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.

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Briscoe claims Watkins Glen pole

By Matt Beer Saturday, July 5th 2008, 19:05 GMT

Ryan Briscoe, Penske, Watkins Glen qualifyingRyan Briscoe claimed his first IRL IndyCar Series pole position in three years in qualifying for the Watkins Glen race.

The Penske driver beat Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson to the top spot by 0.03 seconds in the final shoot-out for pole position.

Wilson chose to sit out the final moments hoping his time would prove unbeatable, only to see Briscoe sneak ahead.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) qualified an impressive third, beating championship leader Scott Dixon (Ganassi), who will chase his fourth straight Watkins Glen win from the outside of row two after an error on his final flying lap.

Dixon's closest title rival Helio Castroneves - who was aiming for a fourth consecutive Watkins Glen pole - will start from the tail of the 26-car field after his Penske Dallara-Honda suffered a mechanical problem before he could set a time in the first part of qualifying.

Under this year's road and street course qualifying regulations, the field is split into two groups for the first session. The top six from each group then unite for a 15-minute session that decides positions seven to 12 on the grid and sends the final six cars through to a ten minute shoot-out for the first three rows.

KV's Oriol Servia and Andretti Green's Tony Kanaan were the other men to make it through to the top six and will share row three.

Marco Andretti just missed the cut for the 'Fast Six' session and will start seventh, alongside impressive underdog Darren Manning, who again showed excellent road course speed for AJ Foyt Racing.

Ganassi's Dan Wheldon was only ninth, despite feeling that he had his most competitive road course set-up since joining the team. Vitor Meira (Panther) completed the top ten.

Bruno Junqueira had been fastest of all in the first qualifying group and looked set to mount a shock pole challenge for the tiny Dale Coyne Racing team.

But his strategy of waiting until late in the top 12 segment before attempting his flying laps backfired when Will Power (KV Racing) crashed at Turn 7. The stoppage to clear up Power's debris shortened the session by several minutes and led to a frantic last minute rush in which Junqueira could only manage 11th.

His teammate Mario Moraes and Andretti Green's Danica Patrick could consider themselves unfortunate not to make it through from the group stages of qualifying to fight for the top 12.

Both ran in group two and set faster times than the group one pace-setters, who had not been able to make their final runs after their session was curtailed when AJ Foyt IV spun his Vision Racing car into the Turn 7 barriers. But despite their speed, as Moraes and Patrick were only seventh and eighth in the faster second group, they will have to start from row seven.

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing managed to repair Graham Rahal's car after his practice crash, but the St Petersburg winner was only able to take 18th on the grid in his patchwork car, which was running with various pieces of teammate Wilson's spare bodywork.

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Ryan Briscoe Penske 1:29.3456
2. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:29.3804
3. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman 1:29.6355
4. Scott Dixon Ganassi 1:29.6776
5. Oriol Servia KV 1:29.7068
6. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 1:29.9938
7. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 1:29.9668
8. Darren Manning Foyt 1:30.0474
9. Dan Wheldon Ganassi 1:30.0567
10. Vitor Meira Panther 1:30.1172
11. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne 1:30.6213
12. Will Power KV 1:32.8542
13. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 1:30.3049
14. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 1:30.5647
15. EJ Viso HVM 1:30.6885
16. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest 1:31.0196
17. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 1:31.0470
18. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:31.2402
19. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast 1:31.3614
20. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 1:31.4704
21. Ed Carpenter Vision 1:32.2381
22. AJ Foyt IV Vision 1:32.8496
23. Jaime Camara Conquest 1:34.5517
24. Jay Howard Roth 1:35.0154
25. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold 1:36.0330
26. Helio Castroneves Penske no time



la carrera mañana a las 21:30