Vitor Meira Drives from Last to 10th But…
SURFERS PARADISE, Australia Oct. 26, 2008 — Vitor Meira drove
an impressive race in the No. 14 ABC Supply car despite some
adversity in the Nikon Indy 300 on the streets of Surfers Paradise
Sunday afternoon.
Meira qualified 11th and started alongside Mario Moraes.
On the opening lap, Moraes forced his way to the inside of Meira
going through the first chicane. The two made contact with Meira
sustaining a left rear tire puncture. Moraes continued on but five
laps later, he hit the wall and spun, ending his day.
“Moraes tried to pass me after the second corner in a chicane where
there was clearly nowhere to pass and took us out,” said Meira. “I
was really being careful but some things you can’t control. I was so
mad because I had an awesome car. If that hadn’t happened, we would
have had at least a 7th but coulda, woulda, shoulda doesn’t really
matter.”
Meira pitted to fix the tire and dropped to last on the grid.
Through pit strategy, the ABC Supply team enabled Meira to move up
through the field. He ran as high as seventh on lap 41 as pit stop
cycles began and was a solid tenth after the pit stops had cycled
out.
Unfortunately, the team miscalculated on the final pit stop and
Meira ran out of fuel with half a lap to go. He placed 14th.
“It was disappointing but I look at it this way, we came from dead
last and fought our way back to tenth, even if we didn’t finish
there,” said Meira. “The amount of fuel that we were short wasn’t
significant--half a second’s worth, half a lap. Overall the team did
a good job with the strategy.
“This race gave us the opportunity to learn about things we can do
better. There were things that we found out to do to the car that if
the race ran tomorrow, we’d run faster. Now we have some things we
can work on over the winter, so I think everyone is happy with what
we learned from running this race. We’re excited about next year.”
Australian Ryan Briscoe became the first Aussie to win the race in
the 18 years it has run. Fellow Aussie and three-time Surfers pole
winner Will Power made a mistake while leading and brushed the wall,
taking himself out of the race after 16 laps. Second through fifth
were IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, 2003 Surfers winner Ryan Hunter-Reay,
Alex Tagliani and 2005 Surfers pole winner Oriol Servia.
The drivers’ final obligation for the 2008 season is to attend the
IndyCar Awards Dinner which takes place Nov. 5th in Las Vegas.
Vitor Meira to start 11th
in Nikon Indy 300
SURFERS PARADISE, Australia Oct. 25, 2008—Vitor Meira
qualified the No. 14 ABC Supply car in the 11th spot Saturday
afternoon for the Nikon Indy 300.
With the Indy cars divided into two groups of 12, Meira was in the
first group which ran for 20 minutes on a wet track. Meira ran as
high as first in the group but when that session ended he was third
quickest—quick enough to advance to the next group.
“It was very difficult... you never knew what the next corner was
going to be like,” said Meira.
The next session – also a group of 12 (six quickest from each of the
first two groups) ran for 15 minutes on a track that was dry in some
areas and wet in others.
“I went out on wets then came right back to the pits... I don't know
what the others did, but it was very clear that the track was going
to be dry quick, so I came in as fast as I could,” said Meira who
then posted a lap that was second quickest.
He was third quickest when Mario Moraes spun and it appeared that he
might make it to the Firestone Fast Six but with less than four
minutes remaining the track went green again.
“It was a complicated time... I didn't have a lot of time but I had
to build a gap for a clear lap too. That’s why I tried to keep E.J.
Viso behind me. Still, I never got an ok lap in. I think I could be
starting around 8th or 7th if I had had one more lap.”
Will Power won his third straight pole position. Scott Dixon, Ryan
Briscoe, 1999 race winner Dario Franchitti, 2003 race winner Ryan
Hunter-Reay and Helio Castroneves rounded out the top six.
With sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s predicted for race
day, Meira knows that rain won’t be a factor. When asked about
strategy, he replied, “The trick is to stay out of trouble and
position ourselves for the last pit stop since we think it is going
to be a timed race.”
The race will be televised live on ESPN Classic starting at 10:30pm
ET Saturday night.
Notes & Quotes: Nikon Indy 300 at Surfers
Paradise
 Vitor
Meira: No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda
• Vitor Meira will make his debut in the No. 14 and at Surfers
Paradise: Vitor Meira will make his first start ever in the No.
14 ABC Supply Dallara in his first appearance ever in the Surfers
Paradise IndyCar race on the Gold Coast circuit north of Brisbane.
Meira spoke to fellow Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi (whose best
Australia finish of 3rd came in 1998) about the circuit.
“He gave me some pointers,” said Meira. “He said it’s a very
demanding race track for the car because you are constantly running
on the curbs and the circuit has pretty fast chicanes. Because of
the chicanes and curbs, the car’s bouncing around all the time—you
have to hit the same spot every time. But you’re going pretty fast –
it’s got 4th gear and high 3rd gear chicanes so it’s really fast.
Because the track is rough, it’s one more complication. When the car
bounces up, the wheels are off the ground so that’s a big
complication right there. On a smooth race track, you just have to
be worried about braking and the car sliding. On a bumpy race track,
sometimes the best line is not the line that theoretically appears
to be the best—but the one where you can avoid the bumps so it
narrows down the margin of error even more. But Christian said he
likes the track and I bet I will too.”
• Meira’s Goals in Australia: “I think the goal is to really
get to know the team – that’s the primary goal and getting the Foyt
team to know me. By that I mean, knowing where we’re at on set-ups
in relation to the others and then figuring out what we can do to
make it better. For example, pitstops— if the race pitstops are not
good, what can we do to make them better? I need to learn about the
team overall and the team needs to learn me so we can nail down all
the projects for the winter. That’s the main goal. If we accomplish
that, we’ll be good but accomplishing that with a top-10 finish to
be realistic—that would be even better. So those are my primary
goals—a top 10 finish and learning about the team.” •
Houston Motorsports Ranch Shakedown Test: Meira did a
shakedown run in the No.14 car during the “ABC Supply Day at the
Track” at the 2.4-mile road course outside of Houston on Oct. 8th.
“Testing was very good,” said Meira. “The car behaved
beautifully—there were no surprises which is very good news, not
having any ‘Whoa, What’s that?’ is good. The car felt very
comfortable to me and that’s awesome. I didn’t push it for speed—I
tried a little bit but not knowing the track—because you have to
know what the car really does--you have to go far into braking and
sliding the car which I didn’t do. It obviously wasn’t like a normal
testing day but I tried a couple corners, safe corners that I knew
even if I made a mistake that the car wouldn’t be hurt. I didn’t
want to take any chances because that was the car we were going to
go to Australia with so I pushed a little in some corners but mostly
not.”
• Past Performance at Surfers Paradise: A.J. Foyt’s team had
been to Surfers Paradise four times in the early 90s. In their first
appearance in 1992, Swiss driver Gregor Foitek started 13th but
dropped out after a tire puncture, placing 21st. In 1993, Robby
Gordon qualified fourth and finished third. In 1994, Davy Jones
dropped out with a broken transmission to place 19th and in 1995,
Eddie Cheever started 17th and finished 7th for the Foyt team’s
final appearance Down Under until this year. A.J. Foyt did not
travel to Australia this week but will be following his team’s
progress via the Internet and telephone communication.
• The Nikon Indy 300 will be shown live at 10:30 p.m. ET
Saturday night, October 25 on ESPN Classic; the race will be
re-aired on ESPN 2 Sunday night, Oct 26th at 11 pm ET.
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