IPS: Brit Taylor takes rookie win
Mark Taylor, the 25-year-old British driver, won the season-opener for the Indy Racing League's Infiniti Pro Series, the IndyCar Series feeder formula, at Homestead on Sunday
Taylor took the lead when Jeff Simmons spun out midway through the race. The significance of Taylor's triumph lies in two areas: First, Taylor is the latest discovery of Panther Racing and stands to inherit Sam Hornish Jr's IRL ride if and when Hornish makes his anticipated move to NASCAR Winston Cup. Second, Taylor - a tried and true product of English road racing - had never raced on an oval track, yet he mastered Homestead's tricky 1.5-mile layout.
"We thought we might be struggling a bit because of my experience on ovals," said Taylor. "This is my first oval race. To win your first oval race is a great accomplishment for the team. They nurtured me through the testing this winter and made sure that I didn't make too big a mistake too early."
Simmons passed Taylor on the 24th lap of the 67-lap race, but held it just nine laps before spinning out in the grass inside the second turn. Taylor took command and never relinquished control.
"He found himself in traffic and made a mistake," Taylor said of Simmons, who wasn't hurt in the incident. "He just lost the back end. It was unfortunate. He held on to it for a while; he must have been three-quarters of the way through the corner. He looked like he was going to hold it, but it suddenly snapped on him."
Thiago Medeiros, the South American F3 graduate, finished second in the Genoa Racing Dallara, 1.286 seconds behind Taylor. Brandon Erwin held on to third in Sam Schmidt's car, while Arie Luyendyk Jr finished fourth.
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