The 2010 Cafés do Brasil Indy 300 was an IndyCar motor race held in front of approximately 14,000 people on October 2, 2010, at the Homestead–Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. It was the 17th and final showdown of the 2010 IndyCar Series, the final annual edition of the event in the IndyCar Series, and the 15th anniversary of the running of the race (including five years in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) schedule). Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon, who started from the second position, won the 200-lap race. Andretti Autosport's Danica Patrick finished second and her teammate Tony Kanaan took third.
Heading into the race, only Dixon's teammate Dario Franchitti and Team Penske driver Will Power remained in contention to win the Drivers' Championship. Franchitti won the pole position by posting the fastest two-lap effort in qualifying. He led the first 42 laps until Ryan Briscoe passed him on lap 43 but retook the position on the next lap. Franchitti led for a total of 128 laps, more than any other driver. He later opted to drive conservatively after Power crashed in an unsuccessful attempt to lap Ryan Hunter-Reay on the 135th lap. Dixon took the lead on lap 152, and led a total of 47 laps en route to his third victory of the season — the 24th of his career. Patrick, one of five women drivers competing in the event, held off her teammate Kanaan in the final five laps to finish second by 0.0011 seconds.
There were five cautions and an event record-breaking 18 lead changes among seven drivers during the race. The result of the race won Franchitti the third Drivers' Championship of his career and the fourth for Chip Ganassi Racing from finishing eighth. Power's non-finish put him five points behind Franchitti in second place, while Dixon overtook Hélio Castroneves for third, and Briscoe finished the season in fifth place.
Background
The Cafés do Brasil Indy 300 was confirmed as part of the Indy Racing League's (IRL) 2010 schedule for the IndyCar Series in July 2009. It was the tenth consecutive year the race was held in the series, and the 15th running of the Cafés do Brasil Indy 300, counting the period from 1996 to 2000 when it was a Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) event. The Cafés do Brasil Indy 300 was the 17th (and final) race scheduled for 2010 by the IRL, and was held on October 2, 2010, in Homestead, Florida, at Homestead–Miami Speedway oval track over a distance of and 200 laps. It was the second round held in Florida, following the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in March. Tire supplier Firestone brought three types of tire to the race: two dry compounds (black-sidewall "Primary" and red-banded "Alternate") and grooved rain tires.
At this late stage of the season, Team Penske driver Will Power was the points leader with 587 points, with Dario Franchitti 12 points behind in second. Hélio Castroneves was third with 501 points; Scott Dixon was fourth, and Ryan Briscoe was fifth. A total of 53 points were available for the season's final round which meant Franchitti could win the championship for the third time. Franchitti would become champion if he qualified on the pole position, led the most laps and won the race and if Power finished in second. In the event the two drivers were tied on points, Power would be the champion having won five races to Franchitti's three. Franchitti needed to score 13 more points than Power to win the title. Franchitti was the race's defending champion after winning the 2009 edition.
Power and Franchitti had battled each other for the title all season. After finishing third at the previous round in Motegi, Japan, Power said he was confident he could approach the final race more aggressively and believed it was the first time in his career he had the necessary equipment to win races, and was in a position to do so on oval tracks. Power winning the championship would mean Team Penske would claim their first title since 2006. Franchitti, who was familiar with Homestead-Miami Speedway, revealed he would not alter his plan and went to the track to win the race; he acknowledged that eliminating the 12-point deficit would not be easy. He also noted the high number of entries for the race had the potential to affect the championship battle, "I think the other guys on the track, they've got their own reasons. They're trying to win the race the same as any other race. And as long as I think they race with the same respect that they have all season, then I think we'll be OK. There's a couple of cars that I think really ... certainly one that's difficult enough to run a consistent lane. So I don't think you can expect much more."
On September 8, IndyCar Chief Executive Officer Randy Bernard announced via e-mail that Homestead–Miami Speedway would not hold a race in 2011. While he praised the track, the objectives of the track's owners and the series were "not aligned", and the IRL elected to omit Homestead-Miami Speedway from its calendar. The Miami Herald reported the track appeared to suffer management-wise because it was owned and operated by International Speedway Corporation which had three other circuits expected for removal from the 2011 season. Homestead–Miami Speedway's president Matthew Becherer said that he wanted the IndyCar race to remain, but could not do so after the series raised the event's sanctioning fee by 30 percent. Bernard said while the series was receptive to returning to the track in the future, he blamed the organizers for failing to promote IndyCar.
There were two driver changes for the race. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing announced eight days beforehand that Ana Beatriz would fill in for regular driver Mike Conway in the team's 24 car. Conway had been able to return to full fitness following a major accident in the Indianapolis 500 in May but chose not to compete at Homestead–Miami Speedway because he wanted to regain his strength and focus on the 2011 season. It was Beatriz's fourth race of the season having previously taken part in the rounds at São Paulo, Indianapolis and Chicago. She was one of five women to compete in the event along with Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher, Simona de Silvestro and Milka Duno. Conquest Racing employed Indy Lights driver and Formula BMW race winner Sebastián Saavedra to drive their No. 36 car, becoming the sixth person to race for the team in 2010.
Practice and qualifying
There were two practice sessions on the Saturday preceding the race; the first ran for 60 minutes and the second 30 minutes. Power was fastest in the first practice session with a lap of 25.0824 seconds; Dixon, Briscoe, Franchitti, Castroneves, Dan Wheldon, Marco Andretti, Alex Tagliani, Vítor Meira and Tony Kanaan made up positions two to ten. A caution flag was shown late in the session for a track inspection.
Two hours and 15 minutes after the first practice session ended, the 27 drivers determined the starting grid through qualifying. Each driver ran two laps, with both attempts added together to form a combined two-lap effort from each participant. The starting order was determined by the competitors' fastest lap times. The driver who won the pole position earned one point towards the drivers' standings. Franchitti clinched his second pole position of the season and the 13th of his career with a two-lap effort of 50.1532 seconds. He was joined on the grid's front row by Dixon. Power, who held the pole position for most of qualifying until Franchitti's lap, was third, his teammate Briscoe took fourth and Wheldon fifth. Justin Wilson, Ed Carpenter, Kanaan, Takuma Sato and Castroneves were in positions six to ten. Behind them, the rest of the grid lined up as: Patrick (the highest-placed female qualifier), E. J. Viso, Mario Moraes, Bertrand Baguette, Beatriz, Andretti, Fisher, Graham Rahal, Tagliani, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Vítor Meira, Alex Lloyd, Raphael Matos, Saavedra, de Silvestro, Hideki Mutoh, and Duno. There were no reports of incidents during qualifying. Franchitti, who reduced his championship disadvantage over Power to 11 points by taking the pole position, said after qualifying, "I don’t know what (crew chief) Chris Simmons did to the Target car between practice and now, but that thing was beautifully balanced. (After the first timed lap) it felt like a good lap, and I looked down and saw 213 and said: 'Oh, nice. Let’s see if we can not screw up the second lap.' I felt it; I was able to take the line I wanted. Now I can relax a little."
The second practice was held at night and Briscoe led with a lap of 25.3160 seconds. His Penske Racing teammate Castroneves was 0.0794 seconds slower in second place; Matos improved on his qualifying performance to finish third. Franchitti was fourth; Wheldon replicated his qualifying result in fifth position. The top ten was rounded out by Patrick, Power, Dixon, Tagliani, and Andretti.
Qualifying classification + Qualifying results Driver Team Lap 1 Lap 2 Total 1 10 Chip Ganassi Racing 25.0689 25.0843 50.1532 2 9 Chip Ganassi Racing 25.0930 25.1258 50.2188 3 12 Team Penske 25.1577 25.1387 50.2964 4 6 Team Penske 25.2009 25.1954 50.3963 5 4 Panther Racing 25.2505 25.1994 50.4499 6 22 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 25.2698 25.2523 50.5221 7 20 Panther Racing 25.2629 25.3036 50.5665 8 11 Andretti Autosport 25.2815 25.2975 50.5790 9 5 KV Racing Technology 25.3067 25.2812 50.5879 10 3 Team Penske 25.2970 25.3185 50.6155 11 7 Andretti Autosport 25.3362 25.3337 50.6699 12 8 KV Racing Technology 25.3496 25.3407 50.6903 13 32 KV Racing Technology 25.3482 25.3870 50.7352 14 34 Conquest Racing 25.3394 25.3966 50.7360 15 24 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 25.3685 25.3731 50.7416 16 26 Andretti Autosport 25.3717 25.3739 50.7456 17 67 Sarah Fisher Racing 25.3575 25.3946 50.7521 18 02 Newman/Haas Racing 25.3658 25.3965 50.7623 19 77 FAZZT Race Team 25.3851 25.4034 50.7885 20 37 Andretti Autosport 25.4499 25.4572 50.9071 21 14 A. J. Foyt Enterprises 25.4144 25.4957 50.9101 22 19 Dale Coyne Racing 25.5221 25.5275 51.0496 23 2 de Ferran Dragon Racing 25.5388 25.5432 51.0820 24 36 Conquest Racing 25.5367 25.5460 51.0827 25 78 HVM Racing 25.5698 25.5915 51.1613 26 06 Newman/Haas Racing 25.5570 25.7041 51.2611 27 18 Dale Coyne Racing 25.7039 25.7096 51.4135 Source:
Race The race began at 19:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (UTC+04:00), and was televised live on Versus. Approximately 14,000 spectators were in attendance. The weather at the start was clear and mild. The ambient temperature ranged from and the track temperature was . The command to start engines was given by Castroneves and Kanaan in the pit lane. When the race commenced from its rolling start, Franchitti maintained his pole position advantage going into the first turn. His teammate Dixon tucked into his teammate's slipstream; the two could not break away from the rest of the field. Castroneves moved from tenth to fifth by the start of lap ten, while his fellow Brazilian Kanaan gained three positions to run in third as Power fell back. Franchitti encountered slower traffic as Kanaan overtook Dixon for second. The first caution was necessitated on the 36th lap; Moraes stopped with a mechanical fault in an unsafe section of the track in turn two. During the caution, several drivers, elected to make their first pit stops.