problem - it made the front straight extremely dusty, creating visibility problems for the drivers.
The dust kicked up by the cars was cited as a reason for the scary accident involving Andretti.
The car driven by Brazilian Mario Moraes finished on top of Andretti's and they slid tangled for several yards. The bottom of Moraes' car appeared to be touching Andretti's helmet, and it took more than five minutes for officials to remove Moraes' car so the medical team could attend to Andretti, who was not injured.
Just ahead of them, Dixon, Briscoe, three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves and former Formula One driver Takuma Sato also were caught up in accidents.
The race remained mostly uneventful until the midway point, when it started raining heavily throughout the 2.6-mile, 11-turn temporary circuit.
Several drivers lost control on the wet track, including Danica Patrick, who went a lap down after going off the track and eventually finished 15th.
Deep puddles on the track forced officials to red flag the race for 36 minutes as workers rushed to dry the circuit, which had been set up in only about three months.
There also were some severe bumps that Tony Kanaan called ``dangerous,'' and some drivers complained of how the curbs were set up.
Organizers said it was natural to have glitches in a new street circuit, and believe the issues can be easily fixed for the second of the five races scheduled for Brazil.
``We couldn't be more pleased with all aspects of our first race here, despite the tight timeline,'' said Terry Angstadt, president of the IRL's commercial division. ``At each and every stage, when a problem arose, the Brazilian team found a solution.''
