@DRRIndyCar:

What are the blue flag rules in IndyCar? Rahal's been holding up Andretti for several laps now.

Dixon is looking really good. Where did he come from?

AFAIK, the blue flags are just to warn the backmarkers that the leaders are coming up to them. They're not obiliged to just simply back off and let the leaders through like in F1.

I think the flags are just to inform the driver there's someone behind, i don't think you have to get out of the way

wilson all over the back of kanaan

Thanks - I guess being in Rahal's slipstream will help his fuel consumption, at least!

marco pits

Andretti in for his splash and dash.

Big screwup by Andretti Motorsports. Marco had the race covered but his team couldn't calculate fuel mileage.

wilson past kanaan, now conway's all over him

Now, Wilson's through.

OH! Simona!

De Silvestro spun and stalled.

Full course yellow.

Be an interesting finish now.

Helio must be spitting feathers ...

Is there any way to see online the "overtake button" usage?

who's gonna make a move into turn 5 on the restart

i don't think there is

HCN wins

Great race
Jp

I was just wondering if you'd gone back to sleep!

My man Helio! And he even finds a fence to climb!

Great track and a pretty good race. Well done HCN and the Ganassi boys. Power did well to work his way up to 4th. Marco must be ruing his fuel strategy and good solid drives from Wilson, Briscoe and Tags.

Good fun, Long Beach next weekend, looking forward t it.

Any way you slice it, Baguette did alright today. Kept out of trouble and fared better than other rookies have in their first race.

He was born and bread to race.

Predictions of IRL's demise are premature. The ESPN feed on Sky was terribly lo-def after the HD debut of MotoGP at Qatar which was breathtaking. Does anyone get a decent TV coverage - this was even in 4:3! Barber track is pretty nice even if the passing had to be contrived with that thing! Seems like the gap to Penske and Ganassi has shrunk which has to be good.

Why is the safety car deployed for what seems an unnecessary length of time? When Simona spun and stalled, the safety car went around at least another lap or two even after she got the car going again.

The answer to that is obvious to anyone with half a brain...

They need a lap to open the pits, another lap to get the field aligned, etc.

Is there a torrent of the race available?

Someone needs to tell Tilke this IS HOW YOU BUILD a race course.

It is certainly picturesque, and heck, it even features a spider sculpture that the camera man had to focus on a bizillion times. Didn't seem to offer an abundance of overtaking opportunities though.

Yes, very pretty and I'm sure it's fun to drive, but if they hadn't P2P there'd have been no passing at all.

Maybe Marco was too eager on the throttle and on the mix settings during the first 2 stints?

I liked the circuit a lot, probably not as a potential F1 track with it being too small but its kinda like an American Brands Hatch or even Cadwell Park.

Check with their legal team for any implications in the event of something bad happening..... Only in America. Get on with it!
The single worst export from US racing is safety car overuse. NASCAR have taken it to another level.

Uhh, we don't have "safety cars".... On an oval you can't have a local yellow so the pace car gets deployed. On a road circuit anytime a truck has to be deployed they throw a full course yellow until they return to base. I like how in F1 they use local corner marshals and cranes to get the cars but with the current US method in Indycar there are always the same people responding to the incidents.

Loved the track

Why can't Tilke build a track like this?

He builds to FIA rules.

Because he's building for F1 and if he built one like this for F1 we'd hear nothing but moaning that there's nowhere they can pass.

We hear that anyway with his tracks

I am slowly getting angrier then this cannot be seen in Australia on free to air.

onehd are you listening?

No his crew chief took full responsibility for not getting him on fuel saving strategy early enough.

in the US it's called a yellow flag or a caution but it's essentially the same thing as an SC period in F1, relax.

That is an interesting thing they do with Indycar...it used to be called Team Green, right? I still can't believe that in F1 the cars essentially tear around the track at 9/10s with corner workers only a metre from the road. In F1 the yellows just mean "don't pass." The drivers barely even slow down. It's insane.

But at the same time, in the USA they can be a little heavy handed with the cautions.

The ICONIC (Innovative, Competitive, Open-Wheel, New, Industry-Relevant, Cost-Effective) panel's (the ones in charge of deciding the future of IndyCar... and oh dear that acronym is so bloated ) members have been revealed (IndyCar's ICONIC panel revealed) :

Brian Barnhart, IRL's president of racing operations
Gil de Ferran, 2003 Indy 500 winner, former Honda F1 sporting director and current IndyCar team co-owner
Tony Purnell, formerly of Jaguar F1 team, founder of Pi Research
Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway
Neil Ressler, former chairman of Jaguar F1
Tony Cotman, former president of race operations for Team Green, former race director of Champ Car
Rick Long, err... an engine guy

I like seeing de Ferran and Cotman on that list, but Barnhart . ... and never expected seeing TWO ex-JagF1 guys on there . Anyways, I just hope that the Looney (har har) put in charge to mediate this panel keeps things under control...

Purnell...

That would be the guy behind many of the crazy rules change in F1 during the latest Mosley years...

I just remembered - it is built to FIA rules. The FIA accepted it as the official test track of USF1.

I am relaxed, but it's not a safety car.;) The crew used to be called the Simple Green Safety Crew as the cleaning product Simple Green was the sponsor. In US road racing a local yellow means don't pass, be alert but you don't have to appreciably slow. A full course yellow means they line up behind the pace car. Since the US road circuits are typically about half the length as an F1 circuit, about 2 miles or so though there are a few exceptions. That might lead to more full coarse yellows. In circle track racing they don't use local yellows hence every yellow is full course.

Test track's don't have to comply to the same standards, which involve massive run off areas, specific corner radii etc.