IndyCar - De Silvestro Accomplishes Goals At New Hampshire

Loudon, August 15, 2011: Going into the race weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway,Simona De Silvestro and her HVM Racing team had two goals in mind: race smart and race safe. After a rough stretch on the ovals, the team knew that regaining De Silvestro's confidence would be paramount.

The Swiss driver completed all four practice sessions of the weekend without incident and was ready for Sunday's 225-lap race. From the start, the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 was chaotic. Incidents on the start and restart moved De Silvestro up several positions. Approximately 75 laps into the race, the yellow flag came out as rain sprinkled the track. The Nuclear Clean Air Energy team pushed forward, trying to keep pace and drive a smart race.

As several other cars had contact or mechanical issues, DeSilvestro gained a few more positions. With only a few laps to go, the yellow flag flew again, due to rain. Most of the teams expected to finish the race under yellow, but officials decided to restart, causing some of the field's leaders to crash. The restart was aborted, with results decided on running order from when the yellow flag dropped. De Silvestro finished P16, a finish that she looked at as a small victory.

"It was a pretty crazy day out there, but I'm really happy just to get that monkey off my back because now I know I can do it," says De Silvestro. "I think the Nuclear Clean Air Energy car was pretty quick. The team has given me a good car - it's really comfortable to drive and I didn't have to do too much inside, so that was really helping me because I could just work on my momentum. We started to figure everything out towards the end. I'm really happy with that. Now we're going to go back to road courses after a good oval so I think confidence will be pretty good. Then I can go to Kentucky and really build on that. I think we'll have a really good end of the season."