On The Road, Again With The T-Team Ten

Infineon - Sear's Point Raceway, Sonoma, California - Image Credit: IndyCar.com


On The Road, Again With The T-Team Ten

At the twists and turns … the ups and downs … the straights and switchbacks of the vaunted Sear’s Point raceway, the final runs of the season take shape and soon, the transition season will be completed.

In the qualifying session of the 15th race in an 18 race season and the sixth of eight street/road courses, the class of the teams new to the old Dallaras and the preponderance of “Left-Turn” racing seems to be KV Racing Technology.

One of the biggest improvements in the T-Team growth and positioning can be found at Pacific Coast Motorsports and driver, Mario Dominguez. After transitioning to the IRL late in the game (soon after Mario drove to a third place podium finish at the final official CCWS race at the Long Beach Grand Prix) and failed to make the grid after getting bumped from the 33 car field at the INDY 500, PCM and Mario have been making steady improvements all along the trail to Infineon Raceway.

Mario Dominguez’s Dallara with the new one race sponsor, Moorefield Construction, Inc., on the sidepod. Image Credit: Ron McQueeney

This excerpted from a Pacific Coast Motorsports press notice –

Dominguez Breaks Into the Second Round of Qualifying with Top IndyCar Start
Peak Antifreeze and Motor Oil Grand Prix of Sonoma
Saturday, August 23, 2008

MARIO DOMINGUEZ, #96 Moorefield Construction/PCM/Honda/Dallara/Firestone

Session - Position Time Speed
Practice 3 - 16th 1:18.4632 105.665

Qualifying - 11th 1:18.3235 105.853

Mario on Qualifying: “I am very happy to have made the top 11 today. It is our best result in IndyCar and to make the second group was great. This result just shows what a hard-working team we all are. We didn’t have the budget to test here with the rest of the field last week, so this result is even sweeter because of that. We always put our best effort forward, and this time it paid off. I think tomorrow should be a good race and we will be shooting for a top-ten result in the Moorefield Construction car at the team’s home race here in California
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Tyler Tadevic, Team Owner: “Hoorah! One of our goals this weekend, definitely, was to be part of the fast six from our group and we achieved that! We kicked the season off with a podium in Long Beach which was terrific, but it has been a really tough season. Today was sort of a moral victory for the team making the Firestone Fast 12. I think our performance all year has been a great example of the heart and soul this team has. Mario and the boys are showing it is possible to do a lot with a little.”

Further, PCM picked up a new sponsor for this race – This also excerpted from a Pacific Coast Motorsports press notice –

* Noteworthy: Pacific Coast Motorsports is proud to welcome Moorefield Construction to the team for the Grand Prix of Sonoma. Based in San Jose and Los Angeles , the Moorefield Construction logo will be featured on Mario Dominguez’s #96 IndyCar throughout the Grand Prix of Sonoma.

This excerpted from autosport.com/news –

Castroneves leads Penske front row
By Jeff Olson Sunday, August 24th 2008, 00:00 GMT

With the help of a backup car and the immense effort of teammates, Helio Castroneves won pole position for Sunday's IndyCar race at Sear's Point.

A Penske transporter caught fire on Wednesday on the way to the circuit, destroying Castroneves' primary road-course car, along with teammate Ryan Briscoe's.

Briscoe will start alongside Castroneves as both Penske drivers put their back-up cars on the front row.
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Saturday's qualifying session also was impressive for KV Racing, who put both drivers in the fast six final qualifying session. Will Power will start third with Oriol Servia sixth.

"As a team, we're just trying to mingle with the big guys," Servia said. "We're showing we have the speed and we're catching up. Every race we're getting closer. To lead the transitional teams, we just want to take another step forward."

Pos Driver Team Time Speed
3. Will Power KV Racing 1:17.0875 107.551
6. Oriol Servia KV Racing 1:17.8377 106.514
7. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:17.0056 107.665
11. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast 1:17.4614 107.031
12. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 1:17.5882 106.856
13. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne 1:17.8306 106.524
14. EJ Viso HVM Racing 1:17.4189 107.090
15. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:17.9012 106.427
26. Jaime Camara Conquest Racing 1:19.4711 104.325
27. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest Racing no time no speed
Reference Here>>

Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske lead the field off of the last turn before the Green Flag to start the PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County! Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (EDJE) 2008 - digital photo from television broadcast

The PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County!
Fair and 79 F (26 C) - Winds Southwest at 10 mph - Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:54:00 -0700 PDT - Forecast: Sunny, with a high near 85

LAP 1
Great start of the race, Servia gets pinched and looses a spot back to seventh. Junqueira gets passed into the dirt on the Esses by Weldon.

LAP 4
Paddle shifters increase shifts per lap at Sonoma from 37 shifts to 42 due to the ease of shift transition. Will Power is sponsored by the same sponsor as he had in Long Beach earlier this year – Smart & Final wholesale market stores.

LAP 7
Best race on the track at this time is between Oriol Servia and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

LAP 9
Pits open up on LAP 10 and some teams may come in early to get off sequence.

LAP 10
Vitor Meira comes in.

LAP 11
Dominguez, Weldon and Mutoh come in early.

LAP 13
Team Penske has opened up a 1.5 second lead on the rest of the field in their back-up cars.

LAP 15
Marty Roth off course in turn seven and this brings out a full-course caution

LAP 16
Most teams use caution to come into the pits. Split strategy by Team Penske with leader Castroneves coming in. Briscoe, Tony Kanaan, and Danica Patrick stay out.

LAP 19
Green, Green, Green! Race restarts. Rahal, Moraes, Carpenter, Camara, and Viso round out the list of those who have not yet pitted. Dominguez works his way up to the top 10.

LAP 21
Mario Dominguez passes Jamie Camara for ninth.

LAP 27
Danica Patrick takes to the pits for the first time along with Graham Rahal, and Ed Carpenter to get upon their sequence.

LAP 28
Ryan Briscoe pits and comes back into the field ahead of Scott Dixon in ninth. This move will help Castroneves in his points race against Dixon.

LAP 30
Still staying out and running up front are EJ Viso, Dan Weldon and Mario Dominguez running at the head of the field in 1-2-3!

LAP 34
Meira pits from fourth position, he is on the same strategy as the leaders.

LAP 35
Dominguez and Weldon pit … Weldon passes Dominguez at the pit stop by having a quicker stop.

LAP 37
Castroneves assumes the lead followed by teammate Briscoe, Dixon Wilson, Power, and Servia round out the top six.

LAP 39
Will Power takes to the pits to change up his fuel strategy.

LAP 42
Helio Castroneves is running about 15 seconds ahead of the field at this slightly over halfway point of the 80 lap race.

LAP 44
Penske’s Castroneves comes into the pits at 16.5 seconds ahead of his teammate. He comes out in 4th. Dixon, Wilson and Andretti come into the pits and comes out in 16th

LAP 47
Briscoe, Kanaan, Castroneves, Patrick, and Weldon round out the top five. Servia pits from third allowing to Helio to move up.

LAP 50
A great dice happens between 2nd position Tony Kanaan of Andretti Green Racing (who has just signed a five year extension on his AGR contract at age 38), and Helio Castroneves in 3rd.

LAP 53
The dice continues between Tony and Helio as Briscoe comes into the pits – Tony leads the race while Helio begins to back off knowing that Tony needs to pit.

LAP 55
Teammates Kanaan and Patrick pit.

LAP 56
Top ten are Castroneves, Weldon, Viso, Meira, Briscoe, Dominguez, Kanaan, Power, Dixon, and Wilson. Of these cars, only Briscoe is in the best position to make to the end on fuel if the race remains in a Green Flag condition.

LAP 58
Castroneves pits and comes back out in 2nd ahead of Briscoe. Dixon pits and comes back out in 14th.

LAP 60
Viso pits from first position for his final pitstop and re-enters 6th handing positions 1 & 2 to Penske teammates Castroneves and Briscoe setting up a possible “Hollywood Ending”!

Last Wednesday, Penske racing losses a transporter to a fire and it burns up both of the primary cars for this race and the back-up cars are leading the race.

LAP 63
If this race ends with the cars holding station … Dixon who leads the points race over Castroneves by 78 points would be cut to 41 points. The IndyCar Series Championship for the 2008 season does not appear to be over just yet!

LAP 66
Helio Castroneves will collect 3 points for leading the most laps at this point in the race.

LAP 69
Eleven laps to go and Buddy Rice, who started 22nd, is now running 10th. If this holds, it will be the biggest move by any driver in the race.

It is not expected that Junqueira will have to come in for fuel. This will allow Dixon to move up to 13th.

LAP 70
Dominguez spins and looses positions from 12th to 17th. Junqueira pits and comes back out 18th.

LAP 75
Dixon passes Mutoh for 12th and fixes his sights on Buddy Rice.

LAP 78
Three laps to go and the 11th place of Buddy Rice is being tightly contested by Scott Dixon and every point matters.

LAP 79
Will Power slides into a braking area and pulls to a stop after hitting the tires.

LAP 80
White Flag and Team Penske is leading the race. Dixon finishes in 12th. This means that he looses 35 points to maintain a 43 point margin in the Championship points race.

19:48:44 GMT-0400 Helio Castroneves wins the PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County! This is his first win of the season. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (EDJE) 2008 - digital photo from television broadcast

T-Team Ten Finishes As Follows:

Viso – 6
Rahal – 8
Wilson – 9
Moraes – 10
Servia – 16
Dominguez – 17
Junqueira – 18
Bernoldi - 22
Power – 24
Camara – 25

The highest driver the T-Team Ten has placed 15 races in this Merge season is Oriol Servia at ninth in the points 263 points behind the leader. Do not look for any T-Team driver to overtake Hideki Mutoh of Andretti Green Racing for Rookie-Of-The-Year.

Next race is a venue known by the CCWS teams and that id the Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle, Michigan.

… notes from The EDJE

Transition Drivers Show Strong At Edmonton Quals.

KV Racing Technology's Oriol Servia inches his way into the third qualifying position on the grid. He nips season points leader, Scott Dixon by one ten-thousandth of a second to break up a lock on the first three positions by established team drivers over the first three places. Image Credit: Covy Moore (2008)

Transition Drivers Show Strong At Edmonton Quals.

If the equipment equation were a little more equalized or at least half of the venues were former CART/CCWS venues we believe the drivers edge would be with the ChampCar drivers having to be folded into the IRL.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone knows that Penske and Ganassi are the class of the established teams this transition year of 2008, but if the qualifying performance put on by the former ChampCar drivers with different equipment on a track they are exclusively familiar with is any indication, this would be a different looking season in the points chase at this point.

Six of the top ten qualifying positions on the grid for the Rexall Edmonton Indy are occupied by the T-Team Ten that have run most of this season. Actually, seven of the top eleven are looking to make a mark and move up in the standings.

"This didn't come easy." - Ryan Briscoe, after taking the pole for the IndyCar Series Rexall Edmonton Indy, Friday. "I did all I could just to get in (to the final session). Going in, I wasn't so confident! It was all I could just to stay in the game. If you would have told me 15 minutes ago that I would be on pole, I would have been dreaming." Image Credit: Covy Moore (2008)

This excerpted and edited from Motorsport.com –

Briscoe flies to Edmonton pole
By Tony DiZinno - Motorsport.com - Racing series, INDYCAR – Date: 2008-07-25

Ryan Briscoe was part lucky and part good in winning last week's IndyCar Series race at Mid-Ohio. The same description applied to the Australian's pole-winning effort for tomorrow's Rexall Edmonton Indy, marking his second pole of the season and Team Penske's fourth consecutive overall.

A water leak nearly derailed any chance of success in the final session, which Briscoe fought into with a last-ditch lap right at the end of Q2.
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Briscoe's teammate Helio Castroneves completes a Penske front row sweep. Castroneves led the day's lone practice session as the first driver to cross the timing line in under 61 seconds. At day's end, the top four were all in the one-minute bracket.
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After the Penske pairing, Oriol Servia, Scott Dixon and Will Power completed the top five. Servia and Power trap series points leader Dixon in a KV Racing Technologies sandwich coming to the green flag. Servia edged Dixon for third by the slimmest of margins, one ten-thousandth of a second.

The "Fast Six" group was trimmed to five beforehand as Justin Wilson suffered upper and lower left-side suspension damage to his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing entry. The Briton swapped ends, caught his car the first time but contacted the barriers in the turn seven complex. He starts sixth.

"I just tried to push it too hard," Wilson said. "The second time I lost it, it bit me. The impact damaged the suspension. Our car's been quick and always gaining lap times, but it's been right on a knife's edge the whole weekend."
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Completing the top ten are Bruno Junqueira, Graham Rahal, Dan Wheldon, and Mario Moraes.
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Junqueira and Moraes give team owner Dale Coyne two top-ten starts, but despite their speed each of the team's drivers has given the crewmembers extended hours of labor after accidents. Junqueira's Thursday shunt saw the team go to a backup car, while in the waning moments of Q2, the rapidly- improving Moraes lost control out of turn seven and walloped the wall.

Tracy was bitterly disappointed to not advance having been in the top ten in each practice. He blamed his lack of speed on carrying extra fuel and its subsequent additional weight. A late full-course caution for Marty Roth's spin left drivers scrambling during Tracy's group's session. While Tracy notched a lap quick enough to advance, he started it after the checkers, nullifying any potential gain.
Reference Here>>

Conquest Racing's Enrique Bernoldi hangs in to place eleventh on the grid making 7 of the top 11 qualifying positions owned by the drivers of the T-Team Ten. Image Credit: Covy Moore (2008)

How the T-Team Ten (now Eleven counting Paul Tracy) Fared

SP/Car Driver Hometown Car Name Entrant Time Speed

3/5 Oriol Servia Pals, Spain KV Racing Technology KV Racing Technology 1:00.8584 116.710

5/8 R Will Power Toowoomba, Australia Aussie Vineyards-Team Australia KV Racing Technology 1:01.0154 116.410

6/02 R Justin Wilson Sheffield, England McDonald's Racing Team Newman Haas Lanigan Racing no time no speed

7/18 Bruno Junqueira Belo Horizonte, Brazil Z-Line Designs Dale Coyne Racing 1:01.2991 115.871

8/06 R Graham Rahal Columbus, Ohio Rexall-Oilers Newman Haas Lanigan Racing 1:01.4573 115.573

10/19 R Mario Moraes Sao Paulo, Brazil Sonny's Bar-B-Q Dale Coyne Racing 1:01.7552 115.015

11/36 R Enrique Bernoldi Curitiba, Brazil Sangari Conquest Racing Conquest Racing 1:02.0227 114.519

16/22 Paul Tracy Scarborough, Ontario Subway/Vision Vision Racing 1:02.2387 114.122

20/96 R Mario Dominguez Mexico City Visit Mexico City/PCM Racing Pacific Coast Motorsports 1:03.1359 112.500

21/33 R E.J. Viso Caracas, Venezuela PDVSA HVM Racing HVM Racing 1:02.9242 112.879

27/34 R Jaime Camara Goiania, Brazil Sangari Conquest Racing 1:03.8572 111.229
Reference Here>>

Let's just hope these guys can hold, and even advance position in the race tomorrow. Up for grabs will be Rookie-Of-The-Year points and it looks that Will Power will have a chance to gain on points leader Hideki Mutoh of the Andretti Green Racing stables.

... notes from The EDJE