IndyCar: Bourdais triumphs in second bruising Belle Isle race

KVSH Racing-Chevrolet’s Sebastien Bourdais scored his second victory in as many years after holding off Takuma Sato (AJ Foyt Racing-Honda) and Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda) in a five-minute sprint to the checkers, following a late-race stoppage.

“It was just about as nerve wracking as it gets," said a thrilled Bourdais. "When we elected to stay out [for the final shootoout] I was like, ‘Oh man – it’s all or nothing.’ All I could hope for was the same scenario as NOLA (with) complicated conditions and one yellow after another. It was the right call again today. The difference is we obviously deserved it because the boys worked really hard and we were on the pace, we passed a bunch of cars and made the moves when it mattered. We made it stick all the way to the end. When we got on the Firestone red tires I was like, ‘Boy, that’s way too early.’ It just felt like it was a risky move, but I knew it was the right one just like yesterday. I just couldn’t be any happier that we made it stick.”

Behind them, Tristan Vautier scored Dale Coyne Racing-Honda’s best result of the season with fourth, Marco Andretti backed up his runner-up finish yesterday with fifth for Andretti Autosport-Honda, and Conor Daly brought some cheer to Schmidt Peterson Motorsport-Honda with sixth.

It took until lap 35 – half-distance – for the first yellow flag to wave on the second half of the Verizon IndyCar Series’ Dual in Detroit, as the drivers did themselves great credit in tricky conditions on a damp, then drying, then wet track. Had the race stayed green, we appeared to be on course for an epic duel between the top two drivers in the championship, Team Penske’s Juan Montoya and Will Power who were circulating 1.5sec apart. This battle fell apart on lap 27, soon after the first pit stops, as Power was forced to pit for a new steering wheel when wet electrics started shorting out, and kept slipping the gearbox into neutral.

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Montoya at this point led Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing entry by 12 seconds, with Josef Newgarden (CFH Racing) a further 7.4sec adrift, and Bourdais 1.5sec behind the Barber Motorsports Park  race winner. However, Rodolfo Gonzalez speared the tire wall with his Dale Coyne Racing, and most of the front runners took this opportunity to pit – most for slicks, but curiously, Dixon for more wets. Scott and Bourdais jumped ahead of Montoya out of the pits, and found themselves fourth and fifth behind those who didn’t stop – Daly, Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport-Honda) and Power.

At this point, after 40 of the scheduled 70 laps, the race descended into a farce, as the race could barely run three laps without drivers colliding with each other or the barriers. At the green flag, Helio Castroneves sent his Penske-Chevy past Rahal, but Luca Filippi (CFH) and Stefano Coletti (KVSH Racing) had separate encounters with the walls. As they pitted, so too did Andretti, bravely changing onto slicks.

On the lap 46 restart, Castroneves and Rahal passed Newgarden, and soon after, Sato did likewise. Rahal and Sato then passed Helio to grab seventh.  Nearer the front, Bourdais’ red-tired KVSH car passed the wet-tired Dixon and Power for third  and then second, while Hunter-Reay and Power pitted on the following lap. Will’s pit crew got him out ahead of his 2012 championship rival, but the field was brought under a full-course caution on lap 50 as Newgarden who’d also just stopped slid hard into the wall exiting Turn 2.

That left the top 10 as Bourdais, Montoya, Rahal, Sato, Pagenaud, Tony Kanaan (Ganassi), Vautier, Kimball (Ganassi), Andretti and Power. But the race had barely got restarted when Sage Karam (Ganassi) knocked Jack Hawksworth (AJ Foyt Racing) into Coletti, bringing out a yellow, though not before Vautier had passed Kanaan for sixth and Dixon had passed Hunter-Reay for 11th.

A restart three laps later saw Power past Andretti for ninth, with Dixon and Castroneves following him through, while Rahal pulled an unsubtle chop on Sato. Power had just passed Kimball for eighth, when Dixon again tried to follow but inadvertently got shoved into the tires by Kimball. Another yellow. This yellow did at least allow Race Control to command Rahal to relinquish third to Sato.

At the lap 61 restart, Power passed Pagenaud, Kanaan and Vautier to take fifth and despite his earlier misfortune, appeared to be in the pound seats. He alone among the top five had enough fuel for the finish. Yet amazingly Hawksworth, Karam and Coletti tried to reignite their Turn 3 party, bringing out the yellows again. On the lap 64 restart, leader Bourdais checked up, allowing Sato and Rahal to get the jump on Montoya and push him down to fourth, while JPM’s teammate Power lost two places to Pagenaud and Kanaan. Vautier took the outside line on Power through Turn 1 but as his car went light over the left-hand Turn 2 crest, the DCR car’s tail pushed out into Power’s front wheels, bouncing the reigning champion off the outside wall, from where he rebounded into Castroneves. Scratch two Penskes.

Such was the debris scattered down that long straight that the race was brought to a halt and became a timed race, but even with the race shortened by two laps, it was still knife-edge as to who of the leading runners could make it. Kanaan and Pagenaud knew they couldn’t and so pitted when the race went green. Montoya was in similar difficulties and let the leading trio go, but even that wasn’t enough; on the final lap, starved of fuel, the Colombian plummeted from fourth to 10th. Bizarrely, that still left him top Penske finisher… and best of the top-four title contenders. Power, Castroneves and Dixon were classified 18th, 19th and 20th.

Incidentally, had the race gone to 70 laps, Andretti would have been an easy winner, having made his previous pit stop six laps later than the top four. And who knows where yesterday's winner, Andretti's teammate Carlos Munoz might have finished? He had climbed to fifth by lap six when his Honda started blowing smoke out of the right side of the block, and he was forced to park.

Still, Bourdais’ fine win was the 33rd of his career, and also made him the seventh different winner in eight Indy Car races this season. It was Sato’s first podium in two years. He said: "It was a long race, but it was a fantastic show. It was difficult to overtake today with the greasy conditions, but after we made a good call, the boys did a fantastic job with the pit stops. How many restarts did we do? I can’t remember. Every restart was very exciting, especially the last few. I made a couple positions up on a good move. We needed a little bit more [for the win] but it was a great day for AJ Foyt Racing.

Commenting on the restart where he passed Montoya, he said: "It was supposed to be a steady acceleration, but Montoya had to brake and I had to brake as well. It wasn’t clean really.”

Rahal’s third podium finish of the season moved him up to fourth in the championship point standings. Graham remarked: "We're just one or two points ahead of Helio and seven behind Dixon. We’re just going to keep fighting because we can hang with these guys, so we’ve just got to keep working hard and we’ll be there.”

Results, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (9) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 68, Running
2. (15) Takuma Sato, Honda, 68, Running
3. (5) Graham Rahal, Honda, 68, Running
4. (23) Tristan Vautier, Honda, 68, Running
5. (7) Marco Andretti, Honda, 68, Running
6. (10) Conor Daly, Honda, 68, Running
7. (19) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 68, Running
8. (14) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 68, Running
9. (18) Gabby Chaves, Honda, 68, Running
10. (1) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 68, Running
11. (12) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 68, Running
12. (20) Sage Karam, Chevrolet, 68, Running
13. (13) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 68, Running
14. (8) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 68, Running
15. (16) James Jakes, Honda, 67, Running
16. (21) Stefano Coletti, Chevrolet, 67, Running
17. (17) Luca Filippi, Chevrolet, 66, Running
18. (2) Will Power, Chevrolet, 64, Contact
19. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 64, Contact
20. (4) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 58, Contact
21. (6) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 49, Contact
22. (22) Rodolfo Gonzalez, Honda, 35, Contact
23. (11) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 5, Mechanical

Race Statistics
Winner's average speed: 79.476
Time of Race: 2:00:38.4300
Margin of victory: 1.7644
Cautions: 7 for 17 laps
Lead changes: 5 among 5 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Power 1-2
Montoya 3-21
Dixon 22
Montoya 23-38
Daly 39-50
Bourdais 51-68

Verizon IndyCar Series point standings: Montoya 315, Power 294, Dixon 252, Rahal 246, Castroneves 245, Bourdais 228, Andretti 224, Newgarden 206, Pagenaud 193, Kimball 187.