Post Race: Zolder

I wish I had a teammate to help me out at the front – Robert Doornbos. Post-race press conference quote.

He was talking about how Rahal and Pagenaud helped their respective teammates by either letting them go or getting in the way of Bobby D. He didn’t entirely blame his result on that, but it sure made him sour.

Bourdais aside, the story of the day was definitely Bruno Junquiera, who had one of the most up and down weekends of his career. He’s running well, and then suffers a mishap in the pits and suddenly it looks pretty bleak for the Brazilian. But the team decides to gamble and with some incredible driving Bruno comes home with a 2nd place. Bruno told me in his post race interview that it was so gratifying for the team, a team that has 4 or 5 guys while everybody has 10 or more. I bet they are partying tonight!

It was nice to see Graham Rahal up there too, his 3rd podium since Edmonton when the team went into that event re-focused. Things are obviously working for the 18 year old and its nice to see his talented engineer Todd Malloy have some success, as he deserves it. Graham is learning with every lap he turns. If you are NHL racing, do you give him the number 1 seat? Or do you let him develop with the number 2? Either way, the post-Bourdais future looks good for NHL.

Jan Heylen lost his 7th gear early and on a track when you are on it 3 times, you just can’t possibly do well. Not to mention the miscue he had with his team, who told him he needed to be in the pits as he was crossing the start-finish line. When I spoke to him afterwards, he was happy with the Zolder event in general. You can tell that this race means so much to him, as a proud Belgian. He did everything he could to promote it and it’s near and dear to his heart. I think he’s happy with the overall event. He was also very happy for Dale Coyne, his former employer.

The set up of the track was very cool in the sense of where the spectators chose to park themselves for the race. The grandstands were packed, no question about it, but it was all the people standing for 2 hours along the front straight and around the first corner. It was very neat to see.