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| Ryan Hunter-Reay Looks To Ride The Wave From Indianapolis to Detroit |
Coverage
TV Channel: ABC. The final ABC weekend of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season.
Time: Coverage begins Saturday May 31st and Sunday June 1st at 3:30 p.m. ET.
Announcers: Allen Bestwick, Scott Goodyear, Eddie Cheever, Rick DeBruhl, Jamie Little and Vince Welch.
Can Chevrolet Win Their Home Race?
The American manufacture has been embarrassed in their backyard three times since Belle Isle returned to the schedule two years agos, the same year Chevrolet returned to IndyCar as an engine manufacture. Honda has won all three races held at Belle Isle in the DW12-era and has taken eight of nine podium positions. Last year, Mike Conway and Dale Coyne Racing took a surprise victory and bookended the podium with Justin Wilson in race one while Simon Pagenaud held off James Jakes for his first career IndyCar win with Mike Conway finishing third and Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti making it a clean sweep of the top five for Honda in race two.
Let's not forget to mention that Honda enters Detroit having won the last three rounds of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season (two for Ryan Hunter-Reay and one for Simon Pagenaud). The players have played musical chairs since the last time IndyCar decided to race in the middle of the Detroit River. Ganassi and Andretti traded places with Ganassi joining the bow-tie brigade. Mike Conway is now the secret weapon in Chevrolet's arsenal driving for Ed Carpenter Racing. Chevrolet has the upper-hand on paper with four former Belle Isle winners in their stables but paper has never won a motor race.
If this year doesn't work out, maybe Chevrolet should take a look at hosting a race at Michigan International Speedway if they want a home game they can win?
Who's Season Hangs in the Balance?
When race one from Detroit ends, a third of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season will be in the books. Some drivers will be right where they wanted to be while others are going to have to step up to the next level if they want to be a contender come Fontana Labor Day weekend.
Let's start from the bottom, Graham Rahal has fewer points in five races than Kurt Busch has in one. The Ohioan trails the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series champion by one point for 23rd in the standings. In four Belle Isle starts, his best finish came last year when he finished ninth in both races. In 2014, his best finish is 13th, his best start is 12th and his average starting position is 18.8. He and his team picked up over $12 million in sponsorship and has yet to show any improvement for the National Guard than when they were sponsoring Panther Racing. Meanwhile, his teammate for four rounds Oriol Servià out qualified (average start of 17.75 to Rahal's 18.25) and out raced Rahal (average finish of 12.5 to Rahal's 21) and his future is up in the air. See anything wrong with that?
Tony Kanaan entered Belle Isle in 2013 as the winner of the Indianapolis 500 and seventh in the championship with 124 points. One year later he heads to the Motor City sixteenth in the championship with 104 points and a twenty-sixth at Indianapolis. To be fair, Kanaan has three top tens from five races in 2014 but the Brazilian has seen a slip in results. He finished eleventh in the 2013 championship, ending ten consecutive years of finishing in the top ten of the championship standings.
In the odd world of IndyCar, James Hinchcliffe has one top ten in 2014, has an average finish of 19th (5.2 positions worse than Kanaan) and has the fourth best average starting position amongst full-time drivers at 7.2 (Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Scott Dixon are ahead of the Canadian) and is one point ahead of Kanaan in the standings in fifteenth. The Canadian had two victories at this point in 2013 but also found difficulty bringing the car home in the top ten. Meanwhile, his three full-time teammates are first, fifth and sixth in the championship.
Sports Cars
Both IMSA and Pirelli World Challenge accompany IndyCar to Belle Isle. The Prototype and GT Daytona class comprise a 32-car grid for the fifth round of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship. An LMP2 team defeated the Daytona Prototype juggernaut in the merged Prototype class at Laguna Seca with the #2 Extreme Speed HPD ARX-03b of Johannes van Overbeek and Ed Brown getting the victory. Dane Cameron and Markus Paltala won GTD at Laguna Seca for Turner Motorsport. João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi lead the Prototype standings by three over Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Bill Sweedler, Townsend Bell, Andy Lally and John Potter are all tied for the points lead in GTD with 87 laps.
Ferrari driver Anthony Lazzaro leads the PWC standings after a win and a second place finish at Barber last month. Johnny O'Connell is second in the standings, 46 points back with his Cadillac teammate Andy Pilgrim, Audi's Andrew Palmer and James Sofronas rounding out the top five in the championship.
IMSA takes to the track at 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday with PWC running a doubleheader. Race one of the PWC weekend is at 10:05 a.m. ET Saturday with race two at 11:00 a.m. ET Sunday.
Fun Facts
One-hundred and forty laps are scheduled for this weekend. No standing start at Belle Isle. Two rolling starts instead.
Ryan Briscoe needs to lead 70 laps to become the twenty-seventh driver to join the 1,500 laps led club.
Race one will be the first IndyCar race on May 31st not hosted at either Indianapolis Motor Speedway or the Milwaukee Mile. The last race on May 31st was in 2009 at Milwaukee. Scott Dixon was the winner.
Race two will be the first IndyCar race on June 1st since last year when Mike Conway won driving for Dale Coyne Racing.
The starting positions to produce the most winners at Belle Isle are first, third and fourth, each producing three winners.
Fifth and eight positions are the only top the starting positions to have yet to produce a winner at Belle Isle.
Simon Pagenaud's win last year was the first for a car starting sixth at Belle Isle.
The worst starting position for a Belle Isle winner is tenth when Danny Sullivan won in 1993.
The last American to win at Belle Isle was Michael Andretti in 1996.
Remember more facts can be found at the Telemetry Center.
Prediction
For some reason, my gut is saying pick Marco Andretti. Honda keeps their flag firmly in Chevrolets backyard. Ryan Hunter-Reay will ride the wave of momentum into Belle Isle and continue of his streak of finishing either first or second in four of the first five races. Simon Pagenaud has another stellar weekend. Graham Rahal continues to struggle. Tony Kanaan will be average. Sébastien Bourdais surprises some and Scott Dixon is Chevrolet's top dog. Mike Conway recovers after a few poor races after his Long Beach victory. Hunter-Reay and Pagenaud each add another victory to their résumés. Sleepers: Marco Andretti and Takuma Sato.
