85 Days to the 100th and the season kicks off this weekend

This weekend marks the start of the 2016 IndyCar season.  With round 1 to be held at the downtown street course in St Petersburg Florida. Equally it marks 85 days to the 100th running of the Indy 500 in May so IndyCar is now back in full swing. Its going to get exciting from here on in that's for sure.

I will bring you all the race results news and more across the season.

Plus of course the long waited second book from me The Mystique of Indy inside the Brickyard is not far away now and in it I reveal all the thoughts and magic that is Indy and am very excited to present it to you.

I visited the St Pete track a few years ago while working on the series. Its like all street courses very demanding, very bumpy and narrow and its key feature is the main straight that is actually a airport runway with loads of room for passing on and a really tricky turn one it is most certainly the widest point of the track. There are loads of good viewing spots and the vibe within the crowd there is always good as it marks the start of the new season.

Its is however a very unforgiving as a track and to win here you need to race well and stay out of trouble. There is bound to be many yellow flag periods during the race and pitstops will be a key for the teams.

It's a great place to start the season and I have to say that my visit there was great, nice weather ,nice food and great racing.

Qualifying took place today and its made a very interesting gird that will line up tomorrow to kick the season off. After crashing heavy on the back side of the track yesterday Penske driver Will Power has gone on to take the first pole of the new season and with a daunting time as well, clearly not effected by the very heavy impact he had yesterday.

Official Qualifying held on Saturday for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and round one of the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series event on the 1.8-mile St Petersburg street circuit, Shown here is the qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, aero kit-engine, time and speed in parentheses:



1.  (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:00.2450 (107.561)


2.  (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:00.4421 (107.210)


3.  (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 01:00.4995 (107.108)


4.  (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 01:00.5312 (107.052)


5.  (9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 01:00.5395 (107.038)


6.  (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:00.8803 (106.438)


7.  (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:00.5893 (106.950)


8.  (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 01:00.6711 (106.805)


9.  (5) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 01:00.6724 (106.803)


10.  (41) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 01:00.7188 (106.721)


11.  (14) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:00.9745 (106.274) 


12.  (21) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:01.0571 (106.130)


13.  (26) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 01:01.1856 (105.907)


14.  (83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 01:01.0433 (106.154)


15.  (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 01:01.2417 (105.810)


16.  (19) Luca Filippi, Honda, 01:01.1699 (105.934)


17.  (8) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 01:01.5372 (105.302)


18.  (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 01:01.2934 (105.721)


19.  (98) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:01.5794 (105.230)


20.  (10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 01:01.3414 (105.638)


21.  (18) Conor Daly, Honda, 01:01.9385 (104.620)


22.  (16) Spencer Pigot, Honda, 01:01.3881 (105.558)