The 2006 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was an IRL IndyCar Series open-wheel race that was held on April 2, 2006, on a temporary street circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was the second round of the 2006 IRL IndyCar Series and the third running of the event. Hélio Castroneves, driving for Team Penske, won the 100-lap race. Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon finished second, and Tony Kanaan came in third for Andretti Green Racing.
Dario Franchitti won the pole position and led the first fourteen laps, but retired early due to mechanical issues. Dixon inherited the lead and held onto it for 26 of the next 28 laps until an issue with the front wing slightly slowed his performance. Throughout the second half of the race, Castroneves was a dominant factor, leading a race-high 40 laps. Dixon was looking to challenge Castroneves for the win after his final pit stop, but a caution with less than five laps to go ruined his strategy and handed the victory to Castroneves, the eighth of his IndyCar Series career. There were eight lead changes amongst five different drivers, and two cautions which slowed the race for eleven laps.
Due to the win, Castroneves also took the Drivers' Championship lead, while Dan Wheldon, who crashed under caution, fell to third. Dixon also improved to second.
Background
The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was confirmed to be on the Indy Racing League (IRL)'s 2006 schedule in September 2005. It was the second of 14 scheduled races for 2006, the third edition of the event (dating back to 2003), and the only street circuit race of the season. It took place on Sunday, April 2, 2006, in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, on a , fourteen-turn street circuit, and was contested over 100 laps and . Dan Wheldon was the defending race winner. Heading into the event, Wheldon obtained the Drivers' Championship lead with 50 points, ahead of Hélio Castroneves with 40 points and Sam Hornish Jr. with 38 points. Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon rounded out the top five, with 32 and 30 points, respectively.
Two days after the series' previous round at Homestead–Miami Speedway, the drivers took to the track's road course configuration for an open testing session. Castroneves lapped the quickest time of 1 minute and 10.5399 seconds, ahead of teammate Hornish Jr., Bryan Herta, Tony Kanaan, and Marco Andretti. Interestingly, veteran road course driver Roberto Moreno drove the 20 entry for Vision Racing during the session, as Ed Carpenter was not cleared to race at St. Petersburg. He was fifteenth quickest in the session. Later that day, Vision Racing announced that Moreno would fill in for Carpenter in the race, marking his first start in American open-wheel racing since 2003.
IndyCar Series drivers and teams continued mourning Paul Dana, who died on the morning of March 26 following a crash during the warmup session at Homestead. A memorial service was held at the Mahaffey Theater on Thursday, March 30, to celebrate the life of Dana, who was described as passionate and tenacious by Rahal Letterman Racing spokesman Tom Blatter. Dana's teammates, Buddy Rice and Danica Patrick, called Dana a nice person who was ecstatic following his qualifying result at Homestead. While Patrick admitted that she was surprised to learn of Dana's signing, she and Rice defended Dana from his critics and insisted that he belonged in the IndyCar Series. Out of respect for Dana and his family, Rahal Letterman Racing had withdrawn their 17 entry for the race at St. Petersburg. They planned to announce a replacement driver in the near future.
Practice and qualifying
Three practice sessions preceded the race on Sunday; the first two sessions were held on Friday, and the final session was held on Saturday. Unlike the oval races, practice played a crucial part in determining the starting grid on road course events. All entries were permitted to put down laps during the initial 120-minute session on Friday morning, which would determine the two groups for the next two pre-qualifying sessions, both of which were split into 30 minutes for each group. The driver with the fastest overall lap on Friday would decide whether the single-lap qualifying order will proceed with the fastest driver first and the slowest driver last, or invert the qualifying order.
The first practice session on Friday morning was led by Dixon, who set a time of 1 minute and 2.9515 seconds. Castroneves, Franchitti, Kanaan, and Hornish Jr. were second through fifth. The only red flag of the session was issued twenty minutes after it began, when Moreno's car lost power on the thirteenth turn. Franchitti went on to set the fastest lap of the second session and the overall day, with a time of 1 minute and 2.7967 seconds. Dixon was second, Kanaan third, Rice fourth, and Kosuke Matsuura fifth. As a result, Franchitti was given the responsibility to decide the qualifying order on Saturday. During this practice session, Eddie Cheever and Andretti collided in turn four, causing Andretti's car to go airborne for a brief moment and crash into the tire barriers. Hornish Jr. would also crash into the tire barriers almost an hour later in turn eight. None of the drivers were injured. Franchitti continued showcasing his speed during the final practice session on Saturday morning, setting the fastest time of the weekend thus far at 1 minute and 2.1850 seconds, ahead of Castroneves, Dixon, Kanaan, and Herta. P. J. Chesson crashed into the barriers in turn six, and was able to drive back to pit road. Tomas Scheckter later made contact with the turn twelve barriers and spun in the next corner. He and Chesson were both uninjured in their separate crashes.
Qualifying was held on Saturday at 1:45 PM local time, and lasted for 90 minutes. All nineteen drivers were required to make one lap in their qualifying attempt. The fastest six drivers in the first round would advance to the next round, named the "Firestone Fast Six", which was a ten-minute, European-style session that determined the first three rows of the starting grid. The first round of qualifying was run without incident, and Franchitti, the last car in the qualifying order, set the fastest lap of the round with a time of 1 minute and 2.5314 seconds. He and Kanaan, Hornish Jr., Dixon, Castroneves, and Herta set the six fastest laps and advanced to the Firestone Fast Six. Under ambient temperatures of , Franchitti scored the pole position for the third time in his IndyCar Series career and broke the track record set by Herta the year prior with a time of 1 minute and 2.2753 seconds. It was also Franchitti's first pole position at a non-oval track circuit. Dixon started alongside Franchitti in second, and Kanaan, Hornish Jr., and Castroneves took the third, fourth, and fifth starting posiions, respectively. Herta, Rice, Scheckter, Matsuura, and Andretti rounded out the top ten, and Moreno, Vítor Meira, Wheldon, Patrick, Scott Sharp, Felipe Giaffone, Cheever, and Chesson filled out the rest of the starting grid.
Qualifying classification KeyMeaningRookiePast winner Driver Team Chassis 127 Dario Franchitti Andretti Green Racing Dallara1:02.53141:02.27531 29 Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz1:02.77471:02.59512 311 Tony Kanaan Andretti Green Racing Dallara1:02.67781:02.61273 46 Sam Hornish Jr. Marlboro Team Penske Dallara1:02.73101:02.67584 53 Hélio Castroneves Marlboro Team Penske Dallara1:02.80561:02.74825 67 Bryan Herta Andretti Green Racing Dallara1:03.16941:02.87746 715 Buddy Rice Rahal Letterman Racing Panoz1:03.5648—7 82 Tomas Scheckter Vision Racing Dallara1:03.7143—8 955 Kosuke Matsuura Super Aguri Fernández Racing Dallara1:03.8033—9 1026 Marco Andretti Andretti Green Racing Dallara1:03.8853—10 1120 Roberto Moreno Vision Racing Dallara1:03.9455—11 124 Vítor Meira Panther Racing Dallara1:04.0206—12 1310 Dan Wheldon Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz1:04.0267—13 1416 Danica Patrick Rahal Letterman Racing Panoz1:04.4436—14 158 Scott Sharp Delphi Fernández Racing Dallara1:04.8588—15 1614 Felipe Giaffone A. J. Foyt Racing Dallara1:05.3845—16 1751 Eddie Cheever Cheever Racing Dallara1:05.5475—17 185 Buddy Lazier Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara1:06.2425—18 1991 P. J. Chesson Hemelgarn Racing Dallara1:08.8266—19 Official qualifying results
Warm-up The drivers took to the track at 10:15 AM local time on Sunday for a 30-minute warm-up session. Franchitti continued his near flawless weekend by setting the fast time at 1 minute and 3.6419 seconds, ahead of Wheldon, Dixon, Kanaan, and Castroneves. However, Franchitti experienced his first setback of the weekend with nine minutes remaining when he crashed into the tire barriers in turn eight after Matsuura had already crashed at the same spot. After the crash, Franchitti's team replaced the broken piece of his car, while Matsuura's team was able to repair his broken suspension, sidepod, and undertray.
Race The race was held on Sunday, April 2, at 3:45 PM local time. Television coverage of the race began at 3:30 PM local time on ESPN, with Marty Reid serving as the play-by-play commentator and Rusty Wallace and Scott Goodyear serving as race analysts. Race conditions were dry and relatively hot, with air temperatures reaching a peak of . Gene Simmons gave the command for drivers to start their engines, and all nineteen cars rolled off of pit road to begin the race. Most of the grid maintained their starting positions in the opening laps of the race, with the exception of Rice, who passed Herta for sixth. Wheldon, who qualified a disappointing 13th, was climbing his way up through the field when on lap 7, he made contact with the right-front wheel of Andretti's car in turn two, which nearly sent Wheldon spinning. He recovered, though he lost some positions.
On the 15th lap, problems arose for Franchitti, who had led every single lap up to this point when he reported damage to the right side of his suspension and slowed down in turn five to allow the other drivers to pass by him. Franchitti was forced to retire from the race due to these issues, becoming the race's first retiree. Franchitti later said that he first noticed the problem on the fifth lap, but he persevered for the next ten laps. Wheldon simultaneously entered pit road for new tires due to his contact with Andretti. Dixon, who was running in the second position, capitalized on Franchitti's misfortune and maintained a three-second lead over Kanaan. While no cautions were issued throughout the first half of the race, a close call occurred in the final corner on lap 28, when Moreno's front nose made contact with Meira's right-rear tire. Moreno pitted five laps later with a damaged suspension and retired from the race. Green-flag pit stops began on lap 33 when Kanaan entered pit road for four tires and fuel. Dixon pitted three laps later and was one of the last drivers to pit. After Hornish Jr. led two laps, he entered pit road and gave up the lead to Dixon, who rejoined the track in the second position. However, Dixon began experiencing issues with his front wing, which was rubbing against his left-front tire. Castroneves would soon take advantage of the situation and overtake Dixon for the lead on lap 45. Kanaan remained third, not far behind the two leaders.