Dan Wheldon won at Homestead last weekend. One reporter
says it made the other drivers sad:
"I could stay with Dan early on, but as soon he got that gap, I couldn't quite get back the time," said Hornish, a three-time series champion. "It's unfortunate for the Team Penske crew, but I said we'd be happy if we came out of here with a top-three and we did that. We'll move on to our next race and see what we can do."Dan's performance reminded me of a few years ago when I was able to put a lap on the field here at Homestead," Hornish added. "That was a great feeling, but we have some work to do to catch up right now."
Wheldon's engineer, Andy Brown says how easy it was to beat the field:
"The history of the IRL has always been dictated by the way the rules put a lot of downforce in the cars," he said. "That's what makes for such great racing. The minimum downforce that the IRL specifies is more than enough to get around the track, but at Homestead, that wasn't the case. The old track in particular was very flat with not much banking and whilst the minimum downforce levels were great for qualifying, we always felt there was no way you could race like that. "People would kind of put their hands on their mouths and laugh at us when they saw our wing angles and our wickers, but tires got hot, the track gets hot and we just sort of drove away from everybody."
The next race is this Sunday in St. Petersburg, Florida.