“Every restart we were careful and lucky,” said Meira, who celebrated his 34th birthday today. “A couple times [on the restarts] you had no control, you just had to choose where to be and today it worked out for us. We moved from 13th to 5th but with all that debris on the track, we cut the left rear tire and developed a slow leak so we had to come to the pits under green. We put on blacks which were not good for us. Also we had a problem with the left front wing which caused a lot of push so we put more front wing in it and it helped. Overall the team did a good job on a course where we struggled last year ; to get a top 10 in a complicated race was good.”
A.J. Foyt, at home recovering from a stent procedure on Friday, called immediately afterwards to congratulate his team directed by son Larry Foyt on the come-from-behind top-10 finish.
A six-car crash at the start offered a prelude of what was in store for the 25-car field which could not funnel into the first turn without incident in the opening segments. The crash on lap one eliminated six cars from serious contention with Marco Andretti flipping upside down, ending his race before it got started. Teammate Mike Conway was also sidelined while Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and Oriol Servia rejoined the field several laps down.
Meira managed to avoid the carnage on all of the double file restarts but sustained a cut tire on lap 18 either from debris on the track or from Will Power’s front wing end fence with whom he was battling moments before the tire went down. He made his way back to the pits but lost a lot of track position. He rejoined the field in 15th position, three quarters of a lap behind the leaders.
Never losing their cool, the team got back on the same pit strategy as the leaders around lap 40. Meira was able to gain two positions to move into 13th with quick pit work by the ABC Supply crew. The fifth and final full course yellow came out for Charlie Kimball’s single car accident on lap 42. Careful on the final double file restart, he picked up two positions as cars jostled through the first turn.
Quick pit work again on lap 67 saw Meira pick up two more positions to move into ninth and five laps later he moved into eighth when Justin Wilson went off course.
When asked about the double file restarts, Meira said: “What everyone else thinks—they’re hectic! Either it doesn’t work or we are all crazy. I think it will work on the ovals but on the road courses, I’m sure they will have to think about it.”
Dario Franchitti led 95 of 100 laps to win his 27th IndyCar race putting him 10th on the all-time victory list. Pole winner Will Power finished second. Tony Kanaan and Simona DeSilvestro waged a heated battle over the final 20 laps to place third and fourth; it was a career best finish for DeSilvestro now in her second year of competition. Takuma Sato rounded out the top five.
On April 10th, the IZOD IndyCar Series returns to action at Barber Motorsports Park, a 2.38 mile permanent road course near Birmingham, Ala. The race will be televised by Versus at 3 p.m. ET.
- A.J. Foyt Racing Press Release
