Race Report: Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis
INDIANAPOLIS May 14, 2016—The Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis turned into one of those races that the AJ Foyt Racing team would like to forget. Instead the engineers and drivers will go through the post mortem and try to figure out just where everything went so wrong.
The struggle to find speed started the first day. And despite some bright moments—a top-five showing in practice three for Takuma Sato’s No. 14 ABC Supply Honda and then a first-ever appearance in the Firestone Fast Six for the No. 41 ABC Supply Honda driven by Jack Hawksworth—the frustration continued on race day.
The drop in temperatures—it was just over fifty degrees ambient temperature on a cloudy race day—only served to exacerbate an already difficult situation.
Hawksworth qualified sixth and started fourth when two cars ahead of him were penalized for being underweight. Through the first fuel stint he was able to run in the top six. However a messy pit stop saw him drop to 16th which is where he ran for most of the race. He fell back to 21st when an element on his front wing broke with about 15 laps to go.
“The first stint wasn’t great but I thought we could hold our own,” said Hawksworth. “When we came in to put on the other reds we were P6 but we did not have a good pit stop. We fell way down in the order. We had some issues with the car after that and then the front wing broke, and I hadn’t hit anything, so that just added to the day we were having. It was a long day.”
Sato, who qualified 22nd and started 20th, said of his 18th place finish, “A tough and long day. I didn’t have the speed to compete. A lot of things were unfortunate as well. We really need to go back and see why we were not quick enough. At one stage we were competitive in Practice 3 but since qualifying we lost speed and couldn’t get it back. It was really a tough day but the boys did a good job on the pit stops. We fought hard but it was a tough one.”
Alfe Heat Treating pilot Alex Tagliani was the only driver not complaining about his car after the 82-lap race.
“I think out of our three cars, we had the strongest, we just got into some really weird situations on track,” said Tagliani, who finished 23rd, a lap down. “I think we had more of a car than we could’ve shown, but we had lots of little situations, and a pit road penalty that cost us. But in regards of pace, we definitely had something to fight with for a Top-10 finish.”
Simon Pagenaud extended his point lead by winning his third straight race. His teammate Helio Castroneves finished second ahead of James Hinchcliffe, Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball.
Qualifying for the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place next Saturday and will be televised by ABC-TV from 4-6 pm ET. ESPN3 will broadcast live from the track that day from 11 am to 3pm ET.