Andretti Autosport Race Report: Grand Prix of St. Pete

RYAN HUNTER-REAY | NO. 28 DHL HONDA

• Racing for Cancer co-founder brought the DHL Honda home in the seventh position

• 2014 Grand Prix of St. Pete podium finisher started today's race from the eighth position but fell back as far as 19th after running wide on the opening lap to avoid contact with a competitor

“I think that was the hardest seventh-place finish I’ve seen. That’s how it is sometimes, when you have bad days you have to bring home solid top 10s. We feel back to like 18th or 19th after the issue at the start with Bourdais; we rebounded nicely, but to be honest I think that's about the car we had today — a sixth or seventh place car at best. We’ll take the top 10 and move ahead with the DHL car for New Orleans.”

MARCO ANDRETTI | NO. 27 SNAPPLE HONDA

• American racer started today's season opener 12th on grid

• Today's 10th-place finish marked the 75th IndyCar career top-10 finish for the third-generation racer

“Honestly it was the hardest fought 10th of my career. Sort of just different balances all the time — three problem cars in every corner. We were really on top of the race track, but we’ll work to figure things out sooner rather than later." CARLOS MUÑOZ | NO. 26 ANDRETTITV/CINSAY HONDA

• Colombian qualified 14th for today's 110-lap race on the 1.8-mile temporary street circuit

• Early on the 23-year-old was forced to make an unexpected pit stop to replace his front wing following an incident, but came to the twin checkers in P14

“It wasn’t a good race with everything that happened. I smashed my front wing, and I wasn’t really good in the restarts, so that was part of it all. We weren’t really there the whole weekend, so we have to work hard for New Orleans.” SIMONA DE SILVESTRO | NO. 25 ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HONDA

• Swiss racer rolled off the grid from the 11th position for her Verizon IndyCar Series comeback event

• Following a series of on-track incidents and required pit stops, the 2010 IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year finished in the 18th position

“The incident with Carlos (Muñoz) kind of started the whole downhill of our day. We lost a lot of pace after that incident and then we were kind of behind the ball a little bit. At the end, you just kind of keep going – you adapt to it (how the car changes after an incident). Then, it was unfortunate with (James) Jakes; he seemed to brake really early into the last turn and I couldn’t really avoid him. "We finished – it's definitely not the day we wanted. I think we were expecting much more, just a lot of things that went wrong during the race and could never really settle except towards the very end. Not the greatest day in the race car. I think it’s been a positive weekend; we showed that we had the pace, which is a good thing for sure. Not racing for a year and a half, you can feel that, especially when you passing people – it’s like, okay, I haven’t done that in a while. It’s okay – I don’t think I’m really happy with it, but we finished the race and it’s experience we’re going to take on if we do more races together."

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