Roger Penske left Ryan Briscoe on the track while the rest of the field pitted to switch from the grooved rain tires to slicks. Then, had Briscoe stop at lap 6 for the switch. It seemed like a bad move at the time. Instead, Briscoe’s pit sequence was off from the rest of the field.
The race was at the Mid-Ohio sportscar course in Lexington. with the NA$CAR cup series taking a day off, the IndyCar series was in the spotlight.
“Roger, with his experience, he always finds a way to pit at the right time and get you back up to the front,” said Briscoe, who drove sports cars for Penske last year before moving to the IndyCar team this season. “Today was a perfect case of that. Once we got back up there, we had the pace to run fast and pull away. It was just perfect.”
“Team Penske was just awesome,” Briscoe said. “That was all Roger; that was his strategy.”
The finish was a 1-2 Penske sweep with Helio Castroneves second, Scott Dixon on the podium as 3rd.
“There was one point where we fell back in the pack, staying out a bit too long on the wets,” the 26-year-old Australian driver said. “I was thinking to myself … ‘I know it can be done. I know with Roger calling my strategy, we’ll get up to the front. But if we get to win this, it’s going to be awesome.’ I actually thought that to myself, and here we are.”
“I think that was the only chance we had,” Penske said. “What a great drive for Briscoe. I think he’s validated himself now as one of the top drivers in the Indy Racing League. And, to finish 1-2, I couldn’t believe when I saw what happened here a few minutes ago.”
“We took a gamble of pitting a bit early for that second stop to try to gain track position in case a yellow came out, because you don’t lose a lap on a road course pitting on the green,” said Briscoe, who won earlier this season on the oval at Milwaukee. “That was the key stop for us, because sooner or later a yellow did come and we’d already done our stop and everybody else had to stop on the yellow. We cycled to the front. That was really the turning point for us in the race. From there, it was all about speed.”
His teammate agreed.
“Ryan got lucky on his strategy and drove a great race, opening up an 11-second lead,” said Castroneves, still winless this season. “That’s it. There was nothing we could do. Second’s a good place. Another one. I’m not going to worry about winning, I’m just going to be happy with second for now.”
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Grumpy saw a great video of Danica talkin smack with Milka Duno following a practice session on Saturday. Perhaps we can get that up later today.
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