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Honda Power Failure Leaves Teams Wondering Where To Go From Here

Conor Daly's day ended before the green flag. [Mark Walczak Photo]

Conor Daly’s day ended before the green flag. [Mark Walczak Photo]

Indianapolis—After being dominated by Chevrolet in the opening rounds of the INDYCAR season Honda hoped to get its teams back on track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

After all, the company was shooting for its eleventh win in its last 12 attempts at the Brickyard on Memorial Day. Despite the disappointing on-track results, a Chevy gaffe gave Honda a 95-point lead in the engine manufacturer’s race going in.

And there’s double points for the Indianapolis 500.

Those well-drawn plans, which included an innovative aerodynamics package that drew from years of racing experience worldwide, never came to fruition.

And even though it was Chevrolet that suffered the most angst over its flying fleet of fast cars, it feels like Honda is the one hanging the crepe in the wake of a crushing performance by the bow-tie over their Nippon rivals on Sunday at Indianapolis.

Honda Performance Development president Art St. Cyr began the long Memorial weekend on Friday responding to questions about the accident Canadian James Hinchcliffe, an extremely popular young driver, suffered.

“It’s the first real serious accident that we’ve been involved in,” he said. Cyr made two visits to Hinchcliffe’s bedside within two days as the driver’s condition improved from critical to stable after a serious leg injury and bleeding.

Then Cyr spent the rest of the time assessing the damage a late rules-change precipitated by the airborne Chevrolet machines that Honda suffered as collateral damage, using detailed facts and impressively large figures on computer fluid dynamics, simulations and wind-tunnel time—not to mention people, at one time deploying over 50 engineers to the grounds of Gasoline Alley—that were purposed to one thing: win at Indy.

“The most unfortunate thing is we spent a lot of time working on those aero kits,” he went on, “especially the speedway aero kits. We feel that we were affected more than we expected to be affected by the rules change.”

“We think as much as technologically possible, we developed a vehicle that was better in just about every aspect from a stability standpoint than the DW12 that it replaced,” he concluded.

Fast-forward to Memorial Day evening and the only comment that’s likely appro po from the Honda-powered teams is “What have you done for me lately, partner?”

It’s never been a secret that Honda put its best foot forward and its most abundant energy into the super-speedway aero package.

As often happens in racing, you make a plan and one lap later it’s back to the drawing board.

The day got off to a bad start when Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver Connor Daly, a young up and coming local from Noblesville, IN failed to complete a single lap, the victim of a blown Honda racing engine on the parade lap.

It bears noting that Cyr, three days earlier, declared that, “”The key to success is not to have engine problems. Just put gas in the car and go.”

Halfway through the race it looked like Honda could insert itself into the contest with a heady, fuel-conserving, tire-saving strategy as Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti circulated easily around the big oval in fifth and sixth, and easily within striking distance of the Penske and Ganassi slugfest ongoing at the point.

A late field-clearing accident and long yellow flag period wrought those plans moot, as the Chevy crew reloaded with fuel and were ready for a full-setting “rich” sprint to the finish when competition resumed on Lap 185.

The result was a seven-car Chevrolet-powered top ten at the Indy 500, with Honda stalwart Graham Rahal taking fifth to lead the brand’s efforts. Marco Andretti was sixth and that’s as good as Honda could do.

Probable Rookie of the Year and highest-placed newcomer finisher Gabby Chavez in the Bryan Herta Autosports Dallara/Honda said, “We were underpowered and under-paced compared to those Chevy guys.”

“The Chevy was just unfortunately in a league of its own on horsepower,” said Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Rahal glumly in the post-race press conference. “I was happy we finished where we did.”

He described the chase at one point as near hopeless, of trying to finish close, finishing tops among the Honda-powered cars, keeping his championship campaign alive.

“I have the most confidence in Honda and HPD,” he said in assessment of what lies ahead for the team and its engine partner. “We’ve got to find some horsepower and drivability.”

“At the end of the day everybody is working as hard as they can. It’s more testament to the folks and Pratt and Whitney—how smart they are.”

He paused for a moment and delivered the blow to Honda as gently as he could: “It’s definitely not the easiest year so far but we’re gonna keep trying.”

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