ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – Robert Wickens came to town as the former DTM touring car driver and childhood chum of new Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate James Hinchcliffe. He’ll enter today as the pole-sitter for the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It’s been an interesting and fruitful first Verizon IndyCar Series weekend for the rookie who doesn’t feel like a rookie.
“I've joked around about this in the past, but I find it a little bit weird to call myself a rookie at 28 years old. But nevertheless, I mean, sure, I'm equally Indy car experience to anyone else who's classified as a rookie, so I guess that's why they do it,” said Wickens, who produced a best lap of 1 minute, 1.6643 seconds to win the Verizon P1 Award in Saturday’s Firestone Fast Six shootout.
“I've always been comparing myself to the normal guys, not to the rookies. Not once have I asked, ‘Where's the fastest rookie?’ It's just something that doesn't interest me at all, because I'm striving to be better than that. I'm not here to win a rookie championship, I'm here to challenge and do the best job I can in the overall championship.
Sure, my experience must have helped, but my entire career I've always seemed to perform well in these type of conditions. The mixed, wet, dry, when there's only one minute left and you get one more lap and the track is two seconds faster than the lap before, typically those have kind of been where I've seemed to excel.”
Wickens wasn’t the only rookie to excel in qualifying for the season opener. Matheus “Matt” Leist, 19, who qualified third and Jordon King, 24, who will start fourth, all brought diverse levels of skill and experience to their rookie seasons. But they weren’t supposed to be up to speed this quickly.
Maybe they found the perfect storm in the little shower on Saturday in St. Petersburg. Or maybe they’re about to disrupt the status quo in the Verizon IndyCar Series, claiming three of the top six spots in qualifying.
On his last lap around the damp 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street course, Wickens denied Team Penske’s Will Power what would have been a record eighth pole position. King broke Power’s 2-year-old track record with a lap of 1:00.0476 in the first round.
Wickens became just the third rookie since 1993 to pole in his Indy car debut, joining Sebastien Bourdais at St. Petersburg in 2003 and Nigel Mansell in 1993 at Surfers Paradise, Australia. Mansell had won the Formula 1 championship the previous season.
Veterans have generally conceded that the large rookie crop – also comprised of Rene Binder, Zachary Claman De Melo, Jack Harvey and Zach Veach this weekend – might have advantages in not having to unlearn aspects of previous-generation cars with the introduction of the universal aerodynamic body kit this season. That seemed the case on Saturday, in combination with the experience Wickens, Leist and King brought from racing in dank weather in Europe.
As veterans minced with a slippery Turn 1, ruining laps, or were forced to adjust to the conditions, Wickens, Leist and King managed the track, exceeding expectations by simply making the six-driver duel for the pole in the last of three knockout qualifying rounds. Wickens’ last-ditch theft of the pole simply added emphasis on what was already an enlightening and perhaps unnerving – and certainly early – experience for the veterans.
“Just shows kind of the parity, I guess, within the series, now that everyone has got the same body kit. You don't really see anyone struggling,” Power said. “They're all good guys. They're all guys capable of winning races. Yeah, pretty impressive, though, all those guys up in front there, first time out. … Three of them in the Fast Six is very impressive.”
The question now is whether the three rookies can stay there, even with more rain possible today in the race. Experience certainly must matter in a grueling 110 laps, with a race car that figures to present bedeviling moments for all on a confining, menacing street course. Mustn’t it?
Hinchcliffe, marveling at the new speed and treacherous corners the new kit had harvested from the street course, said on Friday that “110 laps around this place is like a marathon.”
Can the rookies go the distance or just sprint? The question applies to the season ahead and the race. As for today, at least, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay is ready to believe.
“In this field, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone runs up front, really,” Hunter-Reay said. “That's the beautiful thing about the Verizon IndyCar Series. Actually, anyone can win the race, and I have no expectations on that side of it. I don't expect to go to the front because I'm a veteran. It's going to be a very difficult race.
“It's going to be a very different race than what we're used to. I think we're going to be slipping and sliding around, constantly changing circumstances, and traffic is going to be very difficult. You know, even out-braking a guy is going to be a lot different than in years past. It's going to be a different type of race.”
And maybe a different kind of year.
But first, Wickens has to brush up on INDYCAR’s race start procedures. He admittedly didn’t think he’d need to have a working knowledge of that by now, with a top-10 start his goal.
“I kind of was expecting just to go with the flow and accelerate when everyone else did, and now I'm controlling the pace of the race, so I've got to make sure I know where the restart line is and get polished up on that,” he grinned. “Obviously starting from pole, you're in the best situation you can be in, and I'm just going to go out and enjoy it like I have every single session this weekend.”