Verizon IndyCar Series drivers for Dale Coyne Racing, Sebastien Bourdais and Zachary Claman De Melo, have both finished the most recent race at Barber Motorsports Park with worse results than they were hoping for. Both drivers showcased impressive speed during the race, which was held over Sunday and Monday, but neither got to the chequered flag where they felt they should have been.
For Bourdais, it was a case of what might have been. The Frenchman qualified his #18 Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan Honda in a superb third place on Saturday and took over second place when Team Penske‘s Will Power crashed on a race restart on Sunday. Following the race’s postponement to Monday, Bourdais would hold off a brief challenge from Andretti Autosport‘s Ryan Hunter-Reay in the first few laps, before the team elected to make a strategic gamble to try and complete the race on one stop, as opposed to race-leader Josef Newgarden‘s two-stop strategy.
Bourdais’ strategy might well have worked, had it not been for yet more rain hitting the circuit with just under twenty minutes left to run. Newgarden’s second stop has been timed well enough to coincide with the change in conditions, so he was running on wet tyres. Bourdais, however, was on dry tyres, but he had over ten seconds in hand to Newgarden and just needed to try and hold on. The conditions, however, would worsen in the closing laps, forcing Bourdais to relinquish his lead and make an extra stop for wet tyres.
The late pit-stop would put Bourdais back out on track down in fifth place. He only just managed to hold on to that position too, with Chip Ganassi Racing‘s Scott Dixon almost passing him on the last lap only to miss out by just a tenth of a second in a drag race to the finish. Fifth place may have been a solid result with decent championship points as a reward, but Bourdais was left disappointed to have missed out on a potential race win due to the rain:
“It was just a tough day for the SealMaster Honda No. 18 team,” Bourdais said after the race, “It was looking perfect. We executed the plan to perfection. I started on scuffed Firestone red [alternate] tires, so we had a lot of tire degradation, but were still able to save more fuel than almost everyone. Josef [Newgarden] went for the push and it looked like we were still going to beat him because he pitted the second time and we got ahead.
“I had enough fuel to finish, but unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to open the skies and there wasn’t anything we could do about that. We tried to stay out and it bit us. On top of that, when we put on the wet tires, I don’t know what happened but the car was diabolical. I couldn’t do anything. I barely kept Scott [Dixon] behind me. I gave it my best shot, the guys did a good job, but it wasn’t enough. Everyone is executing perfectly.
“Unfortunately, you can’t predict what the weather is going to do, so you have to make a call one way or the other and we were on the wrong side of the fence today. The good news is we finished fifth and keep putting ourselves in position. Our pace is good and we are in the championship mix.”
Credit: Joe Skibinski / Courtesy of IndyCar
Sebastian’s team-mate, Claman De Melo, had a much more difficult race. During one of the red flag periods on Sunday, the Canadian – who qualified sixteenth – was awarded a two-lap penalty after his team were judged to have conducted unapproved work on the car.
He remained two laps down for the rest of the race on Monday, but that did not stop him from putting on a show. He tried his best to un-lap himself from the lead-lap cars, pulling off sensational passes on veteran drivers such as Simon Pagenaud, Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti; who was less than pleased with the rookie, labelling him an “idiot” on the team radio and on social media post-race. De Melo also had an impressive battle with Spencer Pigot, with the pair making contact at turn eight that lasted for several seconds, miraculously without either driver retiring from the race.
Sadly for De Melo, his march through the field wouldn’t result in him gaining back some of the laps he lost. He would, unfortunately, finish down in nineteenth place as the last classified finisher, but he certainly made a statement with his driving; especially as he managed to set the fastest lap of the race.
“With the two-lap penalty that we received yesterday, we knew we were already at a disadvantage,” said De Melo, “So, the main goal today was to show my race craft aboard the No. 19 Paysafe car, show that my pace was there and to show that if we would have been on the lead lap that we could have definitely fought for a top 10 position. I think we did that with how I was able to pass other cars on a track that is known to be difficult for passing.
“We had good pace, and the fastest race lap, so it was a positive weekend overall even if it didn’t go our way.”
The team will next be in action at the fifth round of the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on May 12. Bourdais will once again be joined by De Melo in the sister car, with the Canadian handing back over to Pietro Fittipaldi for the following round, the Indianapolis 500.
