Huertas Wins Houston Grand Prix Race 1
{fshare id=5295}
HOUSTON — It was Colombia’s day in racing, too.
Just after the national soccer team beat Uruguay 2-0 in the World Cup, three Colombian drivers finished 1-2-3 in the Verizon IndyCar Series’ Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston.
Carlos Huertas, a series rookie, won for the first time, holding off Juan Pablo Montoya and Carlos Munoz.
Huertas was preparing for a one-lap shootout, but it never came because Graham Rahal ran into the back of Tony Kanaan coming to the flag. Rahal was penalized for the move.
Another Colombian factored into the finish. Sebastian Saavedra’s spin (with a rear hit from Ryan Briscoe) brought out the caution with only four minutes left in the race, which was put on the clock by heavy early rain.
Huertas thought he had put himself in position to win ahead of the caution, then was disappointed about what happened behind him.
“I was like, ‘I have to do this again,'” he said.
The three countrymen touted the historic day.
“It’s unbelievable; it’s really exciting,” Montoya said.
“Great for our country,” Huertas said.
Huertas’ team owner, Dale Coyne, jokingly asked if the soccer team could play again Sunday when
IndyCar stages its second race of the weekend on the 10-turn, 1.6-mile street circuit around the iconic Astrodome.
The rain began a half-hour before the race, forcing IndyCar to declare a wet start, which meant that all cars had to use rain tires. With the parking lot circuit about as wet as it could be, most feared the standing start would be a disaster. It wasn’t.
Takuma Sato tried to squeeze between second-row starters James Hinchcliffe and rookie Luca Filippi, and they all made contact. Somehow, they escaped without damage, and it didn’t take long for Sato, who has considerable wet-condition experience in Formula One, to get to the lead, passing Filippi, Hinchcliffe, Ryan Hunter-Reay and pole-sitter Simon Pagenaud.
Sato’s move to the lead came in Turn 5, a bold inside-out pass on Pagenaud, who claimed the No. 1 starting spot for the first time in his IndyCar career. Sato had started sixth.
Rahal’s car was the only one not to launch properly from the standing start. That immediately put him in the back of the field after qualifying 14th in the morning session.
Marco Andretti had early troubles, too. He took contact from Munoz, his Andretti Autosport teammate, approaching the Turn 1 rumble strip. and turned Andretti’s car around. After pitting, he fell to the back of the 23-car field. Meanwhile, Munoz was penalized for avoidable contact.
Andretti was later penalized for ignoring an IndyCar order to allow Sato, the race leader, to pass him (Andretti’s car was too slow in that case). Maybe it was worth it to Andretti’s team because Hinchcliffe, his teammate, was able to shave most of Sato’s four-second lead. Hinchcliffe then got the lead with a quick pit stop under green.
A few cars found the wall, starting with rookie Mikhail Aleshin (a wiggle that led to nose-first contact), Saavedra and Mike Conway (driving Ed Carpenter’s car). Conway’s contact with the tire barrier drew the race’s first full-course caution at Lap 29.
Sato was chasing Hinchcliffe after the restart, only to have Aleshin, who was a lap down, challenge him from the right side. Whether Sato expected the move or if he moved down on the Russian, the result was contact that knocked both cars out.
On the live television broadcast, Sato’s team owner, the legendary A.J. Foyt, dropped an uncensored assessment, calling them “blank idiots.”
There was contact aplenty. Josef Newgarden and Filippi hit the Turn 10 wall coming to restarts. Later, reigning series champion Scott Dixon ran wide in Turn 9, hit the wall and collected Pagenaud and Charlie Kimball. Still, 40 minutes remained of what was determined to be a timed race.
Huertas, who had never led a lap in IndyCar, became the seventh different winner in nine races this season. He’ll get another chance Sunday in the second race in Houston.
