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After his first-ever oval race at the age of 33, Agustin Canapino reckons he has “never felt anything similar in my entire life”, feeling dizzy and nauseous after his strong 12th place at Texas.
Canapino is a multiple Argentinian tin-top champion without any significant single-seater experience, but impressed on his debut at St Petersburg last month with a 12th, and followed that up at Texas by fighting Indy 500 winners and oval veterans for good points.
The Juncos team is only in its second full season, has expanded to two cars for the first time, doesn’t have a technical tie-up with any of the bigger teams and expected Texas to be one of its worst races in 2023.
After two races Canapino lies 12th in the points, one point behind Colton Herta and four behind reigning champion Will Power. Team-mate Callum Ilott is seventh in the standings, only 30 points off the leader.
“I’m dizzy,” Canapino told The Race sat on the pitwall, almost unable to stand after the gruelling 250-lap event.
“I never felt anything similar in my entire life. It’s incredible.
“There’s nothing similar. For me it’s the first time with really high G-force. There are people here who were born in an open-wheel car, experiencing those G-forces. For me it’s the first time. My body was not understanding anything!
“I am really, really happy with this weekend, to finish my first oval, P12 fighting with Helio [Castroneves], Power, Callum, Marcus [Ericsson], I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.
“It’s my first time on an oval with these cars, I was learning the entire race. But honestly I can’t believe it.”
Canapino had to work hard in the closing stages with a host of late incidents and did benefit from Romain Grosjean’s crash to jump to 12th late on, electing not to battle 2021 Indy 500 winner Castroneves too hard at the climax of the race.
Better pitstops might have boosted him ahead of Castroneves and will be an area Juncos needs to work on, but even with better ones there’s no guarantee he would have held off the Meyer Shank driver.
He was prepared well for the event by his engineer Charlie Ping, who joined last week’s The Race IndyCar Podcast to discuss some of the challenges of preparing a rookie for their first event.
Ping said remaining composed, patient and attentive would be important.
Asked if he struggled for concentration at the end, due to his dizziness more than anything, Canapino said: “Yes, a little bit.
“I tried to stay focused, I put everything I could into it. I could finish the race well.
“Of course, I lost some places at the end, because I took extra caution because it’s my first time on an oval. But I enjoyed the race a lot.
“It was really tough for me because it’s a big, big step, I never did something like that. This is the reason I feel like this, this is the reason I can’t believe it, the race and how we started this season.”
Canapino is still leaning on team boss Ricardo Juncos while he learns English – although his grasp of the language after just four months is staggering – but is more and more at home in IndyCar day-by-day.
“He could have been behind Callum at the end in P10 but he was not risking, he was feeling dizzy already in the car and he was just trying to finish the race,” Juncos told The Race.
“It was a great decision.
“This is really, really difficult. High-speed ovals, we don’t have any windtunnel time or testing [Canapino did get a rookie day in the lead[up to the event], we are feeling our limitations for qualifying.
“We knew that the car would be better in the race and they both felt really good. You can see they were doing a good job.
“You can see what Agustin is doing is amazing for his first time.
“The whole team, Callum is also proving once again he is there and we as a team, this was as a team one of the worst races [on the calendar] for us, last year we improved a lot but there’s still more to go.”
While St Pete was a great test for how far Juncos has come given it struggled there in 2022, Long Beach will be a similar measure of the progress of its street course package in two weeks’ time.
It struggled at the event last year, so it will be a good read for if Ilott’s fifth at St Pete was a breakthrough or if it has more to do.
But Canapino has already brought significant added points to the table and has shown, even before he can be reasonably expected to be able to get the maximum out of the car, that he is a diligent and skilled driver with all the hallmarks of a multiple-champion.
What he can do when he is properly up to speed will be fascinating.
