Tagliani makes peace with Indy’s restarts
Posted May 31, 2011 5:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY — Canadian IndyCar driver Alex Tagliani says while side-by-side restarts led to some great one-on-one driver duels at last weekend’s Indy 500, they’re still white-knuckle hell rides.
“I think we were all lucky and very happy that nobody came out injured, but obviously there’s a lot more racing involved doing it that way,” said Tagliani on Tuesday while in Calgary to promote the July 24 Edmonton Indy.
“Maybe there’s a format in the future that creates as much passing, as much excitement, but one that comes out of a single-file restart.”
Tagliani started on pole at Sunday’s centennial Indy 500 — the first Canadian to do so — and had some early duels with Scott Dixon and Oriol Servia, each passing and then getting passed on restarts.
But there were times when the restarts had all the cars jammed up nose to bumper at super-speedway speeds, every driver angling for a sliver of daylight to accelerate.
One restart saw Tagliani driving four-wide tight to the outside wall.
“A lot of drivers were very apprehensive, so we were lucky that everybody came out safe and sound,” he said.
In early races this IndyCar season, the restarts ended in wrecked cars and full-course caution flags.
But the goal of creating more excitement was evident in Sunday’s box score. There were 10 different race leaders and an exciting finish that saw rookie J.R. Hildebrand hit the wall on the last turn of the last lap to allow Dan Wheldon to sneak by and take the checkered flag.
Tagliani led twice for a total of 20 laps in the 200-lap event, but finished 28th in the 33-car field. A strong start was undone by his engine overheating, making the car difficult to handle all day.
His day was done with a quarter of the race to go, when he got high up on the track and smacked the right side of his No. 77 Dallara Honda into the wall, bending the right front tire about 45 degrees.
The 38-year-old from Lachenaie, Que., now sits in ninth spot in the overall IndyCar driver standings, 84 points back of leader Will Power.
Tagliani hopes to build on his strong start in the next race on the short oval at Dallas on June 11. IndyCar later makes two stops in Canada, the other in Toronto on July 10.
Driving for Sam Schmidt Autosports this season, Tagliani has two top-six finishes in his first four races to go with the pole at Indianapolis. He finished sixth on the road course at St. Petersburg, Fla., to start the season, and was fifth in Long Beach, Calif., on April 17.
The reason, he said, is continuity.
“It’s only the second time in my career I’m working with the same engineer for the second year in a row, building on what we had last year,” he said.
He said the continuity is critical, accumulating data on the tracks to determine the best way to set up the cars.
The results are obvious, he said. They qualified fifth for Indy last year, and were on pole this year.
“Same thing in Long Beach. Last year we were not competitive and this year we’re in the top five.”
He said he expects to move up the rankings as IndyCar moves to short oval courses in the U.S. Midwest in June.
“I’m very excited to go back to Iowa. I’m super quick in Milwaukee,” he said.
“I would not be surprised if we have more success and try to get back in the top five in the driver championship.”
Tagliani has been driving the Edmonton track back to the Champ Car days of the middle part of last decade.
This year it will be new for everyone. The road course is being reconfigured at the downtown City Centre Airport to a 13-turn, 3.7-kilometre circuit.
The track resembles a long-barreled handgun.
Drivers — going counter-clockwise — negotiate chicanes down and then back up what would be the handgrip of the gun, then zoom along the underside of the barrel, followed by a hairpin left turn and back along the same super straightaway to the start.
“There are multiple passing zones,” said Tagliani. “That’s unique. Normally you have one perfect straightaway to pass and if you don’t make it there then it’s single file the whole way.
“I think that’s why everybody is saying this will be the most exciting circuit in the series.”
After Edmonton, Tagliani also announced Tuesday he will head to Montreal to jump into a stock car.
Tagliani is entered in races on Aug. 19 and 20 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He will compete in the NAPA Autopro 100 in NASCAR’s Canadian Series before driving in the 200-mile NASCAR Nationwide Series Event.
