Last week, we looked back. Today, we look forward. Ten races over eight races weekends remain in the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season and there are plenty of pages left blank, waiting for the next driver, team, crew member or fan to write their verse.
1. The Championship Battle
Will Power leads teammate Hélio Castroneves by 39 points and Ryan Hunter-Reay by 60. The Australian has a 135-point gap over Marco Andretti in fifth and 188 ahead of Justin Wilson in tenth. While the Australian appears to be in control and appears destine to finally to top the championship, his past struggles down the stretch of championships creeps to the forefront. He has completed every lap to date and his worst finish is eighth. What could go wrong? Double points at the Triple Crown races could unravel Power's championship hopes. One bad finish could turn what would normally by a 36-point swing into a 71-point swing and if there is one thing that seems to fall into Power's lap, like a grenade in a fox hole, is a bad finish at the wrong time.
Hélio Castroneves finds himself where he finished last year in the championship, second. The aging Brazilian is running out of time for that first career championship. Does he have the ability to turn an average day into a great day? That what a championship run is made of. In 2013, he couldn't do that and he fell short. Does history repeat itself?
It's hard to believe the Indianapolis 500 winner needs a break but Ryan Hunter-Reay needs one badly. Costly mistakes and mechanical failures could plague him from a second title. The second half is in his wheelhouse, short ovals, two other big ovals, Toronto and Mid-Ohio. We know he has the speed and we know he has the team capable. Will the equipment hold up though?
Simon Pagenaud is consistently in the top ten but, like Castroneves, can he turn an average day into a great one? To win the title, the Frenchman is going to have to win at least two races but will probably need a third to be safe. Pagenaud has never had more than four podiums in a single season. Every champions since reunification has had at least six. Can he find that next level?
Marco Andretti sits fifth in the championship standings. As much as this might sounds as a knock to Andretti, to have any shot at the title he is going to have to win two or three of the remaining four oval races unless he is going to steal a road course or street race. He's improved immensely on road and street circuits but he needs to play to his strength. With two double points remaining, Andretti's hopes are alive if he remains consistently in the top ten on road and street circuits.
Defending champion Scott Dixon sits eighth in the championship. Last year he overcame a 92-point deficit to win the title. This year he is further back, trailing Power by 156 points but you can't rule him out from coming back again. Like Hunter-Reay, the second half plays to Dixon's wheelhouse. Mid-Ohio is his baby. He swept Toronto last year, won at Pocono last year and has finished in the top ten at Iowa in six of seven starts. Dixon might be the furthest back but he has the most to be confident about.
Outside of those six I don't see any other drivers capable of contending for the title. Carlos Muñoz will finish strong. Juan Pablo Montoya will show well on the ovals but his inconsistency on road and street courses will cost him. Tony Kanaan is a shadow of his former self and if Justin Wilson was driving for Penske, Ganassi, Andretti or Schmidt, maybe he'd have a shot. A championship isn't in James Hinchcliffe's cards for 2014 but if he can string together consistent finishes up front, maybe he will be able to set himself up for an assault in 2015.
2. Who Wins Next?
Scott Dixon won race one at Houston in 2013 and finished second in race two. Justin Wilson finished third and fourth. James Hinchcliffe recovered from an accident after stalling on the grid in race one to finish third in race two. Sébastien Bourdais has two Houston victories and finished eighth and fifth last year. All four drivers have good track records at Houston and are looking for their first win of 2014. Others still looking for win number one of 2014 include Tony Kanaan, Charlie Kimball, Takuma Sato, Marco Andretti and Juan Pablo Montoya to name a few. Last year saw ten different winners, one shy of the record for most different winners in a single season. Through eight races, six different drivers have been to victory lane.
3. Can A Rookie Breakthrough and Win?
The last rookie to win a race was Robert Doornbos in 2007 with victories at Mont-Tremblant and San Jose. The last rookie to win on an oval was Sébastien Bourdais at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in 2003. Carlos Muñoz is sixth in points with a third at Long Beach and a fourth at Indianapolis. The Colombian has shown that his strong oval runs from a year ago was no fluke and he can hold the mustard on road and street circuits. He has the team behind him to get the job done but can he cease an opportunity when it is given?
Jack Hawksworth was the class of the field in the first third of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and has had good runs at other races but the results haven't always fell his way. He has advanced to the second round of qualifying in four of five opportunities but has been collateral damage in a few races, ending promising runs. Should he continue his hot streak of qualifying, the results are bound to fall his way on a road or street circuit. Outside of a good showing in Indianapolis 500 qualifying, Hawksworth needs more track time on ovals before he can start challenging the likes of Carpenter, Dixon and Hunter-Reay.
Mikhail Aleshin has racked up three top tens in 2014 and has shown to have a knack for the ovals. The Russian has had a few bad runs but when he is hot, he could challenge anyone on the IndyCar grid. Road and street courses qualifying will need to improve. He has advanced to round two on only occasion. His teammate Simon Pagenaud already has a tally in the win column as Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Racing continues to try and knock the top three off their pedestal.
4. Who Can Turn It Around? Who Nose Dives?
Last year, Scott Dixon went from seventh to champion. Takuma Sato went from eighth to seventeenth. Sébastien Bourdais went from twenty-first to twelfth. Tony Kanaan went from sixth to eleventh. Will Power went from tenth to fourth. Simona de Silvestro went from eighteenth to thirteenth. Does the same thing occur in 2014? Could Josef Newgarden string results together to lift him from eighteenth to challenging for the top ten in the championship? Can Graham Rahal and the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team pick themselves up off the floor? Who can keep their seasons going? Does Juan Pablo Montoya keep up his great IndyCar return? Can Marco Andretti make it two consecutive seasons in the top five of the championship? Does Carlos Muñoz continue his stranglehold on the rookie of the year honors?
5. Does the Grind Prove to be Too Much?
Three. That is the amount of weekends the Verizon IndyCar Series has off between now and the season finale at Fontana. The series will ran 10 races over 11 weekends after running 8 races over 11 weekends to start the season. Teams needed this break and they will be feeling the gauntlet before the end of July. After the Houston doubleheader is the Pocono 500 followed by Iowa with the Toronto doubleheader end capping a four consecutive week, six race cross-continent tour. After a week off is Mid-Ohio with another week to rest before facing the giant hill that the offseason sits atop which includes Milwaukee, Sonoma and Fontana.
I was and still am for IndyCar racing on a more consistent basis but wanted nothing like this. Of course ending the season by Labor Day and not starting any sooner kind of force the five-mile run up hill but that is IndyCar's stubbornness, not mine. Could fatigue cost a driver a shot at a title? Will equipment wear and rebuilds cause headaches for teams? We will have to wait and see.
6. Aero Kits
I don't want to hear teams complaining about a lack of time to develop aero kits. They were delayed on at least three occasions and there is at least five months to get test miles under the body parts. Sebring is always open to hold a test (outside of the week of the 12 Hours of Sebring). Barber is always a second option. Texas, Fontana and Homestead are all ovals in warm enough climates to hold a test the week before Thanksgiving if you have to. If team owners start to waver again, it is time for IndyCar to smack them and tell them "we're doing this."
There are still wrinkles to be ironed out. It appears Chevrolet and Honda are the only ones making aero kits. Dallara is not making aero kits but to me, I don't see why you would stop a team from running a grandfathered Dallara aero kit. God forbid IndyCar makes it easy for an Indianapolis 500 one-off and not twist their arm to try and get an aero kit that is either A. Out of their price range or B. Not being made for them because Chevrolet and/or Honda are tapped out and we are left with teams on the sidelines not because they weren't fast enough or totaled a chassis but basically because they were told there wasn't a baseball glove for them and can't play today.
7. Road To Indy
Gabby Chaves and Zach Veach are engaged in what is setting up to be a championship battle for the ages. One point separates the two drivers with Chaves leading in victories, 3 to 2. Eight points back is Luiz Razia with Jack Harvey twenty-eight points and Matthew Brabham thirty-one points back. Four drivers have won so far this season. Five different drivers won in 2012 and 2013.
Out of these five, I am not sure any have to jump into IndyCar immediately. Chaves turns 21 July 7th. Harvey turned 21 in April. Veach doesn't turn 20 until December. Brabham turned 20 in February. Razia is the only driver I could see having to make the jump. The Brazilian is 25, won in GP2, was a Formula One test driver and for a few months was a Formula One driver with Marussia before the cash didn't come through. The other four have lots of time. There is no need to throw a 20 or 21 year old into IndyCar. Drivers need time to develop. Plenty of drivers don't start winning on a regular basis until their late 20s or early 30s. Take another year or two to develop. Razia, however, has plenty of experience that it's time for him to move to a major top division or consider a career change.
Spencer Pigot is holding on to the Pro Mazda championship lead. Pigot reminds me a lot of Connor De Phillippi. Great in the then-Star Mazda Series. He appeared to be a future star in IndyCar but never got the opportunity in Indy Lights. De Phillippi moved to sports cars, thanks to Porsche, and has won a race in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland and leads that championship as I write this. I'd hate to see Pigot not get the shot but he is going to have to fight to hold off Scott Hargrove if he wants to avoid a third season in Pro Mazda. The young Canadian Hargrove was fantastic in U.S. F2000, has two wins in Pro Mazda this year and swept the opening Porsche GT3 Cup Canada weekend at Mosport on a cameo appearance. Pigot finished fourteenth and third in the two Mosport races. Hargrove's future is bright and hopefully we see him and Pigot battle for decades to come.
Besides Pigot and Hargrove, Kyle Kaiser, Neil Alberico and Garret Grist have done well but don't expect them to move to Indy Lights immediately.
In U.S. F2000, R.C. Enerson will have to hold off at least Florian Latorre, Jake Eidson and Victor Franzoni if he hopes to move to win the Pro Mazda scholarship for 2015. Enerson has three wins but a tough race at Indianapolis Raceway Park took a decent chunk out of his championship lead. Aaron Telitz took victory at IRP. Other winners in 2014 include Will Owen and Adrian Starrantino while drivers Daniel Burkett, Clarke Toppe and Austin Cindric have shown an improvement in their second seasons.
8. Who Else Gets Behind the Wheel in 2014?
Luca Filippi will run Houston and Toronto for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing begging the question, who else get behind the wheel (or back behind the wheel) of a car in 2014? Oriol Servia had a good four races for RLLR before the well dried up after Indianapolis. JR Hildebrand and Sage Karam had great races at Indianapolis. More opportunities should be on their three respective horizons. Maybe Pippa Mann gets another race or two for Dale Coyne Racing. It would be great to see Buddy Lazier run another oval or two or Lazier Partners Racing run a car for someone else if Lazier decides otherwise on driving. Does someone else make their IndyCar debut? I said last week that their are plenty talented drivers interested in IndyCar but not enough seat. Let's see if anyone gets another opportunity to shine.
9. Schedule
I hate talking about the schedule. It leads to nostalgia about races that are never coming back barring miracles. Cleveland is gone. Surfers Paradise is happy with V8 Supercars being the main event. Portland isn't happening anytime soon. Michigan and Phoenix and Road America are only ever on the horizon. IndyCar can't get in bed with Austin because they are in bed with Eddie Gossage and Texas Motor Speedway. NOLA Motorsports Park doesn't have the infrastructure for a race in 2015 but who knows. After all, they want a June date. Let's see how many heat strokes there are at Houston and then we will shoot that idea down.
I made a rule about schedule talk (it can't start until halfway through a calendar year) but to quickly touch on what has been orbiting around the planet that is IndyCar news: I can live with international races. Dubai and Brasilia appear to be the only options and would lead off the 2015 season. Brasilia is a permanent facility that is getting a face lift as we speak. It is the same circuit MotoGP was scheduled to go this year before those plans were squashed but not ruled out for 2015. Dubai reportedly will be a street circuit. Meanwhile, the 3.3411-mile Dubai Autodrome, which hosts the Dubai 24 Hours, is more than suitable for IndyCar. I'd rather see the Autodrome than another street circuit, but that's just me.
10. Houston Doubleheader
Late-June and racing in Houston, Texas. What could go wrong? If the heat caused Honda engines to expire early at Texas Motor Speedway on a Saturday night, how are they going to last not just Saturday afternoon but Sunday as well. Of course, let's not forget the fans. Hydrate people. HYDRATE! Wear a Camelbak if you have to. Then there is the rough surface that is suppose to be taken care of going into this year's race.
I said it last year and stand by it, any facility hosting a major motorsports event has to be up to par. There is nothing stopping Mike Lanigan and Shell from moving their event to the world-class Circuit of the Americas. I understand Houston is Shell's backyard but IndyCar must have a backbone if the facility is not good enough. To be fair, Reliant Park may have corrected all the ills of 2013 and despite the bumpy surface there were two good races in the parking lot. As for whether or not this race stays in June could depend on it become a night event. Sounds good in theory but NASCAR races the same Saturday night IndyCar is at Houston. Of course that conflict could be avoided down the road.
There will be more on Houston coming up next week in the Track Walk column posted the Thursday of race weekend.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
