Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach 2012
| Racing data | ||
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| 3rd of 15 races of the IndyCar Series 2012 | ||
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| Surname: | Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach | |
| Date: | April 15, 2012 | |
| Place: |
 Long Beach , California , United States
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| Course: | Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit | |
| Length: | 269.211 km in 85 laps of 3.167 km
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| Weather: | sunny | |
| Pole position | ||
| Driver: |
 Ryan Briscoe
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 Team Penske
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| Time: | 1: 08.6089 min | |
| Fastest lap | ||
| Driver: |
 Tony Kanaan
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KV Racing Technology w / SH
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| Time: | 1: 09.3541 min (lap 73) | |
| Podium | ||
| First: |
Will power
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Team Penske
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| Second: |
 Simon Pagenaud
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Schmidt-Hamilton Motorsports
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| Third: |
 James Hinchcliffe
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Andretti Autosport
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The 2012 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach took place on April 15 at the Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit in Long Beach , California , United States and was the third race of the 2012 IndyCar Series season . It was the 38th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Reports
background
After the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama , Hélio Castroneves led the drivers' standings with two points ahead of Scott Dixon and nine points on Will Power . Among the engine manufacturers, Chevrolet led with 6 points ahead of Honda and with 10 points ahead of Lotus .
For the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, a new rule was introduced for the entire course, the so-called full course caution . So far, the pit lane has been closed at every full course caution and only released after all pilots have been lined up behind the safety car . From this Grand Prix onwards, the pit lane remained open for all races on non-ovals with full course cautions without an emergency situation. The previous regulation continued to apply to emergency situations.
In the run-up to the race, Chevrolet announced that all eleven Chevrolet drivers had to change their engines early. During test drives, a defect in the engine of James Hinchcliffe was found, whereupon a closer examination showed that a problem with the engine control could not be excluded in all engines. Since the engines had not yet reached a running time of 1850 miles, all Chevrolet drivers were moved 10 positions back on the grid. In addition, the Lotus engines at Sébastien Bourdais , Katherine Legge and Oriol Servià were prematurely replaced before the race .
With Bourdais (three times), Castroneves, Power, Dario Franchitti , Ryan Hunter-Reay and Mike Conway (one each), six former winners competed in this Grand Prix.
training
The first day of training was characterized by rainy conditions. 19 out of 26 drivers took part in the first training session. In the course of the first practice session, the track dried up, so that some drivers switched to slicks. Marco Andretti achieved the fastest lap ahead of Takuma Satō and Conway. Shortly before the end of the training there was an interruption after parallel accidents by Satō and Simona de Silvestro . In the second practice session it rained so heavily that only two pilots took to the track. Franchitti completed an installation round, his teammate Dixon dropped out during this. There was a red flag on it to rescue the vehicle. No other driver then went out onto the track.
The third training session on Saturday was dry. The training was interrupted six times after incidents. Power was the fastest pilot ahead of Hunter-Reay and Castroneves.
Qualifying
The first part of the time training was held in two groups. The six fastest drivers in each group came into the second segment. The remaining starting positions were determined from the result of the first qualifying segment, with the drivers in the first group being assigned the odd positions from 13 and the drivers in the second group the even positions from 14. In the first group, Ryan Briscoe drove the fastest lap, in the second group Josef Newgarden was the fastest driver. All Lotus pilots were eliminated in this segment.
In the second segment of the qualification, the six fastest drivers qualified for the final section. Power achieved the fastest lap. In the final section, known as the Firestone Fast Six , Briscoe posted the fastest time ahead of Power, Hunter-Reay, Franchitti, EJ Viso and Hinchcliffe. Briscoe received the bonus point and the prize money for pole position , but due to the premature engine change of all Chevrolet drivers he started the race from eleventh place.
The first starting position was given to Franchitti, who was the only driver of the Firestone Fast Six with a Honda engine. Newgarden and Justin Wilson started from places two and three .
Final training
In the final training session on Sunday morning, there were four interruptions within the 30-minute training session. The fastest pilot was Hunter-Reay ahead of Dixon and Rubens Barrichello .
run
At the start of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach there was a contact between the first two drivers. While Franchitti drove on, Newgarden dropped out. There was a yellow phase to recover the vehicle. Following the caution phase, Franchitti lost the lead to Wilson after four laps and fell further back in the course of the race. In a collision with Briscoe, he damaged his front wing and had to make a repair stop. Franchitti was lapped and parked the vehicle with mechanical problems on the 82 of 85 laps.
In the 20th lap Satō took the lead and there was a yellow phase because Bourdais was in Turn 9. The car quickly resumed the race and restarted on lap 22. One lap later there was another caution phase, as there were accidents in three separate places. Among other things, Andretti and Graham Rahal collided with each other, which ended the race for both. Andretti tried to drive past his opponent, but Rahal changed lines so that the vehicles collided. Andretti was promoted into the tire wall. He was lucky that he didn't overturn. The race management recognized in Rahal's actions a violation of rules 9.3.2 (blocking) and 9.3.3 (avoidable contact), which is why Rahal received a suspended sentence up to and including June 23, 2012.
Before the race was released again on lap 30, Dixon retired with technical problems. There were no further caution phases and finally a duel for victory between Power and Simon Pagenaud developed . Power relied on a two-stop strategy and therefore had to save fuel at the end of the race, while Pagenaud used a three-stop strategy and therefore did not have to save any fuel. Pagenaud caught up on power towards the end of the race.
Power kept a narrow lead to the finish and won the race ahead of Pagenaud. Until the last round, Satō was in third place. However, he collided with Hunter-Reay on the final lap and got stuck on the track. Both pilots blamed the other for the collision. Satō was rated eighth. Hunter-Reay crossed the finish line in third. However, since the race management blamed him for the collision, he was penalized for 30 seconds and classified as sixth. In third place was Hinchcliffe. It was the first podium finishes for Pagenaud and Hinchcliffe. Tony Kanaan finished fourth and improved to this position in the race from 19th place on the grid. Kanaan also achieved the fastest lap. In addition, Hildebrand and Briscoe reached the goal in fifth and seventh respectively in the leading lap.
While the first pilots were already at the finish, there was a collision between Barrichello, Castroneves and Jakes in the last corner, in which the racetrack was blocked and, in addition to these three pilots, all the drivers behind them could no longer cross the finish line . Barrichello and Wilson were ranked ninth and tenth and thus completed the top 10.
Although all Chevrolet drivers had been moved 10 positions back on the grid due to an early engine change and Briscoe was the front-most Chevrolet driver on the grid in eleventh place, at the end of the race seven Chevrolet and three Honda drivers were in the top 10.
With the win, Power took the lead in the drivers' standings from his team-mate Castroneves, who dropped to second place. Pagenaud improved to third place. The ranking remained unchanged among the engine manufacturers.
Registration list
All teams and drivers used the chassis Dallara DW12 with an aero kit from Dallara and tires from Firestone .
Source:
Classifications
Qualifying
- Remarks
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Chevrolet changed all engines before the race, which is why all Chevrolet drivers were moved ten positions back.
- ↑ Oriol Servià was moved ten positions back due to an early engine change.
- ↑ Sébastien Bourdais was moved ten positions back due to an early engine change.
- ↑ Katherine Legge was moved ten positions back due to an early engine change.
Swell:
run
Swell:
Guide sections
| section | Round | driver |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-4 |
 Dario Franchitti
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| 2 | 5-19 |
Justin Wilson
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| 3 | 20-27 |
 Takuma Satō
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| 4th | 28 |
Ryan Hunter-Reay
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| 5 | 29-33 |
Ryan Briscoe
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| 6th | 34-47 |
Simon Pagenaud
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| 7th | 48-55 |
Takuma Satō
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| 8th | 56-58 |
Ryan Hunter-Reay
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| 9 | 59-70 |
Simon Pagenaud
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| 10 | 71-85 |
Will power
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Swell:
Yellow phases
| No. | Duration | Round | Reason for yellow phase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-3 | 3 | Contact: Dario Franchitti (# 10) and Josef Newgarden (# 67) in turn 1 |
| 2 | 20-21 | 2 | Contact: Sébastien Bourdais (# 7) on turn 9 |
| 3 | 23-29 | 7th | Contact: Alex Tagliani (# 98) on the start-finish straight, Marco Andretti (# 26) and Graham Rahal (# 38) in Turn 8, Katherine Legge (# 6) in Turn 9 |
Swell:
Score after the race
Driver ranking
The allocation of points is explained here .
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Manufacturer rating
| Item | Manufacturer | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Chevrolet
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27 |
| 2. |
Honda
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18th |
| 3. |
lotus
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12 |
Individual evidence
- ^ "Long Beach - Race" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 15, 2012)
- ^ "New rules for the caution phases" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 11, 2012)
- ^ "All Chevy drivers ten places back!" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 12, 2012)
- ↑ "Engine change: penalty for Bourdais" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 12, 2012)
- ^ "Long Beach: A total of 14 engine changes" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 13, 2012)
- ↑ “Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach - Practice 1” (indycar.com on April 13, 2012; PDF; 131 kB)
- ^ "Long Beach: Andretti fast in the rain" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 13, 2012)
- ↑ "Long Beach: Because of 'It never rains ...'" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 14, 2012)
- ↑ "Six reds: Power in the Long Beach Chaos up front" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 14, 2012)
- ^ “Briscoe sets record; Franchitti starts 1st ” ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (indycar.com on April 14, 2012)
- ^ "Long Beach: Briscoe Fastest - Franchitti on Pole" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 15, 2012)
- ^ "Chaos in the warm-up too: Four reds in Long Beach" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 15, 2012)
- ^ "Serious defeat for Ganassi" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 16, 2012)
- ^ "Andretti Crash: Rahal punished" (Motorsport-Total.com on April 18, 2012)
- ↑ "Petrol Crime: Power proposes Pagenaud and Honda" (Motorsport-Total.com on 16 April 2012)
- ↑ "IndyCar - Power wins in Long Beach too" (Motorsport-Magazin.com on April 16, 2012)
- ↑ “Entry List - Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach” ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (indycar.com on April 8, 2012)
- ↑ “IZOD IndyCar Series - Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach at Streets of Long Beach - QUALIFYING RESULTS” (indycar.com on April 14, 2012; PDF; 64 kB)
- ↑ “Grid” (indycar.com on April 14, 2012; PDF; 75 kB)
- ↑ a b c “OFFICIAL BOX SCORE - Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach” (indycar.com on April 15, 2012; PDF; 27 kB)
- ^ "Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach" (champcarstats.com; accessed April 27, 2012)
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