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Saavedra's street skills win at Toronto |
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July 11, 2009 – Toronto, Ontario. The 19-year-old rookie from Columbia, Sebastian Saavedra, driving for AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing, showed that winning on ovals, as he did at Kansas, is not all he can do with his number 27 car. He can do the streets of Toronto at 95.589 mph and not get a speeding ticket – only a first place trophy and a wad of money.
The first race for the Firestone Indy Lights Series at Toronto had thrills and drama – which included no yellow flags and a first for this series, pits stops! That brought a totally new dimension to the drivers and teams. But more later.
After 6 laps, Philippe was down in 7th and then 8 cars pulled in for pit stops for tire changes because of the drying streets, including Saavedra and Hildebrand. Philippe took advantage of the stops and charged up to 3rd place and on lap 8 took the lead – for 1 lap before he came into his pit. Where upon J. R. Hildebrand came out of the pits before Saavedra after they got dry tires and took over the race lead with Saavedra in 2nd place.
Sebastian stayed in that position until lap 18 when he passed J. R. for the lead entering Turn 1. Saavedra kept the lead for the rest of the 50 laps and Hildebrand followed in 2nd the rest of the way. The 3rd place finisher was Sam Schmidt’s James Hinchcliffe, who stayed in that position from lap 1 all the way to lap 50 with the exception of laps 7/8 when he pitted for dry tires. And that was the podium three-some.
The driver points standings were: Hildebrand 319/ Saavedra 268/ Romancini [6th] 249/ Cunningham [7th ] 242 and Davison [5th ] 236.
The next Firestone Indy Lights race will be at Edmonton, Alberta, on July 25.
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