IndyCar Series, Go Uri! Opciones

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Luego de varios años de desavenencias que provocaron la división de el más importante campeonato de monoplazas estadounidense, finalmente se llegó a un acuerdo para fusionar este año la Champ Car a la Indy Racing League (IRL), acuerdo en el que sin duda se beneficiaran los aficionados a estos bólidos.


Los dirigentes de las series de automovilismo de monoplazas estadounidenses Indy Racing League (IRL) y Champ Car anunciaron un acuerdo para fusionar ambos circuitos con vistas a la temporada 2008, 12 años después de haberse separado.


Video: Rueda de prensa de la unificación 27/02/08

El acuerdo se encamina a incorporar tres carreras de la Champ Car al itinerario original de la IRL, que contaba con 16 pruebas, con los grandes premios de Long Beach en California, Surfers Paradise en Australia y Edmonton en Canadá. El resto del calendario de Champ Car fue cancelado. A comienzos de la década de 1990, la serie CART, que luego cambió de nombre a Champ Car, era un destino habitual para pilotos europeos y sudamericanos, y tenía gran respaldo de los aficionados.

La CART fue fundada en noviembre de 1978 por Roger Penske, Pat Patrick, Dan Gurney y otra serie de dueños de escuderías.

La IRL comenzó a operar en 1996, con intención de dar espacio a los jóvenes pilotos estadounidenses, y CART tomó su propio rumbo hasta que se declaró en bancarrota en enero de 2004.

George realizó la mejor oferta por las acciones de CART, pero un juez se las otorgó a Kalkhoven, Forsythe y Paul Gentilozzi porque el comprador había mostrado intenciones de clausurar la serie, lo que hubiera dejado a muchas personas desempleadas.



Monoplaza.

Los coches de las series IndyCar son monoplazas de al menos 1525 libras de peso y 192 pulgadas de longitud, con chasis monocasco y construidos con fibra de carbono y composite. Son coches con cambio de 6 velocidades secuanciales por palanca (no por levas) y sin dirección asistida.
Los equipos pueden elegir entre 2 modelos de distintos fabricantes, bien sean los italianos Dallara o los americanos Panoz.





El Motor de 3.5 litros V8 turboalimentados desarrollados por Honda (y construidos por Ilmor Engineering, compañía constructora de los motores Mercedes-Benz en F1 hasta 2005), capaces de transmitir más de 650 CV usando como combustible Etanol-Metanol.







Los neumáticos son gomas son slick, con una grosor de la goma como el deaproximadamente 2.5 milímetros de espesor. Las dimensiones son 25.8 las delanteras pudiendo llegar hasta las 28 en las ruedas traseras. Los anchos: 28 centímetros alante y 38 atrás.

Cada piloto dispone segun el tipo de circuitode 8 sets para Urbano/permanente y 7 sets para Ovales. En Indy 500 dispone de 35 sets.



Street Tire / Race Tire



Hay dos tipos de Frenos dependiendo de si corren en un óvalo o en un circuito urbano. En el caso del óvalo, los frenos son de carbono con cuatro pistones, y son más bien pequeños. En el caso del circuito urbano, los discos son de acero, más grandes y de 6 pistones.









IndyCar Series. Puntuación.

1st - 50
2nd - 40
3rd - 35
4th - 32
5th - 30
6th - 28
7th - 26
8th - 24
9th - 22
10th - 20
11th - 19
12th - 18
13th - 17
14th - 16
15th - 15
16th - 14
17th - 13
18th>24th - 12
25th>33th - 10


Se otorgan 3 puntos extras a aquel piloto que consiga el mayor número de vueltas en cabeza durante la carrera.


Repostajes.



Las paradas en boxes son también obligatorias en las IndyCar Series. Sin embargo, no se podrán realizar cuando la condición de la pista esté en "peligro", es decir, haya banderas amarillas y un coche de seguridad en el circuito, salvo que el dirigente de la carrera de la orden de "Pits Open". Todo aquel que haga una parada en esta situación será penalizado.

En una parada de boxes podemos encontrar a 11 mecánicos. 4 se encargarán de sustituir las ruedas, 2 de ayudarles, uno sujetará el "chupete" o cartel de indicación de estado, 1 del respostaje junto a su ayudante y 1 mecánico se encargará de elevar el coche.
El último, quizás el más curioso, es el que hace de "apagafuegos". Tras un respotaje, una vez retirada la manguera, él inyectará un chorro de agua sobre la boca del depósito para aplacar las posibles llamas. Recordemos que el metanol se apaga con agua y su llama es completamente invisible (de ahí que se realice siempre este procedimiento, tanto si hay llama o no).


El Volante

1. OVERTAKE BUTTON: Changes the fuel map to 100 percent rich for a set amount of time, allowing the engine to produce the extra power needed to complete a pass or hold off another driver.

2. PI DASH: Displays warning lights and information the driver needs during the race. That information includes lap times, oil, water and gearbox temperatures and fuel mileage.

3. RPM SHIFT LIGHTS: LED lights that go from green to red and indicate engine RPM. When the red lights are on the driver shifts gears.

4. PIT LANE SPEED LIMITER: Used on pit lane by the driver to activate the engine control program limiting the cars speed to the pit lane speed limit, which is usually 60 miles per hour.

5. PULL-TO-TALK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Activates the microphone in the drivers helmet so he can communicate over the radio.

6. RESET: Used during the race. During a pit stop the driver pushes this button to reset the fuel reading on his display.

7. FUEL MAP SWITCH: Allows the driver to adjust the fuel mapping of the engine to increase fuel mileage or to increase power. There are a number of settings available including full rich, where the engine produces maximum power but uses more fuel. There is also a lean setting which uses less fuel but produces less power. During caution periods the drivers will switch to the leanest mixture to increase fuel economy.

8. DASH SCROLL: Allows the driver to scroll through the different pages available on the dash board, including the race page, qualifying page and practice page.

9. WEIGHT JACKER: Adjusts the cross weight on the car from left to right. The weight jacker allows the driver to make fine-tuning adjustments as the car begins to handle differently during the race.

10. DRINK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Allows the driver to get a drink of water during the race. It activates a pump connected to a water bottle on the car which pumps water through a hose installed in the drivers helmet.

[f1fansince1987]

Uri quinto!

Kanaan wins wild Richmond race

Tony Kanaan finally took his first victory of the 2008 IRL IndyCar Series season by winning from pole on an extremely destructive evening at Richmond.

The race saw a total of nine cautions, mostly compacted into the event's disjointed first half, with only 10 cars completing the distance without damage.

Penske's Helio Castroneves recovered from his poor qualifying to take second, as series leader Scott Dixon completed the podium ahead of his Ganassi teammate Dan Wheldon, whose car faltered - apparently out of fuel - at the final corner, costing him third.

But while Andretti Green Racing could celebrate Kanaan's win, they missed out on a potential one-two when Marco Andretti lost ground by pitting under green having led much of the race, leaving the young American ninth at the flag.

The opening laps set the tone for the chaos that followed, with the yellow emerging immediately for Ryan Hunter-Reay's harmless spin at the tail of the field. No sooner had the race resumed on lap six than the pace car was out again after Will Power lost control while being passed by Helio Castroneves and slammed into the wall.

The field managed nine laps of green between this incident and a tangle between John Andretti and AJ Foyt IV on lap 24. While Andretti continued unscathed, Foyt hit the wall and threw debris into the path of his Vision Racing teammate Ed Carpenter, who required a long stop for suspension repairs.

A prolonged green stint then followed at last, with Kanaan leading Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and Dixon in a close lead battle. They all pitted during the lap 68 caution for debris, allowing Conquest's Jaime Camara and AGR's Danica Patrick to move to the front of the field, having both stopped out of sequence under earlier yellows.

Kanaan rejoined third, with Castroneves up to fourth from 18th on the grid thanks to a superb early charge and a very rapid stop.

Another plethora of yellows then followed, as at the restart Buddy Rice spun his Dreyer & Reinbold car into the wall and out of a strong seventh place, and then Ryan Briscoe tangled with both Darren Manning and Bruno Junqueira in the middle of the pack. The next attempt at a restart was equally unsuccessful, with John Andretti having his second collision of the evening - this time eliminating both himself and Vitor Meira.

Patrick chose to pit under this yellow, while Marco Andretti had jumped Castroneves at the previous restart and then passed both Kanaan and Camara in quick succession once racing resumed in earnest, hitting the front on lap 116 and quickly pulling away.

Andretti then decided not to stop when the pace car emerged yet again on lap 131 after Rahal crashed out of seventh place, whereas most of the rest of the field pitted under either this caution or the one that followed soon after when Hunter-Reay and Mario Moraes tangled just after the restart.

That kept Andretti at the front of the field, but left him out of sequence compared to the chasing Kanaan, Castroneves and Camara. The American continued to edge away from the pack and hoped to stretch his fuel load to the next yellow, only for the race to finally run uninterrupted for a lengthy period. Andretti ultimately had to stop under green on lap 204, losing a lap in the process.

His hopes depended on the rest of the leaders also having to pit under green, but 14 laps later Camara crashed out of his superb third place, allowing everyone else to stop under the resultant yellow - although Andretti at least managed to get back on the lead lap when waved around by the pace car.

The race then ran trouble-free for the final 71-lap run to the flag, with Kanaan calmly inching away from Castroneves to win by a comfortable five seconds.

Behind the Ganassi duo, KV Racing's Oriol Servia had a strong race to fifth ahead of Patrick, Justin Wilson (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) and Townsend Bell (Dreyer & Reinbold), as Andretti found it hard to make progress in the final stint, falling a lap down again and having to settle for ninth.

Full report to follow...

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 2h04:05.5111
2. Helio Castroneves Penske + 4.7691
3. Scott Dixon Ganassi + 6.6504
4. Dan Wheldon Ganassi + 7.7270
5. Oriol Servia KV + 10.7701
6. Danica Patrick Andretti Green + 10.9198
7. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan + 16.3094
8. Townsend Bell Dreyer & Reinbold + 17.5175
9. Marco Andretti Andretti Green + 1 lap
10. EJ Viso HVM + 1 lap
11. Ed Carpenter Vision + 62 laps
12. Darren Manning Foyt + 65 laps
13. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green + 80 laps
14. Jaime Camara Conquest + 83 laps
15. Ryan Briscoe Penske + 142 laps
16. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman + 157 laps
17. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne + 157 laps
18. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan + 169 laps
19. Marty Roth Roth + 183 laps
20. Vitor Meira Panther + 209 laps
21. John Andretti Roth + 209 laps
22. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold + 220 laps
23. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne + 222 laps
24. AJ Foyt IV Vision + 271 laps
25. Will Power KV + 292 laps
26. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest + 294 laps