Results of the Toyota Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami
source: Max d'Orsonnens
Patience went a long way on Sunday for race driver Patrick Carpentier, who
avoided several traps in the Indy Racing League IndyCar® Series season opener at
Homestead-Miami Speedway, to finish seventh overall. Carpentier's Cheever Racing
Dallara-Toyota was not the quickest car of the 22 registered for the Toyota Indy
300 race, but his experience served him well, finishing only 11 seconds behind
race winner Dan Wheldon of Andretti-Green Racing. It was Wheldon's fourth
IndyCar win,
In an exciting race, that included a major crash involving eight cars on lap
158, British driver Dan Wheldon was in a class by himself. His Dallara-Honda led
160 of the 200 laps to cross the finish line with a lead of 3.6936 seconds over
the Dallara-Toyota of Sam Hornish Jr. of the United States. But it was the
end-of-the-race, four-car battle for second place that kept race fans on the
edge of their seats.
A photo finish placed Penske driver Sam Hornish, a three-time winner at
Homestead, only 0.0097 second ahead of the Andretti-Green Racing Dallara-Honda
of Brazilian Tony Kanaan. He nosed-out the Panoz-Honda of fellow countryman
Vitor Meira of Team Rahal Letterman by 0.0117 second. Fifth place went to Helio
Castroneves of Penske Racing who finished one-tenth behind Meira. British driver
Darren Manning (Chip Ganassi Panoz-Toyota) finished sixth overall, just ahead of
Carpentier. As for Carpentier's teammate, Californian Alex Barron, he recorded
an eighth place finish, one lap down from Wheldon.
Throughout most of the race, Carpentier's car showed a lack of power that
prevented him from battling with the leaders. The numerous caution periods
helped him stay on the lead lap as the field tightened behind the leader each
time. He even led 4 laps, but it happened when he was off-sequence in the pit
stop strategy. But it was the major incident of the race that helped save the
day for Carpentier. The eight-car pile-up occurred in front of him. He was able
to navigate his car through the fireworks and flying debris while broken cars
littered the track. It was during this period that he rose to seventh position.