It was a day for the little guys, the single-entry team of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing took pole and then took the win in Detroit. Graham Rahal captured his fifth career IndyCar Series win, dominating from pole on an overcast day in the Motor City.
Twitter: .@GrahamRahal wins @DetroitGP race 1! #INDYCAR #DetroitGP https://t.co/FAGqfYtjqZ (@IndyCar)
Indianapolis 500 runner-up Helio Castroneves started P2, while Indy 500 winner, Takuma Sato started P3. The 2016 Indy 500 winner, Alexander Rossi was P4. The top-four went through T1 and T2 cleanly on the first lap; James Hinchcliffe—starting P5—couldn’t follow suit. Hinchcliffe lost the rear of his #5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda and spun into the wall at T2.
The local yellow for Hinchcliffe’s car turned into a Full Course Yellow as marshals tried to get the Canadian’s car going before the pace car made a full lap. Marshals eventually got Hinchcliffe going again and he stayed on the lead lap. Hinchcliffe would recover to finish P3.
The early FCY split strategies for most of the field, with a handful pitting to switch to Blacks to use their tyre allocation. While other team strategists were working on whether a two-stop or three-stop would be quickest, Rahal enjoyed an easy Saturday afternoon drive in the park out front. The gap between Rahal and Castroneves was around 2.5s early on.
On lap 26, contact between Conor Daly in the A.J. Foyt-Chevrolet and Charlie Kimball in the Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda led to the second FCY of the day. While Kimball returned to the pits to replace his front wing, Daly’s car couldn’t get started again after stalling due to contact. Daly would be the race’s only retirement.
Opting for a two-stop strategy, Rahal would lead the most laps and cycle back into the lead with 20 laps remaining. The Ohio-native would create a gap of as much as nine seconds at one point between he and Chip Ganassi frontman, Scott Dixon in P2. Rahal crossed the start/finish line 6.1s clear of Dixon.
The field return for Race 2 tomorrow at 3:30 ET, after for Sunday morning Race 2 qualifying.
Detroit Grand Prix Race 1 Race Notes:
– Rahal’s win in Detroit was also won by his father Bobby, in 1992.
– Newly signed Dale Coyne Racing rookie, Esteban Gutierrez started and finished P19. Ed Jones, another DCR rookie finished P9 from P21.
– The Race 1 podium of Rahal/Dixon/Hinchcliffe was an all-Honda podium in Chevrolet country. The highest Chevy finisher was Josef Newgarden in P4.
– By virtue of his P2 finish, Scott Dixon is the new Driver’s Championship points leader.
– Team Penske team-mates Will Power and Simon Pagenaud weren’t too friendly with each other. Power made contact with Pagenaud’s front right, going on the inside to take P7 early in the race. Power and Pagenaud would finish P18 and P16 respectively.
– Newgarden set the fastest lap of the race a 01m14.2062s effort on lap 49.
