Gutierrez impresses in oval debut

There aren't many tougher places to make your oval-track debut than a short track that's bumpy, insanely fast and even a handful for a veteran driver. So give Esteban Gutierrez very high marks for Sunday's performance at the Iowa Speedway.

The 25-year-old native of Monterrey, Mexico started 18th, ran as high as eighth and wound up 13th only one lap down to the leaders. He finished ahead of Charlie Kimball, Indy winner Takuma Sato and Marco Andretti and never put a wheel wrong all afternoon despite the non-stop traffic jam on the 7/8th-mile oval.

"I did better than I thought I was going to do," he said with a grin sitting on the golf cart with owner Dale Coyne. "But I enjoyed it. It was intense and different than anything I've ever done before.

"But of course I have a very good team."

Taking over the seat for the injured Sebastian Bourdais, Gutierrez had the good fortune to have his Dallara-Honda engineered by Craig Hampson, one of the best in the IndyCar paddock.

"I thought the kid did a really good job," said Hampson, who along with Michael Cannon gives Coyne his deepest engineering staff ever. "We might have cost him a 10th place with our strategy but he drove very smooth and smart. This isn't an easy place for anyone.

"But you know if he decides he wants to stay in this series, he's going to have to learn to like ovals – and I think he does."

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Much like his teammate Ed Jones, another rookie who finished third at Indianapolis, Gutierrez even impressed Pancho Carter, a former oval-track badass who spots for Jones and doesn't throw around compliments.

"He handled himself really well in some situations I didn't expect him to," said Carter. "A pretty solid job all around."

The 17-second laps at 170-175 mph isn't something you can simulate in the one-day test Gutierrez had here.

"At the start I was struggling to get up to speed but then I started using my tools in the car and got more comfortable," said the young man who spent two years in Formula 1. "Traffic is very tricky and running different lanes can change your car pretty drastically so you need to anticipate a lot.

"But it was good racing and it was fair racing and I thought it was a lot of fun. I think it was a good start."