Open Wheel Archive: The 2012 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

The 2012 IndyCar Series season was one of innovation, growth and healing. 

As is now the usual arrangement, the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, played host to the opening round of the season. A total of 26 drivers entered the race, but it was understood long before the entry list was published that the first race of 2012 would be a litmus test to determine which of the sport’s two giants, Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing, had gotten a better handle on the series’ new car. Representing Team Penske were Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves and Will Power, while Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimble flew the flag of CGR. 

Further down the field, Josef Newgarden was making his IndyCar debut for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing and Katherine Legge joined Dragon Racing for her first outing at the highest level of American open-wheel racing since contesting the 2007 Champ Car World Series season with Dale Coyne Racing. Finally, Rubens Barrichello signed with KV Racing Technology to contest the 2012 season after closing off a career in Formula 1 which spanned from 1993 to 2011.

However, beyond this battle between behemoth teams and the new faces debuting in the IndyCar paddock, the race was defined by three talking points and, in retrospect, the respective impacts these three stories had on the series both in the immediate and long term far outweigh the simple facts of what happened during the race. For that, the full replay is available from IndyCar:

Innovation

The major talking point was the debut of the series’ new chassis for 2012, which Dan Wheldon had served as the test driver and which eventually came to be named the DW12 in his honor. The series’ first new car since 2005 was controversial, if nothing else, when it was revealed during the 2011 season. Featuring a more aerodynamically sleek design and a revamped set of wings, the car was easy to interpret as a rejection of the sport’s recent history in favor of an almost stereotypically futuristic silhouette.

That being said, the car was not just for looks. A new front-wing design made for more efficient air flow while the new nose profile and materials sought to distribute energy more efficiently in the event of a crash. The car’s underwing was significantly larger, shifting downforce production to the car’s underside. This larger underwing allowed for a reduced size of the rear wing, which sat atop perhaps the car’s most controversial feature: the tail section.

It has never been uncommon for open-wheel cars to climb over one another in accidents, and the exposed rear wheels of most open-wheel machines particularly encourage this phenomenon. To be sure, it was exactly this sort of contact and launch that sent Dan Wheldon’s No. 77 car flying toward the catch fence at Las Vegas in 2011, ultimately taking his life when his helmet struck a support pole in the fence. For better or for worse, this new car sought to eliminate such contact through the edition of pods behind the rear wheels.

That all being said, at the end of its lifespan, the DW12 will be the longest-serving car in the series’ history. A new design is in the works for 2027, at which point the DW12 will be retired. How it will be remembered is yet to be determined, but whatever legacy it leaves began to be written at St. Pete in 2012.

Remember how awful the old car was on natural road courses? We really take races like this for granted now. Overall the DW12 has improved the on track product almost everywhere, and the new kit even more so. Really important the next one keeps that up. https://t.co/1kerf4HZhg

— Fred Smith (@FredSmith914) July 28, 2019

Growth

Aside from a new car, 2012 saw two engine manufacturers enter the fold. First, Chevrolet returned for the first time since exiting the series after the 2005 season.

Chevy’s return snapped a six-year streak of Honda hegemony and both Team Penske and Andretti Global put on bowties to take the fight to CGR, who had won the last four titles, including three in a row by Franchitti from 2009 to 2011.

To this day, Penske remains a Chevy team while Ganassi continues to run Honda power units, despite briefly defecting to Chevrolet in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

More interesting, however, was Lotus. Anchored by HVM Racing with Simona de Silvestro at the wheel, the British manufacturer’s engines were also used by Sebastien Bourdais and Dragon Racing for the first four races, Oriol Servia with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for the first four races, Jean Alesi and Fan Force United for the Indianapolis 500, and Alex Tagliani with Bryan Herta Autosport (then known as Team Barracuda) for a part-time schedule.

Simply put, the engine was wholly uncompetitive. The best result for a Lotus-powered entry was a ninth-place finish by Bourdais at Barber Motorsports Park. For its debut in St. Petersburg, Tagliani was the highest-finishing Lotus driver in 15th.

In retrospect, Lotus’ pride would have been better served had they not ventured into IndyCar for 2012, and they promptly bowed out of the series at the end of the season. Still, under a sunny Florida sky in March that year, hopes were high that the British manufacturer would become a force to contend with in IndyCar. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Healing

The teams and drivers rolled into St. Petersburg, Florida, for the opening round of the season with heavy hearts, having lost Wheldon, one of the sport’s biggest names in a catastrophic pile-up at Las Vegas Motorspeedway during the 2011 season finale. It is understood that racing is a dangerous sport and that drivers risk life and limp in pursuit in victory, but that does very little to soften the blow.

A few weeks before the race, the city of St. Petersburg commemorated the stretch of road connecting turns 10 and 11 of the street circuit as Dan Wheldon Way, paying homage to the Briton who considered the city to be his adopted hometown. When the series rolled into his second home later in March, Wheldon was front of mind for the entire paddock.

Leading into the broadcast, Marty Reid and former driver Scott Goodyear touched on the weight carried by the drivers in the aftermath of Wheldon’s passing.

“This is your way of life,” Reid said to his counterpart. “This is what you do.”

“It may sound cold … but as a driver, you know what you signed up for,” Goodyear concurred. “You know when you go to a test or you get in the car for a race, you may not come back. And although it may be hard on us and hard on the crew … I think it’s harder on the spouses. After I retired, I started to have some conversations with my wife, just how tough it is because they didn’t sign up for this, they didn’t understand what they got themselves into. We’re on the track, we’re doing what we love, we’re in our zone. For the spouses, that’s the difficult part.”

“Dan’s presence obviously has been felt all weekend long, now 26 have to climb into the car and do what no one else is going to do, that’s drive,” Reid continued. “How do you focus?”

“That’s the enjoyment of getting into the car,” Goodyear reflected. “But in times like this, it makes you wonder whether you want to do it or not. But once you get into the car and you put your belts on and you put the visor on, as soon as they start the car up, you feel it. You get into a different zone, and that’s what makes this whole thing worth it.”

Tony Kanaan, who was a teammate to Wheldon at Andretti Global from 2003 to 2005, spoke of the significance of St. Petersburg in the wake of Wheldon’s passing.

“To start the 2012 season in St. Pete is going to be hard,” he said. “None of us had raced in IndyCar since what happened to him.”

For 100 laps, the drivers put their visors down and did their best to focus on the task at hand, but there’s no doubt that the memory of their fallen comrade followed them closely as they navigated the streets of the city he held so dear.

Those same emotions that had followed the field boiled over after Castroneves took the checkered flag and stopped his car at turn 10 to share a moment with the fans along Dan Wheldon Way.

Among Ayrton Senna’s many famous quotes is that we observers “will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race” because “the helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.”

For a moment, however, fans could see exactly what was gripping Castroneves, helmet or otherwise, as he stood next to Wheldon’s name after conquering Wheldon’s home track for the third time.

One of the most touching moments in @IndyCar history.

In the first race after we lost Dan Wheldon, @h3lio Castroneves paid tribute to his friend after winning the @GPSTPete. #TBT #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/NyxcN6aJcQ

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) March 7, 2019