INDYCAR NEWS AND NOTES – Aug. 1, 2013

Today’s IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights and Mazda Road to Indy headlines:

1. Castroneves’ aim is keep championship lead

2. If you missed it: INDYCAR Conference Call with Sebastien Bourdais

3. Panther goes pink to honor female soldiers

1. Castroneves’ aim is keep championship lead: Helio Castroneves is the only IZOD IndyCar Series driver to complete all 1,753 race laps this season.

That statistic is a statement of consistency that has led to and kept the veteran atop the series championship standings entering round 14 of 19 and a testament to the No. 3 Team Penske car’s crew. Castroneves, who has finished in the top 10 the past nine races, enjoys a 29-point advantage over Scott Dixon heading into the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio this weekend.

“Our approach is the same. That’s what got us here,” said Castroneves. “Hopefully with that same kind of consistency, mentality, when we have a car to go for it we go for it. I think with that kind of thinking, it’s going to take us there, as well.”

Enjoy might be too strong, though, considering Dixon has won the past two races on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn road course and the past three races this season to vault into contention.

“We just have to keep focused on our work. I’m not worried less or more because it’s Scott,” Castroneves said. “The same thing was with (third-place) Ryan (Hunter-Reay). They’re both on great teams. I trust my guys. I know we have the best equipment, the best guys out there. We know what we’re capable of. That’s what we’re focused on at this point.”

Castroneves has held the top spot in the standings for a career-high eight races, dating to Race 1 at Detroit in early June, in pursuit of his first series title. The 90-lap race at challenging Mid-Ohio, where he last won in 2001 and last placed in the top five in 2010, is the next step to realizing his goal.

“I want (the title) more than anybody,” he said. “Especially having those guys behind me, I have that chance. Experienced guys, experienced teams. When you put yourself in this position, yes, I’m going to fight as much as I can.  If I have a good car to finish, I will finish strong.  If I don’t have a good car to finish, I’ll play smart.  You use different strategies, ways to put us there. That’s what’s happening at this point.”

2. If you missed it: INDYCAR Conference Call with Sebastien Bourdais: Earlier today, IZOD IndyCar Series driver Sebastien Bourdais participated in an INDYCAR conference call to discuss the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Selected quotes from the call are below. An MP3 Audio recording and full transcript of the call is available on http://media.indycar.com

Q: Sebastien, racing success can change with having two or three good races in a row. The team gets more confident and you get some momentum.  With your runs at Toronto and the July 31 Open Test at Mid-Ohio, do you sense a swing in momentum for Dragon Racing?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I don’t really see it this way. I think it’s more we finally got the car to where we needed it to be, and the performance of it was definitely a lot higher in Toronto than we had been so far. So that changed the results and it sure felt really good for the whole team, and pumped everybody up and boosted spirits. It’s not all finally we’ve got momentum hopefully we can hang on to it. It’s just we definitely found some pretty big improvements on the car and that translated into a very nice weekend in Toronto, which we very much needed. We kind of had the same approach at the test yesterday and made steady progress, and the car has responded pretty well. And (race engineer) Tom Brown and the entire engineering office has done a pretty nice job so, hopefully we can have a repeat of Toronto in Mid‑Ohio.

Q: You mentioned having a good test day. Mid‑Ohio is a place where you had one of your best races last year with a fourth-place finish. You were competing with Simon Pagenaud for that final podium spot. What is it about Mid‑Ohio that suits your style so well? 

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Last year we hit the set‑up pretty good.  But, again, this year it’s a different tire and everything, and we had to work at it pretty big between the start of the test and to end up where we ended up yesterday. The pace is about eight-tenths (of a mile) faster than it was last year, nearly a second on prime tires, so it’s definitely everybody did their homework, and it translates into pace and you’ve got to keep up and improve yourself if you want to stay at the front. 

The team did a very nice job yesterday in the short amount of time we had because we got rained out in the morning. Hopefully we can keep on making steady progress through the weekend and contend for another podium or a win.

Q: Tom Brown was brought in and then you alluded to him and his addition to the team as you started to get some better results.  I’m not going to ask you for all your trade secrets, every team likes to protect those.  But talk a little bit about what Tom has brought into the team.  He seemed to work very well in concert with you that definitely has Dragon Racing pointed in the right direction. 

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: We’re very short staffed in the engineering office, and obviously when everything works and the philosophy of the race engineering is working, everything is good.  Then when you’re struggling, sometimes you need a different eye and some additional analysis and more brain storming going on.  We couldn’t just quite bounce ideas off of each other because there were just not enough people. 

I think quite honestly, Tom just basically arrived and looked at the set‑up and the data and everything that we had done with Neil (Fife) that I’ve been working with for a couple years now and pretty successfully.  But when Firestone changed the tires for 2013, it just wasn’t the best, basically.  Every set‑up we had from 2012 were just not working anymore, and everybody had stepped up their game and we just looked like we were stuck.  We just couldn’t find the gains that we needed to go back to our form of last year. 

Tom definitely looked at that and had a couple of different ideas and from his previous experiences as well, and just kind of started to creep into the right direction.  It definitely clicked in Toronto.  It was pretty good yesterday.  I think we definitely have a direction now where we know we need to put the car in to be competitive, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.  Hopefully it works out pretty good until the end of the season.

Q: I know you don’t like to look, as you say, in the rear view mirror, but I’m still getting notes from fans about what exactly happened on the victory podium in Toronto when the trophy fell over.  There were some embarrassing moments that turned into some pretty funny moments.  (Honda Indy Toronto president) Charlie Johnstone told me the top of the trophy is never attached to the base.  But what happened, happened, kind of a tragedy, but kind of a fun eye incident as well.  If you care to offer anymore comments about what happened there because I’m still getting people asking me about it? 

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, clearly, the person who was supposed to hand me the trophy was just supposed to hand me the crystal bowl.  When you looked at it, it looked like it was attached with the base and the crystal glued to it or bolted on or something, which is usually the shape of the trophies.  But it wasn’t like that.  When he handed me the whole thing, I shook his hand, grabbed the base, and trophy is up.  All right.  Trophy is up. 

The crystal bowl just kind of went overhead.  Actually, I was kind of lucky I didn’t put it over my head.  I might have knocked myself out.  But I was so damn happy that finally we got that result that anything could have happened, I think.  I could have fallen off the podium or whatever, it would not have mattered at that point. 

We just turned it into a comedy in the end because what else do you want to do?  Nobody could take away that result that we were looking for.  We’re not looking for a trophy; we were looking for a result.  And everybody was just in great spirits.  I guess we made every morning and evening show there was to be.  All in all, it wasn’t so bad.

3. Panther goes pink to honor female soldiers: Panther Racing will return this weekend to its “pink camo” livery to honor female soldiers serving in the National Guard. Firestone has joined the team in honoring females serving in the military and has created a pink sidewall tire that will replace the traditional black primary Firehawk tires.

“I’ve never driven a pink race car before and I can’t wait,” Oriol Servia said. “As a kid I always liked the Pink Panther, so hopefully we can be sneaky like the Pink Panther this weekend.”

The Ohio National Guard is led by Maj. Gen Deborah Ashenhurst, the only female adjutant general in the country, who will join the team this weekend to help celebrate the key role females play in the military.

“We’ve been very fortunate to see up close how integral females are in the National Guard and we’re excited to recognize their effort with the pink camo No. 4 car this weekend,” Panther owner John Barnes said. “Our friend Gen. Ashenhurst is one of the best military leaders in the country and a perfect representation of the role females play in the military. I also want to thank everybody at Firestone for helping us out with this effort and creating a pink sidewall tire for the weekend.”

The team debuted a pink camo car in 2011 at Kentucky Speedway and brought the popular livery back at Mid-Ohio last year after Ashenhurst was named adjutant general. The car’s design has remained similar until Firestone jumped in to add the pink tires to the mix.

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The next IZOD IndyCar Series race is the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Aug. 4 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The race will be televised live at 3 p.m. (ET) by NBC Sports Network and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network, including on Sirius and XM Channels 211, www.indycar.com and the INDYCAR 13 App for most smartphones and tablets. The next Firestone Indy Lights race is the Mid-Ohio 100 on Aug. 4 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The race will be televised by NBC Sports Network at 2 p.m.