The Mayor stays patient, works up the field to a fifth-place finish

The Schmidt Peterson racing team had its moments at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the 13th leg of the 2016 Verizon IndyCar season. Mikhail Aleshin led for almost half the race, until a pit lane accident took him out of contention, and James Hinchcliffe stayed out of trouble throughout, slipping into fifth on the last lap for a creditable result on a difficult afternoon. Some 10 laps earlier, he was running 11th.

Meanwhile, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power bumped and nudged and fought tooth and nail, with Pagenaud coming on top to win the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Sunday and became the first driver to accumulate four victories in 2016.

The 90-lap race (203.22 miles) on the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course with its changing elevations was hotly contested from the start, especially for The Mayor who survived a close call with Alexander Rossi on Turn 9 of the first lap. Hinchcliffe had started ninth on the grid and dropped back to 12th and stayed at mid-field in the running order until late in the race.

Even the end was problematic as the No. 5 Arrow Electronics car barely made the checkered flag before the fuel ran out. The Mayor had to leave the car on the track and walk back to pit lane.

In the race, however, patience bore out, The Mayor said.

“We got back on the red tires in the third stint and it really started to come to us. We picked off some guys in pit cycles and then picked off some guys on track in the last stint. We didn’t catch either of the lucky yellows, we had to earn it, but after falling to the back of the line for a pit-lane speed violation, which was one hundred percent my fault, we raced our way back up to a top five. Great work in the pits and I’m happy for everyone at Arrow, and at Honda at one of their home races. “ He expressed sympathy for teammate Mikhail Aleshin’s misfortune as he nudged the incoming Josef Newgarden as he was exiting pit lane, costing him precious seconds.

“It was a tough break for Mikhail and the No. 7 crew but it shows that we have the pace as a team and hopefully we can prove that moving forward.” His teammate was taciturn. “I think the incident was unfortunate. I don’t want to discuss it though. I want to just say that sometimes these things happen in the race and we’re ready to win but we just got a little bit unlucky today.” Aleshin preferred to talk about what went right for the team, and not what went wrong.

Everything augurs well for Schmidt Peterson’s next race.

The Verizon IndyCar series takes a long break now, not returning to action until August 21 with the ABC Supply 500 at the Pocono Raceway, and then another six days afterward (Aug. 27) with the re-run of the Firestone 600 at the Texas Motor Speedway.

Contact:

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