First Impressions: 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis

1. Dear God, I hate fuel mileage races.

2. Simon Pagenaud was quick all weekend and it's no surprise he got the victory. Good for him, good for France, good for Sam Schmidt, Ric Peterson, Davey Hamilton and all involved.

3. Ryan Hunter-Reay with another solid finish in second. Making up for Long Beach with a win and second.

4. Hélio Castroneves needed another lap on his birthday for him to become the tenth birthday winner. Birthday wishes only go so far and they could only get Castroneves third.

4. Sébastien Bourdais in fourth makes up for KV's disastrous start (more on that later).

5. Charlie Kimball goes from 23rd to fifth. Not bad. His season started less than stellar.

6. Ryan Briscoe overcomes a pit penalty for a quiet sixth place finish.

7. Jack Hawksworth started like a bat out of hell but pit strategy didn't go his way. First career top ten at Indianapolis isn't that bad and watch out for him on road and street courses. I still think he will struggle on ovals.

8. Will Power got a penalty. When does that ever happen? Hit an air gun. Still recovered for eighth.

9. Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan quietly rounded out the top ten. Really not much else to say about their days. Were hardly mentioned.

10. Justin Wilson had an unscheduled pit stop drop him to eleventh. A good day for him but he will look back thinking he could have finished better.

11. Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay were able to stretch their pit strategy, Oriol Servià was not able to and he had to pit from the lead late. It would have been a great shot in the arm for him and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Twelfth from twenty-second would be great most days but this wasn't most days.

12. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis has it's Roberto Guerrero moment and it involved another Colombian. I hated to see Sebastián Saavedra's day end before it began (same for Carlos Muñoz and Mikhail Aleshin) but this is two stalls/slow get aways in two standing starts in 2014. I think KV Racing hiring AJ Unser, Jr. as a driver's coach will benefit him the most.

13. I am over the acceleration zone bullshit. Let the leader go once they exit the final corner. Don't try to have the field under a blanket and then throw the green. Let them go. I don't care if the leader has a reasonable lead entering turn one, they are the leader. The restarts need to be cleaner, period. There is no reason for multiple accidents before cars have passed start/finish on a restart each season.

14. ABC, please find new color commentators. Why the hell is Eddie Cheever asking to go on board a lapped car? Please, ABC? You made a great decision putting Bestwick behind the lead microphone but his two wingers are holding him back. Clone Townsend Bell and Jon Beekhuis if you have to. Cheever and Goodyear are beyond their prime as commentators, find some new blood. I think Alex Lloyd would do an amazing job but I would get frustrated that he, at 29 years of age, is in the booth and not behind the wheel of a race car but that's another story.

15. I need a breather. Indianapolis 500 practice begins tomorrow but I need at least two days to recover. I wasn't a supporter of the road course race at the beginning, still a little against it but I can live with it. It was a good race...

16. Let's just clean up the bullshit because it feels like it happens every race. You can't have every race with a botched restart or botched initial start or missed pit penalties. IndyCar needs to clean up the bullshit.