By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

ST. PETERSBURG – The Honda Grand Prix over, she hopped on a green and white scooter — her race team colors — and happily puttered toward the interview room, which actually was the Mahaffey Theater. The stage would be hers for a moment, deservedly so.

She eased the scooter through the crowd and people shouted her name, her lyrical name. She smiled and waved at them as she passed the Danica Patrick souvenir trailer. One day, maybe she’ll have one, too.

“I don’t know about that,” Simona de Silvestro said. “I’m just happy for today.”

Sunday, the 22-year-old from Switzerland was the biggest female name in racing and maybe the story on the streets of St. Petersburg. De Silvestro started 17th, but came in fourth, the best finish in her brief career, to cap a truly crazy week in her racing life.

Picking her way through a race pocked with early crashes and restarts, at one point she climbed to second, behind eventual race winner and three-time defending IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. Near the end, de Silvestro hounded third-place finisher Tony Kanaan — and that’s just the beginning of the story.

Danica? She finished 12th. Now back to Simona and TK …

“It’s pretty crazy for me because I’ve been watching him since I was growing up and to be right there racing with him now is pretty cool, you know?” de Silvestro said.

Kanaan walked onto the Mahaffey stage, smiled at de Silvestro, raised his hands and bowed.

“I used every single strength and experience I had to hold her off,” Kanaan said. “I said, ‘Who is this behind me?’ I’m like, ‘Who is the 78 car?’ And then they said it was Simona and I remembered, because she blew my doors in the restart before. And I knew she was strong.”

Not bad for a kid who grew up in a country that doesn’t even allow auto racing on the premises. Switzerland banned car racing after the horrific crash at Le Mans in 1955 that killed a driver and scores of spectators.

“Luckily, Switzerland is pretty small, so that you can get to France and Italy pretty quickly, so I think that’s how it started with me,” de Silvestro said. She grew up playing soccer and tennis and fenced. “But racing is what I always wanted to do.”

De Silvestro debuted in the IndyCar Series last season. She finished 14th in her first Indy 500 and was named the race’s rookie of the year.

“Definitely Indy was one of my highlights …” she said. “And definitely today is going to be right up there, too, because I think this is one of my best races I’ve done.”

The driver for HVM Racing answered media queries in English, French and German. De Silvestro also speaks Italian.

And she is fluent in car, too.

Good thing.

Her now former engineer, Michael Cannon, left just last week to work with: Tony Kanaan.

Oh, that nutty Indy racing.

Understand, an Indy engineer is like a NASCAR crew chief, talking to the driver constantly, trying to pinpoint how the vehicle is performing.

“And I have a lot of sound effects when I describe the car,” de Silvestro said.

“She does a lot of bom bom bom , and hand things, too,” HVM media relations director Monica Hilton said.

What de Silvestro needs is an endorsement deal with Hanna-Barbera.

Yes, it was a wild week for her and her brand spanking new engineer, Brent Harvey. They needed to reach an understanding — fast. It was a truly mad scramble.

“But this morning we just clicked in warm-ups,” de Silvestro said.

Vrrrrroooom — away she went. There she was, chasing Kanaan.

“It was awesome,” de Silvestro said. “Me battling him for most of the race, it was pretty fun.”

Switzerland nearly brought back auto racing in 2007. Its parliament voted to lift the ban, but the legislation wasn’t ratified by the Swiss Council of States.

Simona de Silvestro, who now lives in Indianapolis, keeps hope alive.

“They’ve been trying to build a track,” she said. “I think it would be great for young people to have a track in Switzerland.”

They already have their Danica.