Enrique Bernoldi has slammed IndyCar Series rival Ryan Hunter-Reay for the move that put both in the gravel during Sunday's race at Mid-Ohio, claiming that the American had been more than a tad optimistic.
Bernoldi has endured a tough start to life in the Indy Racing League and, with rumours circulating that Alex Tagliani could be poised to take his seat at Conquest Racing, needed a decent result as the series returned to the road courses on which he made his name as a young driver. However, after a damp start, the race had only gone a few laps beyond the majority of the field switching to slicks before Bernoldi was walking back to pit-lane.
“The race was going fine until Hunter-Reay tried to do a stupid move," the Brazilian fumed, "He was never in a position to pass me. He just dived on the inside of my car but he never showed that he was on the inside. He just came and hit my back wheel and that took me out of the race.”
Hunter-Reay, who won the season's first road course event at Watkins Glen two weeks previously, managed to get himself craned out of the ankle-deep gravel trap and eventually recovered from nearly two laps down to finish tenth.
Pitting off-sequence from the rest of the leaders allowed him to climb to sixth by lap 58, when he came in for his final fuel stop just as Graham Rahal came to a stop after spinning off. The service set the #17 car up to go the remainder of the scheduled 85-lap distance without stopping, and was designed to move the blue-and-green machine into the top five, but Hunter-Reay was called for a pit-lane speed violation exiting the pits, and had to serve a drive-through penalty.
“These guys called some great pit strategy and we caught one yellow right at a time that helped us,” Hunter-Reay said, “We caught a break, but then it got thrown in the trash by the speeding penalty. But the tyres really held up when we needed them to and it's great to come away with a top-ten finish after the start we had to the day. We couldn't afford to leave many more points on the table.”
![Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman, right) spins Conquest's Enrique Bernoldi at Mid-Ohio [pic credit: IRL/Snoddy]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/471889.jpg)
