Points contender Helio Castroneves came in second, while points leader Scott Dixon could manage no better than fifth.
The win was not without some controversy as Helio Castroneves was forced by race officials to let Wilson by after a blatant blocking move. By dropping from first to second, Helio lost ten championship points and severely hurt his chances to win the series.
The 2.09 mile, fourteen-turn Belle Isle IndyCar course has only a few viable passing zones; a driver’s ability to work through traffic safely is as important to winning as having a car that is fast on a clear track. It often happens that faster drivers will try to pass slower cars while those cars are trying to pass the care ahead, leading to confusion and collision.
This makes for close, exciting racing for the fans, but demands a lot of concentration and awareness from the drivers. Drivers have to watch their mirrors as much as they look ahead, and every pass has to be planned in advance.
Drivers have to be patient, and wait for safe openings but they must also be aggressive and seize every opportunity; once a driver gets to the front of the pack he or she can open a big lead while his or her pursuers are still stuck in traffic.
Dixon, on the other hand, hoped to stay ahead of the conflict and drive a safe race. “There is going to be a lot of people trying different strategies to improve their positions,” he told reporters before the race. “A lot of the guys and girls, eight to 10 starting spots back, are going to try some pretty crazy things. We'll keep our mind focused on the race and try to go for the win.”
Helio Takes the Early Lead
Series points leaders Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves started 1–2, and ran up front until an early yellow, when Dixon came in to top of his tanks, giving Helio the lead.
By lap thirty the field had spread out a bit, making the race safer for the leaders. At this point cars started coming in for pit stops. On lap 32 Castroneves pitted for tires and fuel. Castro was having problems with his rear brakes; his pit advised him to try to adjust it from within the car, but while he worked with it he kept losing time.
Castroneves managed to get back onto the track before the incidents, putting him in the lead. Also, Castroneves had only taken a partial fuel load when he came into the pits under green. This meant his car was lighter, and could run faster.
Pit Strategy Making the Difference
Castro was using irregular pit strategy—when most cars came in under yellow early in the race, Castro’s team kept him on the track to gain position, gambling that yellow flags would favor them. This meant that Castroneves’ car was lighter (carrying less fuel) through the first third of the race, also. Apparently his pit manager Tim Cindric thought that there would be frequent enough caution flags to always get his man back into the pits for fuel without filling up the tanks or trying conservation strategy. Cindric advised Casterroneves to drive flat out, and not to worry about fuel.
Also figuring into strategy was the time limit: the race was scheduled for two hours or 90 laps, whichever came first. A couple of long cautions could not only aid fuel conservation, they could shorten the race, favoring Castroneves’ short-filling strategy.
Scott Dixon’s strategy was exactly the opposite. Dixon’s team manager Mike Hull had him conserving fuel to minimize pit stops, hoping to have Dixon out on the course and running while other were forced to pit under green. Dixon was saying over the team radio that he wanted to push, and that all the other cars were much faster, bur team manager Hull kept telling him to be patient.
Scott Dixon came in for tires and fuel on lap 54, taking on a full 22 gallons of ethanol. On lap 58 Castroneves came in and again just took a short fuel load. Because he made a quick stop, Castronevers only lost one place on the track, coming out of the pits in second, with only Oriol Servia ahead of him. Servia pitted on lap 59, putting Castroneves back into first.
On lap 65 Dan Wheldon and Mario Moraes both ran off track, bringing out a yellow flag. Suddenly fuel mileage became a bit less important, and vehicle performance became more of an issue. Dixon had one of the fastest cars on the course, but Oriol Servia and Helio Castroneves were also quite quick.
A Controversial Finish
The green flag came out on lap 69. Castroneves had a clear track; Scott Dixon on the other hand had several fast drivers to pass. To make matters worse for Dixon, Castroneves won three points for leading the most laps in the race, cutting the championship points gap just a bit smaller.
Castroneves’ car was not working well; his back end was sliding badly under acceleration. Helio Castroneves desperately needed the win and the ten extra championship points that came with it. But Justin Wilson was faster, and Castroneves was penalized for blocking, and ordered to let Wilson through.
“We talk about blocking every week in the drivers’ meeting and tell them what they can and can’t do and what the code of conduct is on the racetrack,” said race chief steward Brian Barnhart, the sanctioning Indy Racing League’s president of competition and operations. “(Castroneves) clearly moved his car to impede the progress of a following car and moved his car in response to the actions and the line taken by a following car.”
On lap 73 Castroneves let Wilson pass, and Wilson opened up a one-second lead by lap 76. Now the question became whether Justin Wilson had enough fuel to finish running full rich.
Then on lap 82, word was handed down that the race would be timed, and not run 90 laps. As soon as this was announced, Justin Wilson’s team told him he had enough to run flat-out to the end. Meanwhile, Castroneves’ pits calculated that if Castroneves ran flat-out, he would run out of fuel on the last lap.
Helio Castroneves was visibly enraged after the race, though he kept a smile on his face. “I have nothing smart to say,” he told reporters after the race, “Please save it for later.”
Scott Dixon told reporters, “I got the power down really well coming out of Turn Twelve and I expected to be past him, but he just coming down (dropping to the inside of the track) and coming down until I had to back out of it or we both would have crashed. I thought that (the penalty) was pretty fair considering the circumstances.”
As the points stand now, if Scott Dixon finishes eighth or better at next week’s race at the Chicagoland Speedway, he will win the championship regardless of where Helio Castroneves finishes.
