» IndyCars: Castroneves storms to St Petersburg win

There wouldn’t have been a dry eye in pitlane when Hélio Castroneves, on his slow-down lap after taking the victory, stopped on the outside of Turn 10 – the newly named Dan Wheldon Way – and combined his signature fence climb with a gentle tap on the signpost bearing the late champion’s name. It was the mark of love and respect only an Indy 500 champion could pass to another.

Amongst all the sorrow, still raw among many – such was the impact Dan Wheldon had on so many – tributes flowed through the weekend, but when it was time for racing, Hélio Castroneves took advantage of a car increasingly improving as the race wore on to make a late overtake on the outside of Scott Dixon through Turn 1 to take the lead and storm to victory.

Polesitter Will Power led away from the green flag, waved to start the race by Holly Wheldon – Dan’s sister – and after the entire field made it through Turn 1 unscathed, set about opening up a healthy lead for the first few laps before Katherine Legge stopped on the front straight. Perhaps anticipating a full-course caution, Power dove straight into the pits for tyres and fuel in the hope the field would follow.

While some did, many didn’t, which moved the defending race-winner well down the order, where he stayed for much of the race before taking advantage of late pit stops to climb back to finish seventh.

Reigning champion Dario Franchitti was also largely a non-factor for much of the race, suffering from a tyre strategy which didn’t work for him in relation to the timing of the caution periods. Starting ninth, Franchitti eventually finished last of those on the lead-lap, in thirteenth.

Dale Coyne driver James Jakes was the first to crash for the year, mistiming his braking approaching Turn 10 and carrying too much speed through the corner, burying himself in the tyres on Lap 20. Other retirees from the race were Tony Kanaan and Simona De Silvestro, who both suffered battery problems with their Chevrolet and Lotus cars respectively. Primarily due to a lack of testing, many teams are still getting to grips with their new machinery, and the number of retirements for fairly elementary reasons was a telling factor in the overall results.

High-profile new-boy Rubens Barrichello kept his nose clean through the whole race but didn’t trouble the leaders, as many expected he wouldn’t as he is still figuring out the nuances of IndyCars after a long Formula 1 career. Barrichello eventually finished two laps down in seventeenth.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, Scott Dixon, James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Briscoe were all factors through the day, but in the end were simply outmuscled by Castroneves, who seemed to get quicker as the race wore on. The race-winner did not have an entirely clean race however, tipping Ed Carpenter into a spin halfway through following an overzealous overtaking effort while Carpenter was heading for the pits.

So it was Hélio Castroneves, Team Penske and Chevrolet getting their seasons off to the best possible start as the teams pack up and head for Birmingham, Alabama and the Barber Motorsports Park for Round 2 next weekend.

2012 Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg – Final Classification (99 laps):

No.	Driver	Entrant	Engine	Laps	Result
1.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske		99	99 laps
2.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing		99	+ 5.5292
3.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport		99	+ 7.5824
4.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport		99	+ 10.6526
5.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske		99	+ 11.7854
6.	Simon Pagenaud (R)	Schmidt Hamilton		99	+ 31.2623
7.	Will Power	Team Penske		99	+ 34.6582
8.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology		99	+ 35.5943
9.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing		99	+ 43.1425
10.	Justin Wilson	Dale Coyne Racing		99	+ 44.3141
11.	Josef Newgarden (R)	Sarah Fisher Hartman		99	+ 44.8275
12.	Graham Rahal	Chip Ganassi Racing		99	+ 45.1080
13.	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing		99	+ 45.8468
14.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport		98	1 lap behind
15.	Alex Tagliani	Lotus-BHA		98	1 lap behind
16.	Oriol Servià	Dreyer & Reinbold		98	1 lap behind
17.	Rubens Barrichello (R)	KV Racing Technology		97	2 laps behind
18.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing		97	2 laps behind
	RETIREMENTS
DNF.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing		95	Mechanical
DNF.	Mike Conway	AJ Foyt Enterprises		74	Mechanical
DNF.	Sébastien Bourdais	Lotus-Dragon Racing		72	Mechanical
DNF.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan		72	Mechanical
DNF.	Katherine Legge (R)	Lotus-Dragon Racing		58	Mechanical
DNF.	Simona de Silvestro	Lotus-HVM Racing		21	Mechanical
DNF.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology		20	Mechanical
DNF.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing		18	Accident