Goodbye Rubinho and Testing at Sebring

Goodbye Rubinho
After one season in the Izod IndyCar Series, Rubens Barrichello will be moving to Stock Car Brasil for the 2013 season. His IndyCar highlights will be a fourth at Sonoma, fifth at Baltimore and more importantly winning the 2012 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year with an eleventh place finish after starting tenth. He had two top-fives and six top-tens. He finished twelve in the points standings behind his teammate and "brother" Tony Kanaan (9th) and ahead of his other teammate EJ Viso (20th).

Barrichello was brought to IndyCar by longtime friend Tony Kanaan after not being able to secure a ride in Formula One for 2012. What seems as a long time goal complete, Rubinho heads to the Stock Car Brasil Series where he ran the final three events of the 2012 season with his highlight being a seventh place start in the season finale at Interlagos.

I am sad to see Rubinho leave after one season but I am happy he did come and ran one season. I hope it could potentially be in the cards that Rubinho may find a one-off for Indianapolis but that seems far off. Rubinho was linked to a second car at Schmidt-Hamilton Motorsports. With Rubinho heading to Brazil, where he will be able to spend more time with his family, it looks like 2012 Indy Lights champion Tristan Vautier is in the best position for the second seat. He will be testing at Sebring on Thursday.

Testing at Sebring
As a nice transition, testing with be taking place tomorrow and Thursday at Sebring. Graham Rahal and Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan Racing tested today, he first time in his 2013 ride after a test at Barber was washed out. Rahal is scheduled to test the next two days as well. Also testing on both Wednesday and Thursday are Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Helio Castroneves and Justin Wilson. Drivers only testing Wednesday are Ryan Hunter-Reay, Tony Kanaan, Simona de Silvestro, Simon Pagenaud and Oriol Servia. Along with Tristan Vautier, Conor Daly, Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball, James Hinchcliffe and Alex Tagliani are the drivers only testing on Thursday. Daly will be getting his first miles in an IndyCar  with Foyt Racing.