Female IndyCar Driver, Simona De Silvestro made an impression in the racing world
Simona De Silvestro has been known as the best in the IndyCar Safety Team at Texas Motor Speedway, as the ignorant victim of a shocking display of lack of skill. She is however, rapidly making a mark as the best female driver in the IZOD IndyCar Series, as she is the faster female driver. The rookie scored her best finish in her IndyCar season when she finished 8th this Sunday in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The female driver has not been able to prove her abilities statistically. However, spectators are convinced that the 21-year-old Swiss is going at a very good pace after watching her trackside at a road course.
The young rookie pushes her car to a limit in the IndyCar Series that no other female driver, rookie or professional, has been able to establish. HVM Racing No. 78 entry gave top stars like Scot Dixon and Ryan Briscoe quite a shock at Mid-Ohio keeping in mind they belong to one of the best teams Ganassi and Penske teams. This was a refreshing experience style and fashion matters more than skill and talent.
De Silvestro has driven faster than Danica Patrick has in seven of twelve Indy Car races this season, including the 6-2 on road courses, the tracks on which skill is a much bigger factor than on oval tracks. Simona ran quicker than Danica at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well and again, this is also one of those tracks where the driver counts more than the car. Patrick has a 3-1 qualifying advantage over De Silvestro but that is on ovals only.
Those are amazing accomplishments for many reasons. De Silvestro is not as experienced as Patrick is, as she is only 12 races into her Indy car career, and had never raced on an oval until May. Danica is in her sixth year in the series. Simona and the HVM/Team Stargate Worlds team have maybe 10 percent of the budget and engineering resources of Patrick and Andretti Autosport. HVM's best car was destroyed in the Texas oil fire that generated a lot of publicity and heaped scorn upon the almost comically clumsy attempt to rescue De Silvestro from her burning car. Since then, Simona has been driving one of the 2003 built of the car that is heavier than the cars currently on the track.
De Silvestro should have claimed the Atlantic Championship title in 2009 but crashed out of the season finale. She is a five-time race winner out of which, four wins came last season. The 21 year old is getting better and better with every race, as she is gaining experience in her rookie IndyCar season.
The rookie has been able to finish ninth at Toronto, qualify a remarkable seventh at Edmonton and score her best overall weekend at Mid-Ohio, where she challenged the front runners of the series keeping in mind her car is not as good as theirs.
"It's pretty cool, we had a problem with the clutch in qualifying and maybe could have started more up front than 10th. In the middle of the race, I made a mistake on one restart and Dixon got by me. However, I can live with my mistake and I think we can be happy with P8 [eighth-place finish] because the car was running strong and we were keeping up with the big boys,” she told reporters after the Mid-Ohio race.
She further went on to say that they have been trying to be pretty quick everywhere, but the results weren't showing as such. However, now that they are finally here, she is quite happy about it. “If I polish myself out there and not make the little mistakes I do, we should be all right,” she added.
She might not become as popular as Danica Patrick as she is not an American. Nevertheless, her performance on the track has earned her far greater respect from her critics. In addition, as we all know, quality matters the most on the racing track.
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