Just as he was pipped for pole in qualifying earlier in the day Wade Cunningham narrowly missed out on victory in the latest round of the Firestone Indy Lights at Iowa Speedway oval.
Furious Cunningham was quick to point the finger at Sebastian Saavedra who blocked him allowing Anna Beatriz to take the lead eight laps from the end and go on to win.
“I came up on Saavedra who was several laps down. He was slower and I decided to cool my tyres. He then slowed down half a second a lap because he knows that I am fighting him for the championship and he was out of the race. It was probably the most unsportsmanlike situation I have ever seen on the track, bar shunting someone into the wall.”
The New Zealander had let Colombian driver Sebastian Saavedra, who was 20 laps down after problems at the start of the race, past three laps earlier however Saavedra inexplicably slowed immediately after passing Cunningham, allowing Beatriz to bridge the 1.6 second lead her teammate had had on her for the vast majority of the race.
Compounding the problem was the fact that the leading bunch were threading their way through a bunch of back markers at the time making it doubly hard for Cunningham to launch a last-minute counter-attack on Beatriz.
"Honestly," he said from the track as the Sam Schmidt Motorsports team were packing up for the night. "There were cars everywhere and at that point I had my hands full trying to keep a hold of second. Points-wise we're exactly where we wanted to be which, obviously, is good, but really, without wanting to take anything away from Ana there was absolutely no joy for me standing on the second step of the podium today."
Whatever his reasoning for slowing down in front of Cunningham it didn't do Saavedra any good, Cunningham leap-frogging him in the points from fourth to third.
Beatriz led a Sam Schmidt Motorsports sweep of the podium, with Wade Cunningham finishing second and James Hinchcliffe third.
Also losing ground was long-time series points leader, impressive American driver JR Hildebrand, who battled Cunningham for pole, winning it by just 00.00.099 of a second, but ended up playing second fiddle to the Kiwi early in the race then had to work his way back up the rankings to be classified sixth after receiving a mid-race penalty for blocking.
He continues to lead the series points standings with 227 points, 16 more than Mario Romancini (who finished fourth at Iowa) and 22 more than Cunningham.
After it's first run of oval rounds the Firestone Indy Lights title chase returns to road courses in a fortnight with the eighth round at the permanent Watkins Glen circuit in upstate New York on July 4 and the ninth on a new downtown street course in Toronto the weekend after.
See also
- Cunningham pipped for pole at Iowa
- Another Iowa opportunity for Cunningham
Provisional Race Results
1. Ana Beatriz
2. Wade Cunningham
3. James Hinchcliffe
4. Mario Romancini
5. Gustavo Yacaman
6. J.R. Hildebrand
7. Charlie Kimball
8. Martin Plowman
9. Daniel Herrington
10. James Davison
11. Andrew Prendeville
12. Pablo Donoso
13. Pippa Mann
14. Mike Potekhen
15. Sebastian Saavedra
16. Brandon Wagner
17. Sergey Mokshantsev
18. Rodrigo Barbosa
Championship Points
1. J.R. Hildebrand 227
2. Mario Romancini 211
3. Wade Cunningham 205
4. Sebastian Saavedra 203
5. James Hinchcliffe 191
6. Daniel Herrington 168
7. James Davison 165
8. Ana Beatriz 164
9. Jonathan Summerton 162
10. Gustavo Yacaman 149
