INDYCARNATION

Share |

Drivers meet during the red flag.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil -- Persistent rain, poor visibility on the 2.536-mile, 11-turn street course and approaching dusk forced postponement of the Itaipava São Paulo Indy 300 presented by Nestle until 8:05 a.m. (ET) May 2.

The scheduled 75-lap race will resume on Lap 15. Pole sitter Will Power and Team Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe will take the green flag from the front row. Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal will be on Row 2 and Dario Franchitti and Marco Andretti will share Row 3.

There's 1 hour, 19 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in the two-hour race window. The last IZOD IndyCar Series race postponed because of weather was in March 2010 at St. Petersburg, Fla. -- won by Power.

VERSUS will carry the conclusion of the race live (8 a.m. ET), and live Timing & Scoring with the corresponding IMS Radio Network call is available on indycar.com.

“It’s disappointing to have to postpone any event, but especially one that we anticipated to be such a great event,” said Brian Barnhart, president of competition and racing operations for INDYCAR, sanctioning body of the IZOD IndyCar Series.

“The city of São Paulo did an outstanding job on improving a circuit that produced 96 passes for position a year ago and had a lot of on-track action, but ultimately it came down to a visibility issue and safety for our competitors is a priority.

“We thank the city and state of São Paulo, the event promoter and track workers for their efforts to dry the track. Hopefully, the great racing fans in Brazil who came will come back (May 2) and fill the grandstands for the great event they came to see.”

Grandstands will be open free of charge.

Rain started about 30 minutes before the command, with the first of two red flags being waved after nine were completed. Twenty-six cars took the green flag and 26 returned to the circuit following the 2-hour, 23-minute suspension. The race resumed under yellow, but Barnhart called the drivers back to pit lane five laps later.

It was the second consecutive year that rain brought out the red flag. Showers moved into the Anhembi section of the city about 30 minutes before the command, creating a wet start. Barnhart instructed teams to start the race on the Firestone Firehawk rain tires, and the two-lap alternate tire race rule was suspended.

The wet start created havoc on the first green flag lap and on Lap 9 -- both of which brought out full-course cautions. On the start, the cars of Helio Castroneves, Simona de Silvestro and Danica Patrick collided in Turn 2, with the No. 82 car of Tony Kanaan clipping the right side of Patrick's car.

"Things like that happen on a start in a place like this in the rain; cars can’t see coming into Turn 1 and there’s no room for error," said Patrick, who started 17th in the Team GoDaddy car.

Also on the start, the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car of Patrick's Andretti Autosport teammate, Ryan Hunter-Reay (who started on the front row), didn't make the left-hand Turn 1 and plowed into the tire barrier of the runoff. The car was extricated by the Holmatro Safety team and continued. But on the Lap 6 restart, the car spun and made contact with the concrete barrier, knocking the rear wing off its moorings. He was able to continue to pit lane.

"The rain tires have some grip but they're not magic," Patrick said.

On Lap 9, the No. 14 ABC Supply car of Vitor Meira spun in Turn 11 and made right-rear contact with the concrete barrier.

“Halfway through the main straight on the lap that I crashed, I felt a bump," said Meira, who was running seventh. "I don’t know what I hit because I couldn’t see anything at all. And then I had no brakes at all. I tried to slow it down by downshifting but obviously I had no control. Later, we saw that whatever debris I hit, it cut the brake line."

Teams were allowed to work -- and for some repair -- their cars in the garage during the first red flag. The time allowed the A.J. Foyt Racing crew to get Meira back on the track. He'll re-start two laps down.

“It was impossible to race,” Meira said. “Believe me, we tried. Everyone wanted to race today but we couldn’t. But we’ll get it done tomorrow … weather permitting.”