1. It wasn't a great race but it was a great finish. Cars were running out of fuel and stopping on course like marathon runners dropping after crossing the line. Scott Dixon was able to take advantage of Graham Rahal and Mike Conway being short on fuel to take the victory. Second win of the year for Dixon and second in the month of August. Too little too late for the New Zealander to retain his championship but he has had a much better final month and a half of the season.
2. Ryan Hunter-Reay finally gets his first career top five at Sonoma with a second place finish but it's not enough to keep his championship hopes alive. He needed to win but it's a big step forward after a disastrous Milwaukee weekend.
3. Simon Pagenaud barely kept his championship hopes alive with a third place finish. He is 81 points behind Will Power meaning he will need to score maximum points at Sonoma and hope Power repeats his 2012 Fontana race to win the title. What a great run though consider the Frenchman was struggling all weekend and was able to get a podium.
4. How about Takuma Sato with a fourth place finish? He worked strategy well, didn't get caught in anyone else's problems and it paid off for him. It's been a rough season for Sato and AJ Foyt Racing but that should sour this result.
5. Juan Pablo Montoya has had a great comeback in IndyCar. A top five finish here at Sonoma. I didn't think Montoya would be doing this well in his first season back in IndyCar. I was expecting a season similar to Rubens Barrichello in 2012. A few really good results and a respectable season but not the cream of the crop. It's been great having Montoya back in IndyCar. It feels like he never left.
6. One of these days, Josef Newgarden is going to get a break. He had a great car all day, started second and has been really good most of this season. He will stay with the merged Carpenter Fisher Hartman Racing next year. If he doesn't win at Fontana, you got to peg him to get one in 2015.
7. Great day for Mikhail Aleshin although to be honest, I didn't hear his name be mentioned once. Seventh place for the rookie. He keeps his Rookie of the Year hopes alive. He has done really well on the ovals, three top tens in five starts. Maybe he can challenge Carlos Muñoz for the honor.
8. Marco Andretti with a solid top ten. Solid top tens have been Andretti's season. He gets top tens but he hasn't been as challenging as he was last year where he finished fifth in the championship. He has run well at Fontana. A win there would be a great way to cap off this season.
9. Justin Wilson gets ninth after it was ruled Will Power passed him under a local yellow on the final lap. Not a bad run for Wilson. Another top ten at Sonoma. This season was a step back for Wilson from 2013. He is getting up there in age. If only he was given a prime seat right after the merger, what could have been.
10. Will Power finished tenth but he could have had the championship in the bag. At one point, Power was in line for maximum points while Hélio Castroneves was nineteenth. But a slight mistake, a spin and it nearly cost him dearly. He recovered. He has a 51-point championship lead over Castroneves who had a day from hell finishing eighteenth after front wing damage on the first lap but Power has left the door slightly open and he has done that plenty times before and come out empty handed.
11. Quick breeze through a few other driver. Sébastien Bourdais hit a half dozen cars today and went off course once and still managed eleventh. James Hinchcliffe started fourth and finished twelfth. Goal for 2015 for Hinchcliffe should be to stay up front. He has the third best average starting position but the results don't reflect that. Tony Kanaan missed out on at least a top five after needing to make a late stop for fuel. It's been a so-so year for Kanaan. Results have been good but I bet he expected better.
12. Mike Conway finished fourteenth. In twelve starts, Conway had two wins but those were his only top ten finishes. He ends his season with an average finish of 12.91 and average start of 14.6363, not great numbers by any means. Will he return to split the ride with Carpenter in 2015? That's uncertain but the question is what were the expectations for Conway? Was it checkers or wreckers for the Brit? I am sure Carpenter wants to see his car at the front more but if Conway had ten top tens and zero wins, would be as happy as two wins and ten finishes outside the top ten?
13. Another quick breeze: Jack Hawksworth ended up fifteenth but was barely mentioned. Sebastián Saavedra had a Sebastián Saavedra type day in sixteenth and caused one full-course caution. Ryan Briscoe ended up seventeenth after going off on lap one. His season has gotten better as the year has gone on but this wasn't the day he was looking for.
14. Hélio Castroneves should be thanking his lucky stars. He could have been all but out of it. The question is can he finally go out and take it? He hasn't been the driver to chase down championship like Franchitti, Hunter-Reay or Dixon. Last year proved that. Can he chase this down? Can he forced his teammate Power to have to drive the car harder than he has ever had to before if he wants to keep the title? Castroneves has done well on the ovals but next week at Fontana he will have to drive the race of his life.
15. Carlos Muñoz ended up nineteenth. He fell back and was never heard from again.
16. Graham Rahal nearly won this one but fell three laps short on fuel and a penalty for pit lane speeding dropped him to twentieth. Just like the Grand Prix of Indianapolis where Oriol Servià had one slip away, RLLR had another one slip away. It's been a rough year for RLLR but this race was really good for them all around. If they can replicate this across 18-plus races in 2015, the Ohioan will be a much happier man.
17. Charlie Kimball ran out of fuel and fell a corner shy of finishing. Carlos Huertas was the only retirement. Got to give Honda and Chevrolet credibility for their reliable engines and Dallara for a reliable chassis if only one car retires.
18. Think about this: Sonoma could end the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season. I love Sonoma. It's a very nice circuit and facility but I am not sure what can be done to improve this circuit. Unless millions and millions are spent to alter the circuit and make it wider, I don't see a simple fix to make the racing better.
19. From U.S. F2000 to Pro Mazda to Indy Lights to IndyCar to even Pirelli World Challenge, this was a crazy weekend. Championship leaders just couldn't avoid trouble. What seemed like sure things one second were completed flipped over the next. What an emotional roller coaster for many.
20. Hard to believe IndyCar has one race to go. Fontana has put on great races the last two years but things have to change. The track isn't happy about their Labor Day weekend date because it is hotter than the face of the sun and no one want to suffer heat stroke and even worse the race is starting at 10:00 p.m. ET. The championship will be decided at about 1:00 a.m. ET Sunday morning. That has to change. IndyCar has to keep Fontana on the schedule but realize Labor Day weekend isn't the weekend for that race. I've said open the season at Fontana the Sunday after the Super Bowl with a 500-miler. It would be cooler, chances of rain would be higher but I'd rather be dodging rain drops that risking skin cancer. The two parties have to make this work.
21. Look for a championship preview in the week to come as well as some reviews on the 2014 season.
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