So Much for the CCWS Drivers “are Years Behind” Train of Thought
All things considered it was a logical conclusion to make.
With the unification of the IRL and CCWS occurring so close to the opening of America’s open wheel season, in addition to the results at Homestead confirming what may have been obvious, it wasn’t so obvious when rubber met the road.
Or to be more precise, road course.
Second generation Lebanese (?), and former CCWS driver, Graham Rahal tossed the “conventional wisdom” into the wastebasket of failed thought precesses by winning the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
In winning Rahal becomes the youngest driver to win an IndyCar Series race, the fourth to win in his debut, and a fete nearly matched in CCWS when he became the youngest ever podium finisher in series history by finishing 2nd in Houston a year ago.
Ironicly, the 19-year-old took the lead from his father’s car – the Rahal/LettermanRacing/TeamEthanol entry of Ryan Hunter-Reay - on lap 64 and led the rest of the way.
“It can’t get any sweeter than this, especially after crashing the car last week,” Rahal said. “Today was tough with the rain but we worked it out and pulled through. Hopefully, we will win a few more.”
Helio Castroneves finished second, followed by Tony Kanaan, Hunter-Reay, Ernesto Viso and Enrique Bernaldi.
More later…
It never made a lot of sense to treat the CCWS refugees as if they’d never seen a racing car before - the series always had its class acts and there are a few IRL drivers who don’t exactly set the world afire…
Still, I’m surprised they did this well - five of the top eight finishers, and half the top 10 in qualifying.
Be a while before it happens again, though.
I disagree Andy. Racers are racers, give’em a kitchen door with 4 wheels and they’ll find a way to win with it.
The CCWS transfers are going to have a ways to go catching up on ovals, that’s understandable. But when it comes to road courses they will always be competitive.
I think most of it was “the unknown”.
Until you experience it, you don’t know what you can do with it.
Once the CC drivers were in a direct competitive situation with the IC drivers, on more familiar turf, with a couple of weeks of tech tinkering on the cars, the learning curve wasn’t nearly as steep. And really, the talent pool on the IC side of things isn’t as deep as people would like to think either. It was not talent but rather experience that separated the wheat from the chaff in Homestead. By mid-season, the equity between the drivers will have changed immeasurably. Upcoming changes in the formula will also lessen the disparity