Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Race Report

Alex Tagliani recovers from race incidents to finish 14th in California

Sonoma, California (August 22, 2010) – Starting from fourth place on the grid, racecar driver Alex Tagliani had great hopes for round 13 of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series held Sunday at the Infineon Raceway road course, in Sonoma, California. Unfortunately, his dream of another top five finish vanished quite rapidly as his first set of tires lost all grip starting on lap 14 of the 75-lap race. He lost several positions, and four laps later, an opponent punted his FAZZT racecar, puncturing the right rear tire. When he came out of the pits on lap 19, he was all the way down to 23rd overall. Several incidents marked the sixth running of the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, and Tagliani, who had moved up to 15th by lap 53, got involved this time with Hideki Mutoh who spun him around. Once again, Tagliani found himself down in 20th place. Fortunately for the Canadian driver, several drivers started again to bump one another off and he climbed back to 14th place at the checkered flag after passing Vitor Meira on the last lap.

 “It was a tough day; unfortunately the first set of tires went away more quickly than we anticipated,” Tagliani said. “We lost a few positions and then coming into turn 11 on lap 18 I’m not sure who punted me but I got hit and got a flat right rear tire. After that, we were just trying to recover. We got back up to P15 and then, I was punted by Mutoh (Hideki) in turn 7 which put us to the back again! I’m really proud of our team. We fought back to get a 14th place finish, which helps us for the championship. Three incidents in one race left us too much to do to get the result that we wanted which is unfortunate.”

Australian Will Power was dominant in round 13 of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series to score his fifth win of the season. Starting on pole, the Team Penske driver led 73 of the 75-lap race, but on the last restart with six laps to go after a full course caution, Power got the heat from Scott Dixon, but the Chip Ganassi Racing driver was never able to move past the leading car. Dixon’s teammate, Dario Franchitti, finished third ahead of Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves, both from Team Penske.

 “Obviously it’s a disappointing result considering where we qualified and the high hopes we had going into the race. On the positive side we did get some points on the board and the objective for the end of the year is to get into the top 10 in points so from that point of view it wasn’t the race we promised ourselves, but we did get something out of it. Once again Mid-Ohio and Sonoma have show the depth and character of the team. We look forward to Chicago and getting back on ovals for the last four races of the season.”

The IndyCar Series returns to action next weekend for the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois on August 27-28.

Point Standings after 13 Rounds

With his fifth win of the season, Will Power has increased to 59 points his lead over Dario Franchitti in the overall standings. Power now has 514 points to Franchitti’s 455. Scott Dixon remains in third place with 419 points. Ryan Briscoe (384) and Helio Castroneves are fourth and fifth respectively. As for Tagliani, he moved up one position to 12th overall with 244 points.

Image is courtesy of IndyCar Series / Ron McQueeney

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