page_title: 2011 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 2011 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg / Report / Race
caption_attribution_description: English: Stefan Wilson driving along the Bay Shore Drive SE section during the qualifying race of the Indy Lights class at the 2011 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
context_page_description: The 2011 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was the first race of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season. The race took place on March 27, on the 1.800-mile temporary street circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida, and was telecast by ABC in the United States.
context_section_description: The first Indycar race to use double-file starts and restarts began anything but smoothly. On turn 1 of lap 1, five cars were involved in contact as the drivers fought for position. Helio Castroneves made contact with Marco Andretti's car, who ran up the back of Scott Dixon's machine and flipped upside down. Mike Conway, racing for the first time since last year's Indianapolis 500, was also caught in the pile-up, along with Briscoe. Castroneves, Briscoe, and Dixon would finish the day running, but had no chance for victory. Andretti Autosport took the brunt of the blow, with two of their drivers, Andretti and Conway, being knocked out of the race as a result. On the ensuing restart (lap 5) Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan passed Power to take first and second position respectively.
  The yellow flag came out again on lap 7 when E.J. Viso spun off the track, but without making contact, and green flag racing resumed by lap 10. Only two laps later however, the caution came out again for debris on the racetrack, and Sebastián Saavedra spun and stalled on the ensuing restart, bringing out yet another caution. In total, nine of the first 15 laps were run under yellow, leading many drivers and fans to question the new restart system. Will Power briefly regained the lead on lap 71 when Franchitti pitted, but he had to pit himself two laps later, and Franchitti won comfortably by 6.7 seconds. The main point of interest over the final 10 laps was the battle for 3rd place between the veteran Kanaan and second-year driver Simona de Silvestro. Kanaan was able to hold on and gain a podium place for his new team, KV-Lotus, but it was an impressive run by de Silvestro nonetheless.
caption: The Bay Shore Drive SE section of the race
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SAMSUNG", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SGH-i897", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "fw 05.15 prm 05.15", "Image DateTime": "2011:03:26 13:28:48", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "264", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[27, 46, 8]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[82, 37, 57]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "62", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[17, 28, 30]", "GPS GPSMeasureMode": "2", "GPS GPSDOP": "1", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "[65, 83, 67, 73, 73, 0, 0, 0, 71, 80, 83, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "GPS GPSDate": "2011:03:26", "Image GPSInfo": "980", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1460", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9152", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1389", "EXIF FNumber": "1351/512", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:03:26 13:28:48", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:03:26 13:28:48", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "261/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "281/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "187/20", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "281/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "No flash function", "EXIF FocalLength": "379/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1288", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0/0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}