Rounds 9 & 10: The Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston, 27th-29th June.

[bjohnsonsmith]

A rolling start and it looks like a clean one.

[Speedblood]

Helio dodged the bullet with that move earlier but it bit him this time.

[Speedblood]

Well that was a very entertaining race I thought.

Hawksworth is clearly a wise head on young shoulders.

[Paradise City]

Phew! Some intense racing with Hawksworth. I'm out of breath. Well done Page.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Had to be elsewhere so missed half the race, so it's highlights but congrats to Pegenaud, he looked good all weekend and congrats to Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsport their one-two and Hawksworth got his 1st podium. Looks like I missed out,

Results - 90 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt Dallara-Honda 1h51m43.0625s
2. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Dallara-Honda +7.2622s
3. Jack Hawksworth Herta Dallara-Honda +17.0208s
4. Charlie Kimball Ganassi Dallara-Chevy +18.5927s
5. Sebastien Bourdais KV Dallara-Chevy +20.2366s
6. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Dallara-Honda +25.3920s
7. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske Dallara-Chevy +30.2312s
8. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi Dallara-Chevy +30.5917s
9. Marco Andretti Andretti Dallara-Honda +31.3259s
10. Tony Kanaan Ganassi Dallara-Chevy +50.3098s
11. Will Power Penske Dallara-Chevy +1m12.7735s
12. Justin Wilson Coyne Dallara-Honda -1 lap
13. Mike Conway Carpenter Dallara-Chevy -1 lap
14. James Hinchcliffe Andretti Dallara-Honda -1 lap 15. Luca Filippi Rahal Dallara-Honda -2 laps
16. Graham Rahal Rahal Dallara-Honda -3 laps
17. Sebastian Saavedra KV Dallara-Chevy -6 laps
18. Scott Dixon Ganassi Dallara-Chevy -12 laps

Retirements:
Takuma Sato Foyt Dallara-Honda 74 laps
Josef Newgarden Fisher Dallara-Honda 61 laps
Helio Castroneves Penske Dallara-Chevy 48 laps
Carlos Munoz Andretti Dallara-Honda 40 laps
Carlos Huertas Coyne Dallara-Honda 2 laps

[codename_47]

Another demon race, JPM threw everything to the wind in that one but it seems the fates still conspired against him.

When is a yellow flag not a yellow flag? When the leaders have green flag pitstops to complete, apparently!

Great work from Jack Hawksworth (though I can live without Matchett using that stupid accent every single damn time he said his name)
I think on a couple of occasions he crossed the line from good defensive work to bad blocking (putting JPM in the wall was not smart) but a deserved podium nonetheless.

Castroneves wins the "Jason Plato spacial awareness award" thinking he's entitled to throw a block AND reassume the racing line in the braking zone without being punted.
No Helio. And your creepy staring right down the lens instead of looking at the interviewer who you were talking to made my skin crawl a bit.

Still, those 2 races were some of the best Motor racing of the season.

I now wish we had an Indycar race every week for the rest of the season.
Oh wait. WE DO!

[LesterForbes]

Yea, Our 'Orksworth did a tremendous job to clinch a podium!! a long overdue one too!

[NaBUru38]

Yet another intense race. Unfortunately the Spanish lap-by-lap sbustitute announcer was terrible again. Nice guy, but terrible announcer and/or motorsport journalist.

I'd rather wait two weeks for the next race, I'm in the thick of university activities.

[Paradise City]

Castroneves looking down at the camera. I thought that he was trying to surreptitiously signal to the audience that he had been kidnapped or something.

[JHamilton]

That was a really good race.

[JacobP]

Even though I normally don't like street races, I am slowly warming up to Houston. The race track has a nice flow to it with many opportunities for hard racing. I think it has a chance to become a kind of a gem in the IndyCar schedule.

[fredd1]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

Castroneves looking down at the camera. I thought that he was trying to surreptitiously signal to the audience that he had been kidnapped or something.

Ahhh. You've nailed the reason he was spouting crap when he got his attack and defend aresabout.

[Razzzor]

Yeah was pretty dumb move from Helio... if you're too busy doing an overtake to look behind you, then don't change lanes!

He compared it to if it was a normal public traffic accident, the guy behind that hits you is the one in the wrong. Well no Helio he's not the one in the wrong if you change f--king lanes without looking.

Two good races though. Damn if only F1 were this exciting. There were so many different drivers that I thought might win this throughout the 2 races, Hinchcliffe, Helio, Montoya, Sato, Pagenaud, Kanaan, Power, just from the top of my head. And instead we get Aleshin, Hawksworth, Heurtas and Munoz - all the rookies (plus Montoya he's kind of a rookie I guess) all on the podium! It just goes to show that in Indycar almost anyone can win a race. Perhaps with the except of Saavedra and maybe a bit early for Filippi but even he was running top 10.

F1 can only dream of having racing where just about anyone in the field could potentially win a race. This year... there's 2 guys that can win a race unless they break down. Pathetic.

Anyway, yeah Hawksworth was pretty aggressive in some of those blocks, but damn Montoya needs to go back to driving school and re-acquaint himself on how to properly pass someone. You build it up, don't try it on the outside line on all the wrong corners. He should have been past Jack so many times.

I kind of felt for some guys ie Rahal, Bourdais and Wilson - they were all in really good positions. Rahal I thought could get up there and finally win, but SC's then hitting someone ended that. Bourdais I felt with some luck he could have won both races, or at least got 2 podiums. What the heck is with not changing the wing though.

Will Power oddly off the pace in race 1 but damn did he come through the field in race 2. That was ridiculous. Strange that he could keep up after the stops, maybe his car didn't suit the reds.

What's happened to Ganassi though? They seem to have just no luck at the moment but even when Kanaan somehow got into a decent position and was running top 3, he couldn't keep up and dropped back. Dixon was no faster, struggling on a track he and Power dominated last season. Briscoe and Kimball were outside the top 10 most of the weekend and struggled even more - Kimball lucky to get in there at the end since he'd been behind all his teammates for so long. Just 3 podiums among the 4 drivers this season, and no wins. Dixon's even hit the wall a couple times this season on his own - a sign he's fighting a car that's hard to control because it's rare he makes mistakes like that.

[HJJ]

RACER has learned the race-winning No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda piloted by Carlos Huertas failed post-race technical inspection after the Colombian rookie scored his maiden victory last Saturday on the streets of Houston. The No. 18 was found with more than the allowed 18.5-gallon fuel capacity, adding an interesting twist to the 23-year-old's surprise win which was earned when the DCR team gambled with fuel strategy with the No. 18, leaving Huertas out to stretch his remaining fuel at the end of the race. A combination of fuel strategy and timely caution periods allowed Huertas to lead a 1-2-3 for Colombian drivers at Round 1of the Shell & Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston.
"We measured the capacity after the race and it needs to be where it's supposed to be, and it wasn't," said INDYCAR President of Competition Derrick Walker. "It was off by a very small portion. We looked at our data, how the race unfolded, and we determined the extra fuel did not play a part [in Huertas's win]. However, it was out of compliance by a small amount and we gave them a small penalty. Given that it was a fuel strategy race, that's the first thing you look at, and based on our analysis, it didn't affect the outcome. He never got the fuel that low to make the extra amount he had play into the final outcome."
The Houston win increased DCR's tally to four, yet two of those wins have resulted in post-race infractions.
DCR's Justin Wilson's most recent win came at Texas in 2012, yet the team was fined after a post-race technical inspection found Wilson's car carried aerodynamic aids leftover from the previous weekend's Indy 500. A bulletin distributed to all IndyCar teams after the "500" explained which items were legal for the Texas event, yet the leftover items affixed to the sidepods which were banned, went through IndyCar's technical inspection multiple times prior to the race and were not noticed.
Discovered after Wilson's win, the team was fined and lost points for the infraction.​

.

[bjohnsonsmith]

DCR and Huertas were fined $5,000 each.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/114766

[BootsOntheSide]

And how much has the publicity for fraudulently winning the race earnt them? Not to mention the points improving their final championship positions, and the fact that there will eternally be an undeserving name in the winners' list? Montoya said before the illegality was revealed that he didn't attack Huertas as he assumed the car didn't have enough fuel. Complete travesty of justice, even if there was no gain the car was illegal, should be as black and white as that. At the very least, the teamed gained by knowing its fuel would never be marginal. No need to copy NASCAR justice, one WWE on wheels is enough.

[rwintle]

Finally finished watching both races on PVR. Whew! There was some really good racing in there.

Great to see Simon Pagenaud take another win - I've enjoyed watching him racing since his LMP2 days in the ALMS co-driving with Gil de Ferran. And excellent to see 1-2's from a couple of the "other" teams in the series.

There was a heck of a lot of good passing (and some not so good... ) in those races, too. Good stuff all 'round. Now, here's hoping Pocono will be just as entertaining.