After a spectacular win in Saturday’s soaking-wet Race 1 of Portland International Raceway’s Atlantic doubleheader, 18-year old Red Bull Junior Team standout Robert Wickens overcame an overheating engine to finish in fourth spot in Sunday’s dry Race 2. The Toronto teenager started from fourth on the 28-car grid but a lack of speed on the straights caused by the motor problem prevented him from moving up as he had done so effortlessly on Saturday.
Nevertheless, the Canadian high school student was able to bring home good points and holds on to third place in the season standings, just 21 markers out of the lead in the ultra-competitive Champ Car Atlantic Championship. Teammate John Edwards, at 16-years old the youngest driver in Atlantic history, continued his troublesome weekend in the Pacific Northwest as a strong climb through the field was derailed by a loose right rear wheel with the Little Rock, Arkansas native scored in 23rd position.
Robert Wickens
#3 Red Bull / INDECK
Mazda-Cosworth/Cooper/Swift
Finished Fourth
Third in Points with 119 “We found out yesterday that my engine was losing oil, so we replaced it with a fresh one but we may have had too much of the radiator blocked off and it started overheating right away. There was no way we could pit to try and fix it without losing a lot of spots so we took the gamble to keep going and luckily those Mazda engines can take a lot of abuse and it kept running. It was down on power because of the overheating so I was watching my mirrors the whole race but the cars behind never got close enough to challenge me so I’m pretty happy. Sometimes a bit of luck when things aren’t perfect is what you need to stay in a Championship and we had that luck today. Thanks to the guys for all their hard work and after winning the first Atlantic race of my career yesterday I’m really happy with how the weekend turned out! ”
John Edwards
#7 Red Bull / INDECK
Mazda-Cosworth/Cooper/Swift
Finished 23rd
Fifteenth in Points with 36
“I got another good start and was moving up into the top ten early, but I got forced off the track at one point by a couple of cars coming together in front of me and fell back to 15th. I was passing cars and moving back up when I started feeling a weird vibration. I thought the gearbox was starting to fail but then as I pulled off I saw my rear wheel go rolling by and thought ‘hmm, that’s not right’! It’s unfortunate but this has been one of those weekends to forget so we’ll be looking to rebound in Cleveland. That’s a great track and the team should have a good setup so I’m looking forward to getting another shot at putting together the kind of weekend this team has worked so hard for. ”
| 
|