IndyCar Season Review: Vitor Meira

Vitor Meira showed a lot of heart by returning to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2010.

In 2009, his season was ended prematurely after a major wreck in the Indianapolis 500 broke two vertebrae in his lower back. The Brazilian, who had made 97 career IndyCar starts without a win, was not a lock to return to A.J. Foyt Enterprises.

But the immortal A.J. Foyt, after going through a revolving door of replacements the rest of that season, retained his driver for 2010, hoping once again to put together the team's best season in recent memory. Immediately Meira paid back his owner's loyalty.

Meira scored a third-place finish at Sao Paulo, making him the highest finishing Brazilian driver in his home country. An emotional Meira wore a Brazilian flag on the podium to celebrate. He then led 12 laps in the next event at St. Petersburg, a race he may have won on an alternate pit strategy had it been about ten laps longer.

The rest of the season would not be as quite as strong. Meira fell out of the top 10 in points by Long Beach, but through the first five races of the season managed four top-15 finishes. Indianapolis, once again, proved a struggle, but for different reasons; he qualified a poor 30th and crashed out on the backstretch after 105 laps. Regardless, simply surviving the 500 was a small victory.

The first four ovals marked Meira's strongest period of the season, even with the Indianapolis disappointment; all three other tracks, Kansas, Texas, and Iowa, yielded top-10 runs. Meira was now ranked 12th in points, a position he would generally hold to the end of the season.

Meira spent the next five races, all road course events, in the middle of the pack. A negative sign was that Meira never qualified better than 17th in any of those races; however, in four of those five events, Meira made up at least six spots by the end of the race, and never finished outside of the top 20. His Toronto drive was most impressive; from the last starting spot, he posted his best finish of the third quarter of the season, a respectable 11th.

Next up, Meira led his final six laps of the season at Chicago on his way to a ninth place finish, but an errant move in the next race at Kentucky into a passing Simona de Silvestro ended both of their days and killed his momentum. Meira ended his season with a 17th-place run at Motegi and his sixth top-10 of the year at Homestead, a sixth place effort.

Meira's return to IndyCar yielded a 12th place finish in points, his best result since 2007. He also ranked 12th in the oval championship, to go with a respectable 14th in the road course standings. It wasn't one of his best years in the sport as a driver, nor one of Foyt's best as an owner, but the results give both hope for another, even stronger go-round in 2011.

Morning After: Sao Paulo Indy 300

A collection of thoughts sparked by yesterday's Sao Paulo Indy 300 in Brazil:

GOOD TO SEE... Will Power win his first race as a full-time competitor for Team Penske. I'm always rooting for the old Champ Car guys. Power's going to be the most competitive Penske driver this year - count on it.

DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE... Graham Rahal on the grid. Others who deserve a ride: Paul Tracy, Oriol Servia, Bruno Junqueira, and J.R. Hildebrand. You know, if we still had two major open-wheel series...

BIGGEST SURPRISE... Vitor Meira in third place in his return from that back injury suffered at Indianapolis. Honorable mentions: Alex Tagliani's early performance, Simona de Silvestro hanging with the big boys, neither Chip Ganassi Racing car in the top 5, way too many flub-ups by the Versus folks on the American broadcast, the race being the most watched television program in the history of Brazil (was anybody watching Michael Schumacher's return to Formula 1?!).

LEAST SHOCKING... A Penske car in P1 at the finish. Honorable mentions: Danica Patrick not being competitive, Ryan Briscoe's brain fart, Milka Duno failing to finish, Takuma Sato still being Takuma Sato, Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti getting into it yet again, the race being the most watched television program in the history of Brazil (they did get pretty into it, after all...).

BLAST FROM THE PAST... KV Racing Technology made its deal with Lotus and Cosworth official this weekend. From here on out, the No. 5 Dallara-Honda driven by Takuma Sato will carry a green and yellow livery reminiscent of Lotus' old Formula 1 car, and the one that won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 with Jim Clark. It's unfortunate that neither company will resume their former roles of constructor and engine builder, and instead join as sponsor and engineer, but any little bit helps... and 2012 isn't that far off.

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE... I think Ryan Hunter-Reay is either going to be the best Andretti Autosport driver through Indianapolis, or is going to bring up the rear from here on out. He's got the motivation to earn a full-time ride, trying to look attractive to more sponsors, but remember the series of disappointments after the season opener last year that nearly culminated in a DNQ at Indy. But if Andretti gives him their best equipment for the next few races, and he goes to victory lane, it should be much easier for the team to convince Izod to further step up their commitment - or bring in another sponsor to finish up the year.

NEXT YEAR'S RACE... is going to have a hard time topping this one. It was a nightmare most of the time, for various reasons, but in the end the results were highly entertaining. The Brazilian people got behind the event in full force, the drivers and teams managed to adapt to the various curveballs thrown at them, and nobody got hurt. St. Petersburg is going to have a lot to live up to.

IndyCar Race Review: Sao Paulo Indy 300

In his return to the sport after a back injury ended his season early last year, Will Power won his second career IZOD IndyCar Series race, the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300, over Ryan Hunter-Reay and Vitor Meira.

In one of the more interesting race weekends in recent memory, Power redeemed his Team Penske compatriot Ryan Briscoe, whose late-race brain fade gave the race away. It was Power's first race as a full-time member for Penske after a limited schedule last year.

Hunter-Reay took second in the season opener for the second consecutive year, in his first race for Andretti Autosport. Meira, the highest finishing Brazilian driver, made his return after an injury at Indianapolis last year ended his 2009 campaign.

The weekend got off to a rough start, with the concrete frontstretch causing drivers to slip and preventing them from taking the straightaway at full throttle. Series director Brian Barnhart had to call in the diamond grinders to give that section of the track some more grip. Qualifying had to be postponed until the morning of the race, for the first time in series history, and multiple extra practice sessions were added.

Dario Franchitti took the pole in the delayed qualifying session, with outside polesitter Alex Tagliani the biggest surprise in qualifying. Brazil was the first race for Tagliani's FAZZT Race Team. Scott Dixon, who had one of the fastest cars in practice, failed to make the Firestone Fast Six, and ended up seventh. Takuma Sato was the top rookie, qualifying tenth. The fastest Brazilian driver was Tony Kanaan, who wound up sixth.

Not long before the green flag, there were reports of sprinkles on part of the track, delaying the start as race control determined whether or not to mandate rain tires. This was only foreshadowing for the showers that came later in the race, and eventually led to a half-hour red flag period.

At the drop of the green flag, the drivers couldn't make it through the first turn before a major accident set the tone for the race. Dust from the freshly ground concrete track made visibility difficult, and Sato didn't brake early enough, getting into Dixon. Helio Castroneves got involved with those two, and Mario Moraes drove over Marco Andretti's car as the American attempted to avoid the accident. Sato, Moraes, and Andretti called it a day from the wreck.

Franchitti, Tagliani, Hunter-Reay, and Kanaan led the pack early, and Simona de Silvestro led after staying out while the rest of the field pitted under a caution period. Not long after, Tagliani, Kanaan, and de Silvestro fell out of contention; Tagliani and Kanaan made contact, while de Silvestro had a mechanical failure.

Soon after, the storm came, and Briscoe led the push into the pits for rain tires. Most cars pitted for new Firestones by lap 30. The rain was so bad that parts of the track flooded, and the storm knocked out timing and scoring services. Eventually, the race had to be switched from a 75-lap event to a timed event.

A few laps after the restart, as other drivers pitted to change to better tire compounds, Hunter-Reay inherited the lead. Briscoe, Raphael Matos, and Will Power ran nose-to-tail, but were over six seconds behind Hunter-Reay with 25 minutes remaining.

Eventually, Briscoe closed the gap, leading to an intense back-and-forth battle that briefly gave the Aussie the lead. Hunter-Reay kept pushing until Briscoe made a mistake, driving head-on into a tire barrier on lap 54 with almost ten minutes left and bringing out a full-course yellow. This gave Hunter-Reay the lead and enough fuel to finish the race.

The race restarted with six minutes to go, with Hunter-Reay, Power, Matos, Vitor Meira, and Wheldon the top five. Power made the winning pass in the final turn on lap 58, showing the type of straight-line speed that Hunter-Reay had exhibited all race. By the final lap, Power had extended a sizable lead.

IndyCar Season Preview: A.J. Foyt Enterprises

Vitor Meira was supposed to bring A.J. Foyt Enterprises back to relevancy in the IZOD IndyCar Series last year, but a heavy crash in the Indianapolis 500 put a premature end to that dream. Instead, the team suffered through a revolving door of four drivers before finally settling on Ryan Hunter-Reay for the balance of the season. In short, the year was incredibly disappointing for a team looking to return to the upper echelon of IndyCar.

Meira returns this season, his back fully healed from last year's devastating crash, and he will look to make amends by finally scoring his first career win in the series. In 97 career starts, Meira's best finish is second place, which he has accomplished eight times, the last being at Indianapolis in 2008. Foyt's team hasn't won a race since 2002, when Airton Dare took the checkers at Kansas.

While the partnership with ABC Supply Co. works for both team and sponsor, Foyt simply does not have the money to run up front with the powers of the sport anymore. The team sadly lingers towards the back of the pack despite possessing one of the more underrated talents in the sport and one of the most storied histories in all of open-wheel racing.

This season will likely be more of the same for the Foyt bunch - running between 10th and 15th with maybe a stroke of luck at Indy to give them a shot at the win. As much as everybody would like to see it, don't expect a title run unless something huge changes, and quickly.