Will Power dominated the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by Legacy at the 2.38-mile Barber Motorsports Park course, showing in an emphatic way that he is racing only to win.
The Australian driver of Penske Racing started the race again from the pole position and completed the whole race comfortably in the lead without being threaten this time by noone of Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver. Moreover his 3.3828-second victory over Scott Dixon gave him a seven-point advantage in the driver championship
“That is one of the easiest races I have done physically. I have been training really hard for the season and Scott Dixon was pushing me to the limit at the end. It was a lot of fun and I am really happy for the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car. Leading the race from flag to flag just came down to getting the jump start and staying consistent the whole time with where I started. It came down to holding Scott Dixon off until the end.”
Dixon tried to keep pressure on through the final round of pit stops, trailing by less than a half-second before letting up on the final lap when the rear tires started to lose grip.
“It was a tough day for us. We cruised around and saved a bit of fuel and I gave it all I could with Will Power. I was trying to give as much pressure as I could on the restart with 20 laps to go and he just didn’t give any. It was an overall good day for Target and we earned ourselves some points.”
Although the Alabama race lacked any first-lap drama of St. Petersburg, but there was no shortage of cautions and collisions. Six caution periods for 20 laps kept the race out of a significant racing pace but the fact that 8 different teams were represented in the top 10 for the second event in a row was well noticed.
After dominating the inaugural Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Dario Franchitti finished only 3rd from his 7th start position and was left 2nd in the standings and commented after the race:
“It's like we said last year, every point, whether it's St. Pete, here or the last race, you have to fight for every position,” said “So to get from seventh to third was a good team effort.”
Marco Andretti was 4rth for Andretti Autosport and veteran Oriol Servia completed an impressive top-5 for Newman/Haas Racing.
Top ten was completed with Tony Kanaan who advanced 18 positions to finish 6th and Helio Castroneves who was the 2010 race winner finished only 7th after an adventurous race full of incidents. Simon Pagenaud, who was filling in for the injured Ana Beatriz (broken wrist) was 8th in his first ever IndyCars race. Simona de Silvestro earned her second consecutive top 10, while rookie Charlie Kimball displayed great maturity in Alabama improved from his 21st starting position to 10th as he kept making passes when available and ran clean to benefit from the mistakes of others. After the race, promising Kimball commented:
"It was the first IZOD IndyCar Series race I finished and I definitely learned my lesson from St. Pete. The guys did some great strategy on the pit wall. All I had to do was drive by people on the track. I did that and I was able to come home 10th. Points mean prizes at the end of the year and now we can build on this for racing my home race at Long Beach."
Dale Coyne Racing's Sebastien Bourdais impressed with his 11th position in his American racing return as his No. 19 boy Scouts of America car was positively effective on Reds tyres during the end of the race, picking off car after car and nearly cracking the top 10. Yet, It would be fair to saythat Bourdais' 11th and Meira's 12th were slightly deceptive, as the two drivers had relatively drama-free quiet races.
Danica Patrick had a gamble-off race as she was pitted early and moved onto an alternate strategy. It almost paid off, as like her teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, she ran on Reds in the middle portion of the race while the rest of the field used Blacks. Patrick got as high as sixth and pitting for fuel only while the rest of the lead cars switched to Reds. The tactic worked, momentarily, but with her tires past their peak performance, she was passed left and right until she chose to pit for a fresh set of tires with five laps left to run. As a result she finished back on 17th.
"This is a frustrating way to finish what had been a decent race for us. We had a good car to start the race and our strategy helped put us in a good position for the finish, and then we decided to gamble on our last stop (by not taking tires). Sometimes those things pay off, and sometimes they don't, and today was one of those days."
