SURFERS PARADISE, Australia Oct. 26, 2008 —Vitor Meira drove an impressive race in the No. 14 ABC Supply car despite some adversity in the Nikon Indy 300 on the streets of Surfers Paradise Sunday afternoon.
Meira qualified 11th and started alongside Mario Moraes. On the opening lap, Moraes forced his way to the inside of Meira going through the first chicane. The two made contact with Meira sustaining a left rear tire puncture. Moraes continued on but five laps later, he hit the wall and spun, ending his day.
“Moraes tried to pass me after the second corner in a chicane where there was clearly nowhere to pass and took us out,” said Meira. “I was really being careful but some things you can’t control. I was so mad because I had an awesome car. If that hadn’t happened, we would have had at least a 7th but coulda, woulda, shoulda doesn’t really matter.”
Meira pitted to fix the tire and dropped to last on the grid. Through pit strategy, the ABC Supply team enabled Meira to move up through the field. He ran as high as seventh on lap 41 as pit stop cycles began and was a solid tenth after the pit stops had cycled out.
Unfortunately, the team miscalculated on the final pit stop and Meira ran out of fuel with half a lap to go. He placed 14th.
“It was disappointing but I look at it this way, we came from dead last and fought our way back to tenth, even if we didn’t finish there,” said Meira. “The amount of fuel that we were short wasn’t significant--half a second’s worth, half a lap. Overall the team did a good job with the strategy.
“This race gave us the opportunity to learn about things we can do better. There were things that we found out to do to the car that if the race ran tomorrow, we’d run faster. Now we have some things we can work on over the winter, so I think everyone is happy with what we learned from running this race. We’re excited about next year.”
Australian Ryan Briscoe became the first Aussie to win the race in the 18 years it has run. Fellow Aussie and three-time Surfers pole winner Will Power made a mistake while leading and brushed the wall, taking himself out of the race after 16 laps. Second through fifth were IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, 2003 Surfers winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, Alex Tagliani and 2005 Surfers pole winner Oriol Servia.
The drivers’ final obligation for the 2008 season is to attend the IndyCar Awards Dinner which takes place Nov. 5th in Las Vegas.