The Crittenden Automotive Library

Two on the podium again!

Topics: Felipe Guimarães, Infineon Raceway 100

Two on the podium again!

Andrew Herta
Bryan Herta Autosport
August 23, 2009

Starting just his third race for BHA and in the Firestone Indy Lights series, Guimarães proved that the third time was a charm as he earned his third straight top-five finish, his second podium and his highest finish with a second place drive.

Driving the No. 29 A1GP Team Brazil/BHA Dallara/Firestone machine, Guimarães qualified in the fourth spot, but moved up to the third spot for the start when competitor Sebastian Saavedra’s crew made an engine change after the morning warm-up practice.

On the start, Guimarães made a strong move around Ana Beatriz for second place and never looked back. Unfortunately he did not have enough to challenge hometown driver, J.R. Hildebrand for the lead.

With his previous two Indy Lights attempts at Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio, yielding third and fourth place finishes, Guimarães added a second place drive to his impressive, young resume; giving BHA its best-ever finish in just the team’s 13th race and first season.

Felipe on the race:

“I’m very happy with today’s result. The team gave me a good car and I took advantage as much as I could. We just didn’t quite have enough for the Hildebrand who was on his home course. I’ve run three races with Bryan Herta Autosport and have had two podium results, so that’s great. My team did a very good job this weekend and I’m very proud of them.”

Coming off his first victory of the 2009 season and second pole position in the most recent race at Mid-Ohio, Davison qualified in the sixth spot at Infineon, but consistently ran as the second fastest in practice all weekend. At the start, Davison also moved up a spot to fifth due to the Saavedra engine swap and steadily made gains from there.

After overtaking two positions on the tricky natural terrain road course, Davison held on in the No. 21 People’s Liberation/Vision Racing Dallara/Firestone car to take his third consecutive top-five finish and third overall podium of the year. Combine all of that with just one finish outside of the top-ten in 13 races and Davison remains third in the Firestone Indy Lights championship point standings with 376 total points (97 points behind the leader).

Unfortunately, Herrington and the No. 28 Forsythe/BHA Dallara/Firestone did not have nearly as good of a weekend with woes in practice, qualifying and the race keeping him out of the top-ten. Taking the start in the 11th spot, Herrington was hit from behind and lost valuable positions on the first lap.

He fell back as far as 14th, but kept his composure and battled back to take the checkered flag where he started, in the 11th spot. Unfortunately, it snapped Herrington’s streak of six consecutive top-ten finishes. However, in 13 starts this year for BHA, Herrington has only finished outside of the top-ten a mere two times.

Herrington remains seventh in the championship point standings with 315 points (158 points behind the leader).