Racer Wilson suffers disappointment

The Rotherham born Indycar racer was forced to retire on lap 94 of the Milwaukee Indyfest due to flames and smoke trailing from the exhausts of his Sonny’s Bar-B-Q Honda.

The day didn’t get off to the best start for Wilson when he incurred a ten-place deduction on the grid for an unscheduled engine change, undoing the good work of qualifying where he finished second.

He managed to climb back up to seventh and still held hopes of another podium finish to push himself up the Driver Standings, but his day went from bad to worse when on lap 79 he lost second gear which pushed the ambitious driver to the back of the race.

He said: “On that last restart I lost second gear, which is why I dropped to the back. We found third gear eventually, but having to use that for the restart made it tough."

Forcing his way back up to 15th after this setback, Wilson was firmly on course to climb higher as his tactic of picking cars off one by one was paying dividends.

Then came the fateful 94th lap, when he was forced to retire as flames were seen coming from his exhausts, making it a disappointing end to an unlucky day for the Honda team.

"I'm disappointed. I thought we had a great chance to pick up some good points," he added.

Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport came out winner in Milwaukee, with KV Racing’s Tony Kanaan runner-up.

Wilson, who sits 12th in the standings, is back in action in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 this weekend.