The final street course and the penultimate round the Izod IndyCar Championship will take place on the street of Baltimore. Ryan Briscoe won last week at Sonoma holding off his teammate Will Power who dominated the race. Power extended his points lead over Ryan Hunter-Reay to thirty-six points. If Will Power has a point lead greater than forty-three points after Baltimore he will have clinched the title heading into Fontana.
Junqueira In for Newgarden
Josef Newgarden broke his finger in that crash with Sebastien Bourdais at Sonoma. It will require surgery and Bruno Junqueira will return to IndyCar this weekend for Sarah Fisher-Hartman Racing. We saw Junqueira at Indianapolis last year where he was replaced by Ryan Hunter-Reay in the unpopular, Foyt-Andretti deal to get the American into the race. Junqueira last start was at Indianapolis in 2010 and his last road or street course race was the non-points race at Surfers Paradise in 2008. This year, Junqueira has been racing in the American Le Mans Series.
Track Changes
The chicane on the front straightaway has been removed and the turn five, six, seven section around pit in has been remodeled.
No Delay
The push-2-pass delay has been removed after two races. The delay was five seconds at Mid-Ohio and three and a half seconds at Sonoma. The delay was not well received well by the drivers, teams or the fans.
Iowa Set For 2013
IndyCar will be heading back to Iowa in 2013 on June 21-22.
Predictions
I will be honest, I want to see the Championship come down to Fontana, but that looks unlikely. I think Hunter-Reay will finish ahead of Power and keeps his hope alive. With that said, I think Sebastien Bourdais has a great weekend after his hard hit and steals a win. Graham Rahal has a great weekend and gets a podium. Dixon and Castroneves will be eliminated from the championship hunt.
Sleeper: Takuma Sato.
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