The 2011 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was the first race of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season. The race took place on March 27, on the temporary street circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida, and was telecast by ABC in the United States.

Report

Background

Dario Franchitti began the season as defending champion of the IndyCar Series, after a season-long battle with Will Power in 2010. It was Franchitti's second championship in the past three seasons. (The year he did not win, 2008, he was racing in NASCAR.) Other contenders for the 2011 championship include Franchitti's Chip Ganassi Racing teammates, Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball, and Graham Rahal, the Penske Racing drivers, Ryan Briscoe, Hélio Castroneves, and Will Power, among others. Tony Kanaan left Andretti Autosport after the 2010 season and was now piloting the #82 entry for KV Racing Technology – Lotus. Briscoe, Castroneves, Power, and Rahal were all previous winners of the St. Petersburg race.

The race marked the IndyCar debut or return for several drivers, including: Sébastien Bourdais (Champ Car champion, 2004–07) He would ultimately not start because of his car catching fire after a crash in the final practice. Oriol Servià (Champ Car driver 2000–2007, IRL in 2008, also ran in the 2009 Indy 500) Charlie Kimball J. R. Hildebrand James Jakes

Race

The first Indycar race to use double-file starts and restarts began anything but smoothly. On turn 1 of lap 1, five cars were involved in contact as the drivers fought for position. Helio Castroneves made contact with Marco Andretti's car, who ran up the back of Scott Dixon's machine and flipped upside down. Mike Conway, racing for the first time since last year's Indianapolis 500, was also caught in the pile-up, along with Briscoe. Castroneves, Briscoe, and Dixon would finish the day running, but had no chance for victory. Andretti Autosport took the brunt of the blow, with two of their drivers, Andretti and Conway, being knocked out of the race as a result. On the ensuing restart (lap 5) Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan passed Power to take first and second position respectively.

The yellow flag came out again on lap 7 when E. J. Viso spun off the track, but without making contact, and green flag racing resumed by lap 10. Only two laps later however, the caution came out again for debris on the racetrack, and Sebastián Saavedra spun and stalled on the ensuing restart, bringing out yet another caution. In total, nine of the first 15 laps were run under yellow, leading many drivers and fans to question the new restart system. Will Power briefly regained the lead on lap 71 when Franchitti pitted, but he had to pit himself two laps later, and Franchitti won comfortably by 6.7 seconds. The main point of interest over the final 10 laps was the battle for 3rd place between the veteran Kanaan and second-year driver Simona de Silvestro. Kanaan was able to hold on and gain a podium place for his new team, KV-Lotus, but it was an impressive run by de Silvestro nonetheless.

Classification

Qualifying All cars were split into two groups of twelve, with the fastest six from each group going through to the "top 12" session. In this session, the fastest six cars progressed to the "Firestone Fast Six." The fastest driver in the final session claimed pole, with the rest of the cars lining up in session order, regardless of qualifying times. (fast six from 1–6, top 12 from 7–12 and round 1 from 13 to 24, with group 1 drivers occupying the odd–numbered grid positions, and group 2 drivers occupying the even–numbered grid positions.

Pos No. Driver Team Group 1 Group 2 Top 12 Fast 6 1 12 Will Power Team Penske 1:02.3384 1:02.1878 1:01.9625 2 10 Dario Franchitti Chip Ganassi Racing 1:02.3848 1:02.4136 1:02.2953 3 9 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 1:02.7788 1:02.4735 1:02.3975 4 27 Mike Conway Andretti Autosport 1:02.8057 1:02.4244 1:02.5306 5 6 Ryan Briscoe Team Penske 1:02.6031 1:02.5737 1:02.5744 6 22 Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 1:02.9866 1:02.5573 1:02.7729 7 26 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport 1:03.0526 1:02.6312 8 82 Tony Kanaan KV Racing Technology – Lotus 1:02.9362 1:02.7818 9 3 Hélio Castroneves Team Penske 1:02.6654 1:02.8204 10 77 Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt Motorsports 1:02.9467 1:02.8225 11 5 Takuma Sato KV Racing Technology – Lotus 1:03.0722 1:02.9312 12 38 Graham Rahal Chip Ganassi Racing 1:03.1224 1:03.0640 13 14 Vítor Meira A. J. Foyt Enterprises 1:03.1315 14 28 Ryan Hunter–Reay Andretti Autosport 1:03.1778 15 02 Oriol Servià Newman/Haas Racing 1:03.2434 16 17 Raphael Matos AFS Racing 1:03.2594 17 78 Simona de Silvestro HVM Racing 1:03.2724 18 19 Sébastien Bourdais Dale Coyne Racing 1:03.3188 19 7 Danica Patrick Andretti Autosport 1:03.3764 20 24 Ana Beatriz (R) Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 1:03.8036 21 59 E. J. Viso KV Racing Technology – Lotus 1:03.4065 22 18 James Jakes (R) Dale Coyne Racing 1:03.8854 23 83 Charlie Kimball (R) Chip Ganassi Racing 1:03.5162 244 J. R. Hildebrand (R) Panther Racing 1:03.8256 25 34 Sebastián Saavedra (R) Conquest Racing 1:03.9696

Race Pos No. Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Laps Led Points 1 10 Dario Franchitti Chip Ganassi Racing 100 2:00:59.6886 2 94 52 2 12 Will Power Team Penske 100 + 7.1612 1 6 41 3 82 Tony Kanaan KV Racing Technology – Lotus 100 + 16.1045 8 0 35 4 78 Simona de Silvestro HVM Racing 100 + 16.5616 17 0 32 5 5 Takuma Sato KV Racing Technology – Lotus 100 + 29.9435 11 0 30 6 77 Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt Motorsports 100 + 30.4655 10 0 28 7 17 Raphael Matos AFS Racing 100 + 31.5227 16 0 26 8 14 Vítor Meira A. J. Foyt Enterprises 100 + 35.7291 13 0 24 9 02 Oriol Servià Newman/Haas Racing 100 + 49.1432 15 0 22 10 22 Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 100 + 56.8025 6 0 20 114 J. R. Hildebrand (R) Panther Racing 100 + 1:02.9747 24 0 19 12 7 Danica Patrick Andretti Autosport 100 + 1:02.9748 19 0 18 13 34 Sebastián Saavedra (R) Conquest Racing 98 + 2 Laps 25 0 17 14 24 Ana Beatriz (R) Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 98 + 2 Laps 20 0 16 15 18 James Jakes (R) Dale Coyne Racing 97 + 3 Laps 22 0 15 16 9 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 96 + 4 Laps 3 0 14 17 38 Graham Rahal Chip Ganassi Racing 96 + 4 Laps 12 0 13 18 6 Ryan Briscoe Team Penske 95 + 5 Laps 5 0 12 19 59 E. J. Viso KV Racing Technology – Lotus 94 + 6 Laps 21 0 12 20 3 Hélio Castroneves Team Penske 85 + 15 Laps 9 0 12 21 28 Ryan Hunter–Reay Andretti Autosport 58 Handling 14 0 12 22 83 Charlie Kimball (R) Chip Ganassi Racing 38 Contact 23 0 12 23 27 Mike Conway Andretti Autosport 1 Contact 4 0 12 24 26 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport 0 Contact 7 0 12 25 19 Sébastien Bourdais Dale Coyne Racing 0 Did not start 18 0 5 OFFICIAL RACE REPORT

Championship standings after the race Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Dario Franchitti 52 2 Will Power 41 3 Tony Kanaan 35 4 Simona de Silvestro 32 5 Takuma Sato 30

Note: Only the top five positions are included.

References

External links IndyCar Results Page