Saturday morning at Sonoma Raceway, the Verizon IndyCar Series paddock has more hustle in the bustle as the 22 cars are prepared for their first practice session at 10am PDT.
The Scrutineering Bay is totally devoid of activity as all the IndyCars completed their initial Tech Inspection Friday. They will, however, be coming back time and again during the weekend to check on things.
The teams get busy early, as the garage opens at 7am PDT. The teams off-load their race cars from the transporters. Each night the cars are lift-gated to their transporter bed.
Chevrolet announced that it has won the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series Manufacturer Championship, with two races remaining in the 18-car schedule. In the 22-car field, Chevrolet has ten cars and Honda has 12. Chevy’s statistics so far this season include winning ten of the first 16 races, and starting on pole 12 times. Chevrolet rejoined the IndyCar Series in 2012 and has won this championship every year since. Chevrolet previous involvements in indycar racing were 1983-1993 and 2002-2005. During those years it’s won seven Indianapolis 500 races and six Driver Championships.
Saturday’s busy on-track schedule has two IndyCar practice sessions with qualifying last session of the day. Other series competition include Warm-Up and Race #2 for the Cooper Tires USF2000 Series powered by Mazda and the Pro Mazda Series presented by Cooper Tires, Qualifying and Race #1 with no Warm-Up for SCCA Pro Racing’s Pirelli World Challenge Series, and Race #1 with no Warm-Up for Indy Lights powered by Cooper Tires.
The weather started out cold and foggy with no breeze. It’s forecast for full sun by Indy first practice, and working up to a high of low eighties by mid-afternoon.
