J.K. Vernay Wins St. Pete Indy Lights Race

J.K. Vernay races to a win

The Firestone Indy Lights race started out with a very optimistic move down the inside by Phillip Major who could not get the car slowed and collided with Hinchcliffe, handing the lead to Saavedra with Vernay and Summerton in tow.

There was quite a bit of dicey racing going on, when the yellow came out for Campos on heavy contact with the tire barrier in turn 8.

On the restart, Vernay dove under Saavedra for the lead. Saavedra lost momentum and also lost a spot to Yacaman. A very light rain started to fall, and you could see cars slipping and losing grip all over the track. Kimball tried to make this work for him, but got into Saavedra lightly in turn 4 and turned him around, and pinned himself in the process.

The red flag flew for all cars to the pits for a change to rain tires. When the field took the green, Vernay held the lead, followed by Yacaman and Heylen, who was steadily moving forward with a very solid drive. However, once the rains really started to fall, it seemed as though Heylen really had a handful of car, and fought to hold off several challengers. Yacaman dropped back, and Junior Strous got by Heylen for second before spinning in turn one a few laps later.

The top three was Vernay by almost 12 seconds, followed by Heylen getting hounded by Stefan Wilson.

Vernay's lead started to dwindle down to about two seconds, before opening it up again with some smooth and flawless driving, and won it going away, amidst severe weather warnings that ordered the grandstands and spectator areas cleared, and the podium ceremony moved into the media center.

If the Lights race is any indication, and the IndyCar race is not washed out entirely, it should be some fun racing to watch.

Results

Rank	No	Name	Laps	Gap	Diff	BL	BLaptime	Comment
1	7	JK Vernay	35	–.—-	–.—-	30	1:19.6098
2	17	Jan Heylen	35	11.2338	11.2338	21	1:19.8169
3	28	Stefan Wilson	35	0.3447	11.5785	21	1:20.4354
4	26	Charlie Kimball	35	8.8256	20.4041	24	1:20.5875
5	10	Gustavo Yacaman	35	1.3972	21.8013	24	1:20.8780
6	27	Martin Plowman	35	1.2893	23.0906	21	1:20.8429
7	77	James Winslow	35	1.5830	24.6736	19	1:21.0278
8	40	Jonathan Summerton	35	21.3890	46.0626	24	1:19.9565
9	18	Rodrigo Barbosa	34	1 lap	1 lap	24	1:20.5998
10	6	Junior Strous	34	5.3581	5.3581	23	1:20.3075
11	4	Carmen Jorda	33	1 lap	2 laps	1	1:28.0352
12	29	Sebastian Saavedra	25	8 laps	10 laps	1	1:19.0338
13	11	Pippa Mann	6	19 laps	29 laps	2	1:29.3054	Mechanical
14	49	Philip Major	1	5 laps	34 laps	1	1:54.5644	Mechanical
15	2	James Hinchcliffe	0	1 lap	35 laps	0	0:00.0000	Contact
16	22	Adrian Campos Jr	0	2.3421	2.3421	0	0:00.0000	Contact

POST-RACE QUOTES:

CHARLIE KIMBALL (No. 26 Levemir FlexPen, fourth): "We just held on. I made a little mistake early, and I got into Saavedra. Sorry about that. He was just going a little slower on slicks in the wet than I thought he should. But then we came in, and the guys did a great job changing the car. After that, it was all about being smart. Just hitting your marks and doing every lap as clean as possible."

JONATHAN SUMMERTON (No. 40 Wasteco Deans Knight Special, eighth): "When it started drying out in the middle stint, I was really looking forward to it staying green. We had a great car when it was dry. When it started downpouring there again, the car started to have a lot of oversteer. But it was a different race. You couldn't see anything in the end there. It was just like you were looking at nothing."

GUSTAVO YACAMAN (No. 10 Cape Motorsport with Wayne Taylor Racing, fifth): "It was a really hard and long race. I had a good start on the outside, and I was able to make up some positions. I was really cautious on the restart, but I was able to move up to second place before they stopped the race due to conditions. From then on, it was a really long race. I made a couple of mistakes going into Turn 4 that cost us a podium finish. But at the end of the day, I kept it off the wall and a finished a solid fifth. I really want to thank all my crew for their support and determination during the weekend. They did a great job."

PHILIP MAJOR (No. 49 Sam Schmidt Motorsports, 14^th): "I made a mistake. I outbraked myself going into (Turn) 1, and I'm sorry it turned out the way it did."

STEFAN WILSON (No. 28 Bryan Herta Autosport, third): "I want to thank all my crew guys for working hard late last night. I started the weekend off pretty happy with my car. I was position one in practice and position three in the race. I thought it was going to be a good weekend, but it was a bit of a roller coaster in qualifying. We had a small mistake and it cost me a great amount, and I had to start from the back of the field in the race. That quickly changed when the rain started to come down. People started going off the road as it was pretty slick out there. The white lines on the runway were treacherous, and a lot of people started making mistakes in front of me. I was in the P5 position, and after we went green after the break, I started moving up."

JAN HEYLEN (No. 17 Team E, second): "I hope that there will be more entrants after this race. I hope we got people motivated. The conditions were difficult, especially in Turn 1. I think we made a bad setup on the car. It was too bad I couldn't give my good friend Stefan a run for his money during the race. It was nice being back in the car. I have not been racing for almost three years. So it's good to be back, and I really hope that I can race in some more this year. I very much enjoyed it."

J.K. VERNAY (No. 7 Lucas Slick Mist/Sam Schmidt Motorsports, winner): "I am really happy today. It was a very good weekend since the start of practice. I didn't know this track, so I had to learn a lot. It helped with the work I did with my team. We had a great setup on the car. Practice after practice, I was pushing more and more, and we were there, so it was good. It was hard not to have the pole, but I was very careful on the first lap. I didn't want to crash at the start of the race. It was great to win in my first weekend in Indy Lights."