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Season Opener
Streets of Sao Paul, Brazil
March 14th, 2010 |
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Driver |
Start |
Finish |
Drv Pts. |
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Vitor Meira |
16 |
3 |
3 |
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Check It Out!
We have posted photos from race day in Sao Paulo on our AJ Foyt Racing facebook page!!
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Race Report: São Paulo Indy 300
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL March 14, 2010 – “A.J., I want to thank you for waiting for me,” Vitor Meira radioed in to his team owner A.J. Foyt after finishing third in the inaugural São Paulo Indy 300 Sunday afternoon. He also congratulated the crew, thanking them and sponsor ABC Supply during his cool down lap.
Brazil’s first IZOD IndyCar Series race weekend could be described as controlled chaos as officials battled difficult track conditions on Saturday which resulted in a Saturday night modification to a straightaway, a huge crash on the opening lap of the race and then a torrential downpour along with a loss of power midway through the race. In each instance, they rebounded quickly and gave Brazilians and the VERSUS TV audience a memorable season opener.
Particularly troublesome was a stretch of concrete straightaway leading up to the start/finish line, the one-third-mile Anhembi Sambodromo frontstretch, which drivers described as driving on ice. Numerous drivers lost control and hit the wall in practice (although Meira was not among them). To correct the problem, the promoters brought in machines Saturday night to grind the concrete surface and create more grip. League officials changed the schedule and postponed qualifying until Sunday morning.
Meira’s first race since his spectacular accident in the Indianapolis 500 in which he sustained two broken vertebrae proved the Brazilian had not lost confidence nor his skill. He showed the patience he needed in the streets to capitalize on other drivers’ mistakes.
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São Paulo Indy 300 Experiences a Few Bumps on First Day of Practice
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL March 13, 2010 – Race drivers had their hands full trying to control their Indy cars as they took to the streets practicing for the IZOD IndyCar Series season opener, the inaugural São Paulo Indy 300 today. Particularly troublesome was a stretch of concrete straightaway leading up to the start/finish line, the one-third-mile Anhembi Sambodromo frontstretch. To correct the problem, track and League officials changed the schedule and postponed qualifying until Sunday morning, giving the competitors an extra hour of practice today.
Vitor Meira and the ABC Supply team spent the day figuring out how to get the power down on the bumpy and slippery street course in Brazil’s most populous city. A change in the final session proved to be key in giving Meira the feel he’d been looking for since he strapped in this morning.
Meira summed up the day saying, “Overall it wasn’t too bad of a day especially since we found something in that last practice session which really helped the car get the power down. We were on older tires so we knew when we jumped into the top 10, it was due to the changes we made. We slipped down in the final five minutes of the session but we have a good starting point for tomorrow’s qualifying. The track conditions were not ideal today but tonight they are making changes which will make it better for tomorrow. We are going to do the same with the ABC Supply car.”
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Updates from Brazil
For updates on our first practice session, log into Facebook and check out the AJ Foyt Racing page!
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Season Preview
 By A.J. Foyt
I am in Brazil for our IZOD IndyCar Series opener and I’m anxious to get the season started. We have Vitor Meira back in the No. 14 ABC Supply Indy car after he spent most of 2009 recovering from his bad accident at Indianapolis where he broke his back. He is fully recovered and did well when we tested at Barber Motorsports Park two weeks ago.
For the first time in the history of the IRL, we are opening the racing season outside of the United States. Vitor is excited to be racing in his home country and he assures me I will have a good time.
We have a lot of things to look forward to this season and I believe it will be our best season of the decade. Our team has put in a lot of hours getting the ABC Supply cars ready. They spent the winter overhauling all of the equipment, rebuilding or replacing parts. They’re fitting together the brand new car I bought over the winter but that won’t appear until Indy. I always like to take a new car to Indy. It’s our biggest race of the year and I always want to approach it by giving it our best shot.
Which brings me to the new engineer we hired this year, Jeff Britton, who brings a lot of experience to our team. Jeff worked with Vitor in 2005 when he finished second at Indy so Jeff and Vitor know how to communicate with each other already. That makes a big difference in the chemistry of the team. With our first test I could see that we went faster with every outing so that is a good sign of things to come.
Going to Brazil will be a first for me as the farthest south I’ve been is to Mexico. I’ve heard a lot of different things about Brazil so it will be interesting to find out what’s true and what isn’t. We’re racing in the city of Sao Paulo. I understand the traffic is really bad there which probably explains why they aren’t shutting down certain roads until late Friday night.
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Notes & Quotes: São Paulo Indy 300
• Meira on racing in his home country: “It’s really good to be racing here in Brazil. I never raced an Indy car or for that matter a top category car in my home country. The last race I did here was Formula 3 so it’s really good to race here in a well recognized series. It is the first huge event that I will do here so I’m really excited and looking forward to it.”
• Meira on competing on a course for the first time: “I’ve seen the São Paulo course as much as everyone else has seen—the simulations online at Indycar.com. So my first time to see it will be when I get to the race track. It doesn’t compare to anything really because it’s a street course with very long straights so the learning curve and adaptation will be huge for this event. It’s tough but it will be tough for the whole team and for everybody. It’s a course that will be very different for all of us, and a course that will be changing throughout the weekend. The course will be changing through the last lap of the race. It will get rubber down and then it will get cleaner, but it will be tough for everybody. Adaptation and educated guesswork will be a big deal this weekend so we have to be real smart.”
• On dealing with the pressure of racing before family and friends: “It is what it is, right? I don’t have much of an option on that. The biggest pressure, it comes from myself. It’s an important year for me but the whole team. I’m dealing with the pressure like everyone else, we have to work harder and work smarter so that’s how I try to face it.”
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday Wishes to our Foyt Team members celebrating their birthdays:
March 6 - JEFF BRITTON, 42
March 7 - RODNEY KLAUSMEYER, 47
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