IndyCar drivers treated fans to the most exciting race of the season this past weekend at Barber Motorsport Park.
Simon Pagenaud continued his incredible start to the season with a second straight victory and the race ran incident free after taking the green flag. But battles for the lead and positions throughout the field made for plenty of excitement and the perfect lead in to the month of May and the Indianapolis 500.
In his second season with Team Penske, Pagenaud has found his sweet spot. He eclipsed teammate Will Power in qualifying to start on pole and after putting up back-to-back second-place results to open the season he’s now won back-to-back races and holds a 48-point lead in the championship over second-place Scott Dixon.
Despite having a fast car the victory did not come without a fight. As Pagenaud came up behind slower cars in the field late in the race, Graham Rahal’s same race strategy that worked a year ago also found him right behind the leader and challenging on Sunday. Rahal used a power move to pull alongside Pagenaud and the two bumped sending Pagenaud wide in a corner and put Rahal out front of the field with less than 10 laps to go.
This fight was not over. Within a couple of laps Pagenaud hustled back to engage Rahal seeking a return to top spot. This time it was Rahal that was impacted from contact. As the slower car of Jack Hawksworth was trying to get out of the way, Rahal clipped the back and suffered massive front wing damage. Pageneaud went back to the point and cruised to victory.
IndyCar officials reviewed the initial contact between the combatants and ruled no penalties were warranted — and I agree. It was two drivers giving everything they had and trying to win. As expected, both saw the conflict between them a little differently, feeling the other should have yielded. In the end I think the better driver and car on the day won the race and the fans were treated to a great battle. So I guess everybody won.
Whenever anyone asks me what I like to see in a race I tell them it’s drivers fighting for position; I don’t care if it’s first or 15th, I want to see people racing hard and trying to pass. We got plenty of that at Barber.
Hinchcliffe impresses again
James Hinchcliffe had his second solid event in as many weeks. One of the top Honda runners all weekend, the Oakville, Ont., native was engaged in some exciting skirmishes with Helio Castroneves and Charlie Kimball and finished the race just outside the top five with a sixth-place result. This should definitely give him and his team some positive momentum heading into the next two events in Indy.
Notes: Last year’s winner, Josef Newgarden, passed Power on two separate occasions making strong moves… The big mover of the day was Juan Pablo Montoya, who had a horrible qualifying effort and started at the back of the field and climbed all the way up to a top five finish… As the IndyCar series returns home to Indianapolis, let’s hope this kind of excitement lies ahead for the rest of the year.
