Mid-Ohio 2013: First Impressions

1. What a great drive for Charlie Kimball. Absolutely deserves the victory. Was the best driver all day and no one held a candle to him on that last pit stop. Think about this Kimball, Takuma Sato and Mike Conway all have more wins than Will Power and Dario Franchitti combined in 2013.

2. Good drive by Simon Pagenaud. Really worked the strategy well.

3. Another good who did a great job with strategy was Dario Franchitti who gets another podium and sweeps this one for Honda. Honda sure has the upper hand on Chevrolet. Another two week break for the bow-tie brigade to figure something out.

4. Fourth place for Will Power after using the two stop strategy. Has to be a frustrating that he's yet to win in 2013. Not as frustrating as Ryan Hunter-Reay who gave up a position to Power after a poor final pit stop. Hindsight says the two stop strategy back fired on him.

5. Helio Castroneves has been a pest for the other championship contenders all season. No matter how hard they drive this year, Castroneves is right behind them (or right in front of them) and his consistency is a knife in the heart of their championship hopes. He's not put a wheel wrong all season and time is in his favor.

6. For Scott Dixon, this was a poor race at Mid-Ohio.

7. Nice drive by Justin Wilson to stay in the top ten all day.

8. Another race where Marco Andretti faded in the final ten laps. Was seventh, couldn't hold on and fell to ninth but compared to the last few season, this has been a big improvement for him.

9. Great runs by James Hinchcliffe and Simona de Silvestro. Sébastien Bourdais didn't carry the magic he had in Toronto to Mid-Ohio and birthday boy James Jakes could only manage thirteenth.

10. Oriol Servià finished fourteenth in what could be his final IndyCar start of the season until Houston or Fontana. Looks like Ryan Briscoe will be back for Sonoma. Briscoe could run both ALMS and IndyCar at Baltimore. Briscoe has a conflict for Houston and Fontana but I wouldn't say it's unlikely Conor Daly gets a shot at Houston with Servià in at Fontana.

11. James Davison and Luca Filippi end their debuts in fifteenth and sixteenth respectively. Not bad for them.

12. Another tough day for Graham Rahal. One good result followed by seven bad ones is not good enough.

13. Mid-Ohio has to make a few facility upgrades. New pit lane, new paddock, wifi, timing and scoring that doesn't cut out at lap nine and returns at lap twenty-seven (that might be on IndyCar, I don't know), maybe a passing zone, maybe a formal victory lane and podium.

14. It took about one hour and forty-three minutes for IndyCar to complete ninety laps. Let's see how long it takes the Nationwide Series to go the same distance in two weeks.

15. Two weeks off before Sonoma. Such a lovely track. If you get the chance to, I highly recommend going to the race.