2012 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

2012 marked the seventeenth season for the IndyCar Series. Fifteen rounds would be contested to determine titles for teams, engine manufacturers and drivers.

The season opened in late March in Saint Petersburg, Florida and ended at Fontana, California, in September. Between these two weekends, there were races held at Barber Motorsports Park, Long Beach, San Paulo, Brazil, Indianapolis, Detroit, Texas Motor Speedway, Milwaukee, Iowa, Toronto, Edmonton, Mid-Ohio, Sonoma and Baltimore.

On the driver front, there were two important stories. The first was the departure of Danica Patrick as she left IndyCar for NASCAR and the second saw Formula 1 veteran driver; Rubens Barrichello join the series.

But the biggest story may have been the new car and engine package. The Dallara IR-05 was replaced with the new DW12 – named in honour of Dan Weldon, who had performed much of the development testing. In a continuing effort to keep costs down, officials capped the price of the DW12 chassis at $349,000.

In 2012, the normally aspirated V8 Honda engines were replaced by a formula that required teams to use a 2.2-liter turbocharged V6 power plant. Supplying motors for the series were Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus.

Round twelve of fifteen, conducted during the 2012 IZOD IndyCar season, was held at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Drivers would compete in the Honda Indy 200 for 85-laps around the thirteen-turn 2.258-mile road course.

This would be the first Indy car event to run caution-free since 1987.

Scott Dixon entered the event as the winningest active driver at Mid-Ohio. The driver of the No. 9 Dallara DW12 had three victories and would collect a fourth before the end of the weekend. Dixon qualified fourth fastest. Early in the contest, he moved into second place behind Will Power. The pair pitted together and it was during the second stop the Target crew got Dixon out first. From there, he would lead to the checker.

Since round nine at Iowa Speedway, Will Power, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay became the principal combatants for this year’s championship. Power entered the Mid-Ohio weekend twenty-six points behind Hunter-Reay. He put the No. 12 Verizon Dallara DW12 on the pole and led the first fifty laps before being passed by Scott Dixon. Power finished second and would lead the title chase by five points.

Last season Simon Pagenaud was without a full-time ride and only participated in three events. One of them was Mid-Ohio, where he filled in at the last minute for Justin Wilson. This year he signed on with Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports driving the No. 77 HP Dallara DW12. Before Mid-Ohio, Pagenaud had two podium results and would collect another this weekend. He started and finished in the third position.

Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais won four consecutive (2004-2007) Champ Car World Series titles but wasn’t enjoying the same success in the IndyCar Series. Entering Mid-Ohio, his best result in 2012 was a ninth-place in race two at Barber Motorsports Park. In round twelve, Bourdais qualified sixth fastest driving the No. 7 Dragon Racing Dallara DW12 and finished fourth after Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe had issues.

Danica Patrick left the Andretti Autosport team at the end of 2011 to pursue a career in the NASCAR Nationwide Series for JR Motorsports. The seat vacated by Patrick went to Canadian James Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe was enjoying success with the new team and entered round twelfth fifth in the standing. He qualified fifteenth fastest at Mid-Ohio in the No. 27 GoDaddy.com Dallara DW12 and finished in the fifth position.

Dario Franchitti was having an ‘up and down’ season in the No. 10 GE Reveal Dallara DW12 for Chip Ganassi Racing. He won the Indianapolis 500 but had several finishes outside the top ten. R ound twelve at Mid-Ohio looked promising as Franchitti would start on the outside of the front row. Unfortunately, he was never in contention and ran into the back of James Hinchcliffe. He would finish seventeenth.

Starting at Milwaukee, Ryan Hunter-Reay grabbed three consecutive victories. Collectively these results vaulted him from seventh to first in the standings. Mid-Ohio would be one of his low points. Hunter-Reay qualified seventh, but engine problems sidelined him, dropping him to second in the points chase. However, his retirement meant the team could change the engine without incurring a grid penalty at the next event.

Alex Tagliani and Helio Castroneves were given a ten-place grid penalty for unauthorized engine changes. For Castroneves, who was second in the standings, this meant starting twenty-third in a field of twenty-five starters. In the morning warmup, things went from bad to worse when he cashed the No. 3 Penske Truck Rental Dallara DW12. In the race, Castroneves advanced seven positions to finish sixteenth.

FIN.	START	DRIVER	CAR	ENTRANT	LAPS	RETIREMENTS
1	4	Scott Dixon	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	85	-
2	1	Will Power	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Team Penske	85	-
3	3	Simon Pagenaud	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	85	-
4	6	Sébastien Bourdais	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Dragon Racing	85	-
5	15	James Hinchcliffe	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Andretti Autosport	85	-
6	18	Tony Kanaan	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	KV Racing Technology	85	-
7	5	Ryan Briscoe	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Team Penske	85	-
8	8	Marco Andretti	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Andretti Autosport	85	-
9	12	J.R. Hildebrand	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Panther Racing	85	-
10	14	Alex Tagliani	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Team Barracuda – BHA	85	-
11	21	Graham Rahal	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	85	-
12	9	Josef Newgarden	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing	85	-
13	17	Takuma Sato	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	85	-
14	24	Giorgio Pantano	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	85	-
15	13	Rubens Barrichello	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	KV Racing Technology	85	-
16	23	Hélio Castroneves	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Team Penske	85	-
17	2	Dario Franchitti	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	85	-
18	11	Justin Wilson	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Dale Coyne Racing	85	-
19	20	James Jakes	Dallara DW12 / Honda	Dale Coyne Racing	85	-
20	19	E.J. Viso	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	KV Racing Technology	85	-
21	16	Mike Conway	Dallara DW12 / Honda	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	85	-
22	25	Ed Carpenter	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Ed Carpenter Racing	84	-
23	22	Simona de Silvestro	Dallara DW12 / Lotus	HVM Racing	83	Mechanical
24	7	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Andretti Autosport	79	Engine
24	10	Oriol Servià	Dallara DW12 / Chevrolet	Panther/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	78	-