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Day Ends Early for Tagliani and the Team Barracuda – BHA Crew

Topics: Alex Tagliani, Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama

Day Ends Early for Tagliani and the Team Barracuda – BHA Crew

Monica Hilton
Bryan Herta Autosport
April 1, 2012

Birmingham, AL – The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama started and ended on lap one for Alex Tagliani and his Team Barracuda – BHA crew, due to engine failure on Sunday afternoon.

The No. 98 car started on the outside of the last row, after having to change the engine following last week’s race in St. Pete. When Lotus identified a problem in their data, the engine change resulted in a ten-position penalty on this weekend’s starting grid.

“We took the green flag, went into turn one and the engine just died,” said Tagliani. “It seems to be a pretty heavy mechanical failure from what I understand. It’s very disappointing for the Barracuda Networks and Bowers & Wilkins crew.”

He added, “What’s sad is that we didn’t get to use our red tires this weekend – we saved them all for the race and we didn’t even have the chance to try one set of them this weekend. We made some pretty big improvements to the car and the reds are worth so much. Our whole strategy was to run reds all race and go as fast as we could. I think our car was decent but we’re having a lot of problems right now with the engine.”

Team owner Bryan Herta expressed his frustration as well, saying, “Very disappointing day for Team Barracuda-BHA. I have to thank our guys, Alex, and of course our sponsors, everyone is working very hard to earn results and we are unhappy that we suffered another engine issue two weekends running.”

In two weeks, Tagliani and the Team Barracuda – BHA crew head to the west coast with the other drivers of the IZOD IndyCar Series for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The 85-lap competition will be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network at 3:30 p.m. ET.