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After an absolutely awesome Indianapolis 500 which was won by fan favourite Juan Pablo Montoya, IndyCar is back racing again this weekend thanks to the very tight schedule. This round is the 2915 Indy Dual in Detroit, named that due to the fact that two races are run during the weekend: one on the Saturday and another on the Sunday. This means that the drivers will have run equivalent to four races in the space of just eight days.
The Belle Isle street circuit differs from your conventional street circuit in some ways. In addition to having the slow, tight 90-degree sections which one would associate with street circuits, there are sweeping fast corners, and even a very quick triple-right hander section towards the end of the lap. It differs greatly to the layout which F1 used for the Detroit Grand Prix. 2013 Race 2 winner Simon Pagenaud takes us around a tour of the lap via Google Glass. [LINK]
Detroit has been kind to Helio Castroneves in the past, as he can boast three wins here, as well as winning the second race here last year. No other active driver has more than one win here, although Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Pagenaud and Will Power all have experience in victory lane here.
There are a couple of driver changes to mention: with Dale Coyne Racing continuing to have the revolving doors going, Rodolfo Gonzalez returns to the 18 car for this weekend, whilst Tristan Vautier switches to the 19 car after replacing an unwell Carlos Huertas at Indianapolis. The other driver change is Conor Daly getting the nod at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in place of the injured James Hinchcliffe.
After his remarkable win at Indy, Montoya now has a 25 point lead over team mate Power. Dixon, Castroneves and Graham Rahal are in touch but already more than a race win behind already. There is then a slight gap down to those who either did not perform too well at Indy, or rocketed up the order with a good result, such as Josef Newgarden and Sebastien Bourdais in the case of the former, and Charlie Kimball and Marco Andretti in the case of the latter. 2013 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay languishes down in a lowly 12th place as it stands.
