St. Pete: TGTBaTU

[EagleEye]

The Good

A great win for Hinch, and it was a very popular victory. Many more to come from him and the team andit was great to see him honor GM and DW.

Simona showed why she is considered one of the best racersin the series and not because she is female. She is the anti-Danica, in that she has the respect of her peers due toher ability and the hard work she puts into her craft.

Marco Andretti looked like…Al Unser Jr in driving a steadyrace, and being aggressive when he needed to be. A mistake free race, which should help buildhis confidence. The entire Andretti Autosportteam is clicking on all cylinders.

Will Power, practice through qualifying, is just amazing atwhat he can do with a car. His rawtalent and speed are incredible.

Sato/Foyt. They didnot get the result they wanted, but Larry Foyt deserves a lot of the credit fordirecting things quietly behind the scenes.
Tristan Vaultier is good. Really good. Really, really good.

Team-mates battling for position without team orders andwithout crashing others out.[

Mark C’s reports from the track. It makes a huge difference when someone is atan event, and Mark’s updates were awesome.

The Bad

Vaultier’s retirement and his team’s poor showing overall. I expect them to bounce back at Barber.


Dario’s mistake was a rarity but a big one for theteam. Not the best of weekends for theteam, but I think they too will be back at Barber.

Honda’s drivability issues for some teams. The rumor is the Chevy can put the power downbetter on corner exit, which showed. Afew, (Sato, Vaultier) were able to compensate. Honda might be focusing their development on that big race in May, likelast year.

Graham Rahal, your career is spiraling out of control! Imagine the horror of being out qualified at LongBeach by Jakes and Conway! Lesstweeting, less social events and spend more time with your engineers and your driving![

The Ugly

Will Powers luck. Ihave not seen one person get hit by so many different people over the last fewyears. Riding along in third place, hegets rear ended by a car that is a lap down! My pick to win at Barber

JR WTF? A hugemistake! Bad enough to take yourselfout, but really ugly to take out a car that is a lap up on you. Any more like this and we might yet seeBriscoe in this car.

The Indycar starts/restarts continue to be horrible! Get them lined up, and then wave the green! How many old races from pre-1995 do I have towatch to see that it can be done. Standing starts can’t come fast enough!

[Jag_Warrior]

I could not be happier that Hinch won that race. He's the one guy who I've wanted to see notch a victory for some time.

[Chris R]

The Good:
Hinch, Simona, Marco. Good racing when it was green. Good TV coverage

The Bad: Power's luck.

The Ugly: The length of the cautions. Hildebrand, Francitti, and Rahal (EE is right - he needs to do what Marco did over the winter or he is toast...)

[EagleEye]

The Ugly: The length of the cautions. Hildebrand, Francitti, and Rahal (EE is right - he needs to do what Marco did over the winter or he is toast...)

Amen, and leaving other carbon fiber bits on the course was not too smart.

[Anubis]

The good :-

Nice to be racing again
A GoDaddy car getting coverage through deserved means...
Simona proving she has the talent given equipment that isn't breaking down or catching fire

The bad :-

Too long to deal with fairly minor incidents under yellow
Sato slipping back through the field, although doing so without crashing into things is probably to be considered progress
Vautier being denied a good finish

The ugly :-

Hildebrand. What the hell? Actionable by the series?
By extension, wheel guards not doing their job?

[FIAT1]

The bad :-

The ugly :-


By extension, wheel guards not doing their job?

Agree and they make Indycar look like a bumper car.

[heliocastroneves#3]

The good

Well, it was a very entertaining race, lot's of things happened. I was supporting Simona de Silvestro to get the podium finish but I believe it will be nothing more but a matter of time until she's going to visit the podium or even Victory Lane. Hinchcliffe taking the win was a great thing and despite the fact that it was just a matter of time, until he would get his maiden victory, it always comes as a surprise to me when we get a new winner.

The bad

Simon Pagenaud, Dario Franchitti and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Even before their mechanical issues/accident, they were disappointing me as I expected them to be way more up front. Although it's great to see both the reigning IndyCar and Indy 500 champions struggling with pace as well, that shows how competitive this series is at the moment.

The ugly

Definitely the incident between J.R. Hildebrand and Will Power, I do not say this very often but I called Hildebrand an "idiot"... Okay, the leaders were suddenly slowing down heavily in front of J.R. but c'mon... When you're driving those machines you'd need to be very alert, otherwise it's impossible to drive those race cars. I felt very sorry for Will Power and I hope J.R. will be more alert next time.. Let's hope that he has learned from this, at least he was human enough to walk to Power and to apologize for his stupidity, right after the race.

[Starter]

Definitely the incident between J.R. Hildebrand and Will Power, I do not say this very often but I called Hildebrand an "idiot"... Okay, the leaders were suddenly slowing down heavily in front of J.R. but c'mon... When you're driving those machines you'd need to be very alert, otherwise it's impossible to drive those race cars. I felt very sorry for Will Power and I hope J.R. will be more alert next time.. Let's hope that he has learned from this, at least he was human enough to walk to Power and to apologize for his stupidity, right after the race.
Agreed, but I have to give Hildebrand some credit for fessing up to it. He accepted full responsibility and there are other drivers who would have tried to blame someone else. Really stupid move but some of the minus points neutralized by being honest.

[heliocastroneves#3]

Agreed, but I have to give Hildebrand some credit for fessing up to it. He accepted full responsibility and there are other drivers who would have tried to blame someone else. Really stupid move but some of the minus points neutralized by being honest.
I'd agree with you and I'd give him credit for the fact that he accepted full responsibility for the accident but for someone who started his third IndyCar season, nearly won the Indy 500 and who was also running a lap down.... Well, it's quite an idiotic accident but on the other side, they're all humans and humans do make mistakes.

[mr_swiss]

Next to the above mentioned, I'll add Leigh Diffey to the good and the live ticker during the pre- and post-race show to the ugly (was going to watch the F1 race after St. Pete)

The Hildebrand incident would make a good prevention commercial against texting and driving.

[Nikki Katz]

Worst bit for me was my recorder stopping on the penultimate lap, gah! I take it Hinchcliffe won?

Slightly disappointed by the lack of sanctions thrown against Hildebrand in that race - prior to the accident he twice passed under yellow but seemed to get away with it for long enough to take out a car that was a lap ahead?

[GRW1983]

The Good: James Hinchcliffe getting his 1st win, strong showing from Simona all weekend, Vautier has huge potential, Sato was racy as usual, good comebacks from Dixon and Viso and Andretti living up to his name on a street track for once. The Bad: JR Hildebrand, running for about 30 laps under caution (why do they take so long???), Dario, RHR and Power for their eventual finishing positions, DW12 reliability issues. The Ugly: The fact that Honda/Chevy are still struggling to implement anti-stall. Hildebrand's 1st incident and Ana Beatriz stalling bringing out an unnecessary yellow, Newgarden (clutch) and Servia (gearbox) with problems and a few others struggling to get off pit road. For someone who can't wait for the standing starts, I'm starting to worry if they will have the anti-stall sorted by the time we have our 1st standing start at Toronto, otherwise things could get very messy!!!

[jimispeed]

The Good: Simona.......wow!!!! The last 50 laps......wow!! The Commentary!!

The Bad: Yellows (although they are inevetible) Hildebrand.....whaat?

The Ugly: Hildebrand........KAPOOYA!!! KAPOOYA!!!

[EagleEye]

Leaving PT off the previous winners for St. Pete, was a slap in the face. No excuse, and Indycar needs to apologize for this error.

[zako85]

I always thought in 2012 she could do better than results of that Lotus (under)powered car suggested. She was very brave to keep racing against the odds. I hope she continues running in front in 2013.