2018 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

Wickens could have very easily blocked the inside line, and been within the rules too, but he chose to race Rossi clean. I'm pretty annoyed after sitting through three hours of a race, which was stacked full of commercials, and then seeing the guy who dominated the race robbed at the last second by an amateur move. Truly a wasted afternoon. Not much of a Rossi fan right now.
 
Yogisd1 said:
He had no chance to make that pass and he knew it.
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Probably, but if there weren’t painted lines there, perhaps the rear wouldn’t have stepped out. That was a 1/4 of second from being a good move vs. catastrophe. Racing.
 
Stupid racing IMO. No way he was going to get by the leader or make it, his line was stupid in the first place.
 
I read it earlier, I guess he was subtlety blaming Wickens for blocking.

I don't know, it can be judged in multiple ways... I hate we have to wait until next month when they go to Barber...
 
Just getting around to seeing the replay now. Sucks for Wickens, but I would have made the same move that Rossi did. It’s the last lap and you have to go for it, just a racing deal there.
Wish my Penske boys would have done a little better, but it’s whatever. On to the next one
 
Kiante said:
I read it earlier, I guess he was subtlety blaming Wickens for blocking....
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He wasn't blocking. He used his one allowed move (which is a ridiculous rule anyway), left Rossi enough room, and still got punted off. Wickens held his line and Rossi didn't.

The funny part is these guys are friends, at least for now, that is.

Don't worry about Wickens too much, though. I'm sure he's going to win his share.

.......I hate it we have to wait until next month when they go to Barber...
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Just don't forget that Sebring is next weekend and the week after that is F1 Australia.
 
Doc Austin said:
He wasn't blocking. He used his one allowed move (which is a ridiculous rule anyway), left Rossi enough room, and still got punted off. Wickens held his line and Rossi didn't.

The funny part is these guys are friends, at least for now, that is.

Don't worry about Wickens too much, though. I'm sure he's going to win his share.



Just don't forget that Sebring is next weekend and the week after that is F1 Australia.
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I'm just going off of what Rossi said and I'm just talking about the IndyCar schedule in general. I hate all this dead time off after the first race.
 
Dont like when teh deserving drivers gets taken out and then have the ***** officials do nothing about it. Huge turn off.
 
Rossi was already sliding as they drove into the corner, and the incident is definitely on him. At the same time, I have seen much worse bonzai moves. I can see how it unfolded the way it did. Wickens had a slow restart and didn't really take a proper defensive line until it was too late, allowing Rossi to get up beside him with the inside line. But racing is not sliding into the corner and clearing out the guy in front of you. I don't think it was intentional or malicious. It was a 'racing incident', but Rossi was definitely at fault.

I do think there was enough evidence of Rossi's lack of control of his car to impose a penalty. It doesn't have to be malicious to be worthy of that.
 
StandOnIt said:
St Pete is a tough road course. Like Wickens said, everybody knew how slick the inside was. Rossi lost his head. a penalty is a joke, it wouldn't help Wickens a bit.
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I didnt hear what wickens said about the incident. Was he mature about it or did he go all KDB?
 
Wickens didn't sound too concerned about it. They are/were? friends they say. I really think Wickens knows how good he is now in this series and there will be more chances to win. He was the class of the field by far, made some really good clean passes and seemed really comfortable in the car the first time doing it.
 
Fun race and I'm glad I got seats in Turn 1 because that was the place to be. It seems it was a combination of the pace car lights not being extinguished confusing Wickens and not getting the good run onto the straight that he had been getting before along with not getting on the P2P as quickly as Rossi did that set that all up. I don't see why Rossi needs to blame Wickens though, less downforce and all those marbles and paint on the inside had guys screwing up all weekend. It's a low-percentage move but one you have to take, he just didn't execute properly (he was obviously sideways before even getting to the corner). I mean, it's a tricky enough braking area that Scott Dixon, the most flawless driver in the series, speared Sato from two positions back doing the same thing. You have to take a chance there but he didn't execute and I think he needs to own up to it.


Also, there were some concerns the spec aero would expose Chevy having a poorer engine package than Honda going into the season. Some tried to downplay that but there seemed to be a lot more of Honda passing Chevy on the straights than vice versa. Only two cars in the Top 10 and the flagship team, Penske, seemed totally out to lunch. It'd be more clear if King and Leist hadn't had issues but that doesn't seem to be a positive shot out of the gates for Chevy.
 
gnomesayin said:
I do think there was enough evidence of Rossi's lack of control of his car to impose a penalty. It doesn't have to be malicious to be worthy of that.
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This is probably a fair assessment.

If you ruin another guy's race, especially the leader that late in the race, you should finish behind him. You can't give them the chrome horn and then drive off to the podium. Indycar has now set a precedent that you can hammer the leader out of the way and that's fine. I want to see them even try to impose a penalty next time after they let this slide.

Rossi's driving smacks of desperation, and has for awhile. If Mikey can't calm him down, Rossi is going to have a massive accident. It's not good enough that he fell from second to third. That's not enough of a lesson to make Rossi be more careful next time. He's going to continue to drive crazy until, well, until, that is.

FLRacingFan said:
I mean, it's a tricky enough braking area that Scott Dixon, the most flawless driver in the series, speared Sato from two positions back doing the same thing. You have to take a chance there but he didn't execute and I think he needs to own up to it.
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Dixon didn't own up to that? I remember he mowed down one of Power's pit crew a few years back, then said the guy made a "dick move," and was furious he got a penalty. Really? A "dick move" justifies running someone over? Then again, Scott was caught up in enough catastrophes of someone else's making last year to make up a whole career, so yesterday was just one of those things and one of his really rare errors. Sato also doesn't have much to say to Scott after what he did at Texas last year.

 
Well I had a great time. I picked up another scrape plate from one of the Penske cars. Got lotsa autographs. Michael Andretti was really nice to talk to. Got Rick Mears'. He was great. Al Jr. was great. Got Bobby Unser's Friday. Graham, another Ohio boy did well. He is always great.

I guess David Letterman didn't show up. My son got his autograph here last year. I saw Arie Luyendyk hanging around all weekend. I wouldn't even try to get his autograph. AJ was his prick self.

Tony Kanaan was nice. I got Rossi to sign my 100th anniversary Indy 500 mini helmet and car. Awesome!! I have a huge metal Jim Beam sign with Michael Andretti that I picked up over the winter. He signed that for me and he signed my (his) Jim Beam mini helmet. Now I have all three of the Andretti mini helmets autographed. Went to the three Penske driver's signings. They were all nice. So, we had a great time.

As far as the Rossi wreck? I didn't really see anything wrong with either of them. Rossi might have looked bad but not any worse than what I've seen Dario do to Will Power over the years. Or what Dario did to Sato in the Indy 500. And I really loved Dario. Racing is tough. You do what you can get away with.

We upgraded to the Trackside Club this year. That was pretty cool. We'll probably do it again next year. Overall, we had great day.

:)
 
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Doc Austin said:
Dixon didn't own up to that? I remember he mowed down one of Power's pit crew a few years back, then said the guy made a "dick move," and was furious he got a penalty. Really? A "dick move" justifies running someone over? Then again, Scott was caught up in enough catastrophes of someone else's making last year to make up a whole career, so yesterday was just one of those things and one of his really rare errors. Sato also doesn't have much to say to Scott after what he did at Texas last year.
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I was just using that as an example of how treacherous that area was, Rossi had to have known that yet he blames Wickens for some reason. Easy enough to just own up to it, no one else who screwed up this weekend is pointing fingers elsewhere.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I was just using that as an example of how treacherous that area was, Rossi had to have known that yet he blames Wickens for some reason. Easy enough to just own up to it, no one else who screwed up this weekend is pointing fingers elsewhere.
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Oh, yeah. I see what you mean.

The good news is that Sebring is in five days. That one is going to be epic.
 
You can watch the entire race in St Petersburg:

Go to the IndyCar.com website and you can watch the original ESPN broadcast.

:)
 
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