News for the Week of June 1, 2015 – June 7, 2015

Daly will be in the SPM No. 5 at Toronto – Per his Twitter account, Conor Daly will be driving the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports No. 5 car in replacement of James Hinchcliffe at Toronto. – Conor Daly – (6/6/2015)

Scott Dixon wins Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway – Scott Dixon fired off the guns in victory lane at Texas Motor Speedway ahead of Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Marco Andretti. Dixon and Kanaan battled side-by-side all night long, but Dixon prevailed in the end. Chevy took the Top 4 spots, but Honda rallied and placed five cars in the Top 10. Though the race was largely incident free, CFH Racing had a rough go with Ed and Newgarden taking DNF’s with engine failures. The big winner of the race, besides Dixon, was James Jakes finishing in P9, just inside the Top 10. Full results at the link. – INDYCAR – (6/6/2015)

Montoya and Rahal tie atop the charts in final practice at Texas – Juan Pablo Montoya and Graham Rahal tied atop the charts in the final practice session for the Verizon IndyCar Series Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway. Each driver turned a lap at 215.002mph. The rest of the Top 5 was Chaves, Kanaan, and Hunter-Reay. Full results at the link. – NBC Sports – (6/5/2015)

Power wins the pole at Texas – Will Power won the pole position for the Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway for the third year in a row on Friday with an average speed of 218.519mph. Power will be joined on the front row by his Team Penske teammate, Simon Pagenaud. Castroneves, Munoz, and Montoya complete the Top 5. Full results at the link. – INDYCAR – (6/5/2015)

Pagenaud turns fastest lap in Practice 1 at Texas – Simon Pagenaud’s fastest lap of 216.172mph was enough to take P1 on the charts in Practice 1 for the Verizon IndyCar Series weekend at Texas. The rest of the Top 5 was Power, Sato, Kanaan, and Dixon. Ryan Hunter-Reay suffered a big crash in the practice session but he was checked and cleared to drive almost immediately. Full results at the link. – INDYCAR – (6/5/2015)

Spotter Guide for Texas is out – The official INDYCAR spotter guide for the Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend has been posted and features plenty of new liveries. These include the No. 8 (Karam – Lexar), No. 9 (Dixon – Energizer), No. 10 (Kanaan – Grey NTT Data/Group). – Texas Spotter Guide – (6/5/2015)

Studies show no proof IMS aero kit “issues” were exclusive to Chevy – Chevrolet’s IndyCar program manager Chris Berube told AUTOSPORT that there is no proof that the incidents that resulted in airborne cars wouldn’t have had the same results in a Honda. “Each one of those incidents, the crash initiation is fully understood; that’s not the focus anymore. Any good aero kit is going to have studied stability. Obviously we’ve spent similar hours [to Honda] on CPU time. Crash dynamics are very transient and very difficult to model. There are a million combinations for how a crash can proceed.” – RACER – (6/5/2015)

Grace Autosport project coming along nicely – RACER’s Marshall Pruett Reports that Beth Paretta is confident in the prospects of her new Grace Autosport team since their first public announcement was made at IMS last month. “The reaction has been better than I could have ever imagined,” Paretta told RACER. “I’ve had talks with Chevy and Honda and I would say that they were actively excited about the project, of the team in general, let alone working with us. The other interesting thing that has happened, which I hoped would happen, is the phone has rung inward by companies outside of racing that might have an engineering push and have said, this is fabulous, we would like to get involved.”
RACER – (6/5/2015)

Castroneves’ GP of Indy penalty reduced, Belle Isle fines announced – Helio Castroneves’ 8 point penalty from his role in the Turn 1 incident at the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis has been reduced to 3 points. This moved Helio back up to fourth place in the standings over Graham Rahal. Stefano Coletti was fined $10,000 and placed on probation for failure to yield to safety vehicles and Sage Karam placed on probation for avoidable contact for incidents at Belle Isle. Full list and quotes at the link. – INDYCAR – (6/5/2015)

Miller’s Mailbag 6/3/15 – RACER’s Robin Miller’s weekly fan Q&A is a great read as always. As is his story on the Holmatro Safety Team at IMS (see news item below). – RACER – (6/3/2015)

Holmatro Safety Team details after Hinch’s crash – RACER’s Robin Miller shares the story of the Holmatro Safety Team’s heroic efforts in the aftermath of James Hinchcliffe’s scary crash during practice for the 99th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. Too good to shorten. Read about it at the link. – RACER – (6/2/2015)

Closure panels added to superspeedway aero kits – “INDYCAR has implemented the use of closure panels to the rear wheel guards of both Honda and Chevrolet superspeedway aero kits beginning this weekend with the Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway. The panels were developed by Honda and Chevrolet and will also be utilized later this month at Auto Club Speedway and in August at Pocono Raceway — the penultimate stop on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule.” – INDYCAR – (6/2/2015)

Briscoe in the SPM No. 5 at Texas – Schmidt Peterson Motorsports announced that Ryan Briscoe will drive the team’s No. 5 entry with James Hinchcliffe out for this weekend’s Verizon IndyCar Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. Conor Daly drove the car in Belle Isle last weekend after Briscoe had a good showing in a substitute appearance in the 99th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. – SPM – (6/2/2015)

DCR names Vautier and Mann as drivers for Texas – Dale Coyne Racing announced Tristan Vautier and Pippa Mann as their drivers for this weekend’s Verizon IndyCar Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. Vautier will drive the No. 19 and Mann will drive the No. 18. Each has prior experience with the team this season. – DCR – (6/2/2015)

Sebastien Bourdais wins Race 2 of the Detroit GP – On a race that started on an improved drizzly track, Bourdais ran a smooth race all the way to the finish by stretching fuel until time went to 0:00. “Track Conditions” were the buzz words of the day as the race track dried, more rain came, then the rain slowed and the track dried again. Even with the ever changing track conditions making it difficult on the drivers, everyone maintained their calm and ran a clean race for nearly the first half of the race. Carlos Munoz went from first place to last place over the two races when his car went out with a mechanical issue soon after the green flag was shone. Will Power had steering wheel issues that forced him out of contention and several other incidents plagued the latter half of the race. Honda continued their dominance in the wet by taking positions two through nine. – INDYCAR – (5/31/2015)

Munoz wins his first race in Race 1 at Belle Isle – Carlos Munoz has one the Saturday Race 1 in a rain shortened event. The race was exciting from the start with heavy rain making way for semi-sunny skies that quickly dried the track; but a dry finish wasn’t in the cards today. With approx. 30 min. remaining the red flag was shown to signify stoppage for lightning in the area. INDYCAR eventually called the race with Munoz, Marco, and Pagenaud standing atop. – INDYCAR – (5/30/2015)

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