CGR's Kimball scores sixth top-10 sinish of season at Fontana

Charlie Kimball, Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Jeff Davidson

The Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team would begin the 250-lap race from 23rd position would endure a 10-grid spot penalty due to an early engine change before reaching the minimum change-out mileage specified by INDYCAR. With the penalty, the No. 83 car would use race strategy to work its way up the field among a total of seven cautions totaling 43 laps on the on the 2-mile oval. The No. 83 cracked the top-10 by lap 151 as cars began to cycle through the pit. As the No. 83 held position within the top-10 for four laps, the team would serve a drive-through penalty for a pit infraction on lap 160 when the No. 83 drove past its marks on its fifth pit stop of the race. Kimball would work the No. 83 back to a top-10 position by lap 241 at 10th during a final caution period. As the race was restarted on Lap 244, with six-laps remaining, Kimball would hold this position and score his sixth top-10 of the season.

With the result, Kimball finishes the season in 19th position in the IZOD IndyCar Series point standings with 260 markers, -208 points behind Championship winner Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Charlie Kimball: “It’s nice to finish out 2012 with a top-10 for the whole Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing crew. They deserved better than that tonight. We had a much better car but I made a mistake in the pits and it took me too long to figure it out early in the race but I know that the No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen car is going to come back stronger next year. We got this figured out. We’re ready to go figure out the rest of our short-comings. We’ll be stronger next year, and more importantly, faster.”

Scource: Chip Ganassi Racing