 |
| Three drivers will fight for the Astor Cup and the IndyCar championship at Fontana |
Five-hundred miles separate us from knowing who will be lifting the Astor Cup as the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion. IndyCar returns to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for the thirteenth running of the MAVTV 500. Will Power enters as the championship leader, 51 points clear of his teammate Hélio Castroneves. Third in the championship, trailing Power by 81 points is Simon Pagenaud.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins Saturday August 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET with green flag at 10:20 p.m. ET.
TV Channel: NBCSN
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Paul Tracy, Townsend Bell, Kevin Lee, Kelli Stavast, Marty Snider and Robin Miller.
Championship Scenarios
For Will Power to clinch the title, regardless of what anyone else does, the Australian has to finish sixth and if he scores one bonus point, he can finish seventh and clinch the title.
If Hélio Castroneves wins the race and scores maximum points, he needs Power to finish seventh or worse. If Castroneves wins and scores three or fewer bonus points, he needs Power to finish eighth or worse.
If Castroneves finishes second in the race and scores maximum bonus points or three bonus points, he needs Power to finish fourteenth or worse. If he finishes second and scores two or fewer bonus points, he needs Power to finish fifteenth or worse.
If Castroneves finishes third in the race and scores maximum bonus points, he needs Power to finish nineteenth or worse. If he finishes third and scores three or fewer bonus points, he needs Power to finish twentieth or worse.
If Castroneves finishes fourth in the race he must score maximum bonus points and have Power finish twenty-second with no bonus points.
Simon Pagenaud has to win the race to win the championship. If he scores maximum points, he needs Power to finish nineteenth or worse and Castroneves to finish third or worse.
If Pagenaud wins and scores two or three bonus points, he needs Power to finish twentieth or worse and Castroneves to finish third or worse or fourth or worse if Castroneves scores three or four bonus points.
If Pagenaud wins and scores the minimum 101 points for victory, he needs Power to finish twenty-first or worse and Castroneves to finish third or worse or fourth or worst if Castroneves scores more than two bonus points.
Championship Contenders at Fontana
Will Power started from pole positions and led 103 laps on his way to victory last year at Fontana, his second career oval victory. Power's only other start at Fontana was in 2012 where he had an accident take him out of contention for the championship. He qualified third but had to serve a ten grid spot penalty for exceeding the five engine limit and started thirteenth. He completed 66 laps and finished 24th.
Hélio Castroneves has the most experience at Fontana amongst the championship contenders. The Brazilian has ten starts on the 2-mile oval. He has two pole positions, two top fives and eight top tens, however the Brazilians best finish at Fontana is only fifth and he can't finish worst than fourth if he wants to claim his first IndyCar championship.
Like Power, Simon Pagenaud has only made two starts at Fontana. In 2012, he qualified fifteenth but started twentieth after an engine change. He finished fifteenth, four laps down. Last year, the Frenchman started thirteenth and finished thirteenth after retiring due to an engine failure after completing 217 laps.
Last Chance For Victory
Thirteen drivers enter the season finale looking for their first victory in 2014, including four who were victorious in 2013.
James Hinchcliffe won three times in 2013 with two coming on street circuits and one on an oval. The Canadian has only one podium in 2014 as he sits twelfth in the championship, four spots lower than his final position in 2013. Hinchcliffe has qualified well all year but his results in races have been disappointing. While averaging a starting position of 7.75, his average finish is 12.88235 and he loses close to five positions a race from his starting position. He finished fourth last year at Fontana but he has only two top ten finishes in eight superspeedway starts.
Tony Kanaan won last year's Indianapolis 500 and while having the fourth most podiums in 2014 with five, the Brazilian has yet to ascend to the top step. He has finished third at the last two oval races and he led a race-high 79 laps at Pocono before having to pit late for fuel. In ten Fontana starts, Kanaan has four podiums, six top fives and seven top tens along with one pole positions.
Kanaan's Ganassi teammate Charlie Kimball won at Mid-Ohio last year and if James Hinchcliffe has been qualifying well and finishing poorly, Kimball has been doing the reverse. While averaging a starting position of 17.06, Kimball's average finish 12.52 and is tied for the fifth most top tens in 2014. The California-native has finished tenth in his only two visits Fontana and started fourth last year.
Takuma Sato's win at Long Beach last year appeared to be a sign the Japanese driver had finally honed in his recklessness and the speed he has shown in Formula One and IndyCar would finally make him a contender at the front of the field each week. In the 33 races since that victory, Sato has one podium, three top fives, six top tens and twelve finishes outside the top twenty. He currently sits twentieth in the championship. In 2012, Sato was up front, competing for a top five before spinning on the lap but finishing seventh as only six cars finished on the lead lap. He finished seventeenth last year after an engine failure.
After Tony Kanaan, the next driver in the championship standings without a victory is Carlos Muñoz. The Colombian rookie has raced very well on the few superspeedway races he has had the luxury of participating in. Second on debut in the 2013 Indianapolis 500, running up front and lower than anyone else last year at Fontana before pushing the limits a little too far and losing the backend. He finish fourth in this year's Indianapolis 500 and came home in third at Pocono. Despite all these top five finishes, Muñoz has only led 20 laps in his career to date.
Marco Andretti is looking for his first victory since Iowa 2011, 59 races ago. He started from pole at Fontana in 2012 before finishing eight and started sixth last year before coming home in seventh. Andretti has only combined to lead six laps in his two Fontana starts. He is tied for seventh in top ten finishes with nine, including an eighth place finish last week at Sonoma. However, Andretti has only two top fives this year with his last coming at the Indianapolis 500. He has averaged a 13th place finish in the previous five oval races.
Eleventh in the championship, Ryan Briscoe has yet to score a podium, let alone a victory in 2014. His lone top five was a fourth place finish at Pocono. He did not race at Fontana in 2013 and he started second in 2012 but was a non-factor in the race, leading only two laps before finishing seventeenth. Briscoe had completed the second most laps in 2014 behind only Will Power. Briscoe has ran all but 21 of the 2145 laps through the first 17 races of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season. Briscoe and Power are the only two drivers to be running at the finish of every IndyCar race to date in 2014.
Josef Newgarden has four top tens in the second half of 2014 alone including a fifth and sixth in the last two races. The Tennesseean has been knocking on the door for a victory this summer. Had it not been for missing it on fuel at Pocono, running out of laps to challenge Ryan Hunter-Reay at Iowa, a poor pit stop at Mid-Ohio or missing it on fuel again at Milwaukee, Newgarden may have already picked up his first career victory. He recently renewed his contract with Sarah Fisher and Wink Hartman as SFHR merges with Ed Carpenter's team for 2015 and ending 2014 with a victory would give the merged team a great shot in the arm heading into autumn offseason. Newgarden's finishes at Fontana are sixteenth and twentieth.
Graham Rahal is now only looking to set a record for most starts between victories at Fontana but he is looking to give the National Guard their first IndyCar victory in their final race. Rahal has started 113 races since winning at St. Petersburg in 2008. The current record is 97 by Johnny Rutherford between victories at Atlanta in 1965 and Ontario in 1973. He nearly won at Sonoma last week but fell three laps short on fuel. He has only four top tens in 2014 and his best finish at Fontana is sixth.
Other Championship Position Battles
While three battle for the title, many other drivers are battling to get the best position possible in the championship.
While Pagenaud has a shot at the title, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Juan Pablo Montoya and Scott Dixon are all breathing down his neck for third in the championship. Twenty-six points cover the four drivers.
Meanwhile, nineteen points cover seventh through tenth in the championship as Tony Kanaan, Sébastien Bourdais, Carlos Muñoz and Marco Andretti all jostle for position.
Andretti sits tenth, only fifteen points ahead of Ryan Briscoe with James Hinchcliffe 29 points back.
Josef Newgarden and Charlie Kimball are tied for thirteenth with 366 points. Five points cover Newgarden, Kimball, Mikhail Aleshin and Justin Wilson as they battle for positions in the top fifteen.
Jack Hawksworth and Graham Rahal are only thirteen points apart for seventeenth.
Carlos Huertas is only two points ahead of Takuma Sato for nineteenth. Twenty-nine points behind Sato is Sebastián Saavedra as he looks to crack the the top twenty.
And let's not rule out Ed Carpenter. With 191 points he sits 61 points behind Mike Conway and 74 points behind Sebastián Saavedra for twenty-first.
Attrition
Last year, nine cars were running at the finish as the heat and dirty conditions caused four engine failures and many teams dealing with over heating. It should be noted all four engine failures were Hondas and Honda struggled at Texas earlier this year with the heat as three cars retired due to engine issues.
Only five cars finished on the lead lap and the year before that only six completed all 250 circuits. Reliability will be key in the championship battle as a few extra laps in the pits to clean out the air ducts will cost a driver many positions on the track.
Fun Facts
This will be the first race on August 30th since 1992 and the last two races on August 30th have been won by Andrettis. Mario Andretti won at Road America on August 30, 1987 while Michael Andretti won at Vancouver on August 30, 1992.
The pole-sitter has won at Fontana twice, Dario Franchitti in 2005 and Will Power last year.
The furthest back on the grid a winner has come from at Fontana is thirteenth by Adrián Fernández in 1999.
Should Will Power win the IndyCar championship, he would become the first Australian to win the title.
Should Hélio Castroneves win the IndyCar championship, it would be the 7th time a Brazilian has won the IndyCar championship and the first since Tony Kanaan won in 2004.
Should Simon Pagenaud win the IndyCar championship, it would be the 6th time a Frenchman has won the IndyCar championship and the first since Sébastien Bourdais won in 2007.
There have been ten winners this season in IndyCar. Should there be an eleventh winner it would match the record for most different winners in an IndyCar season. There were eleven different winners in 2000 and 2001.
The drivers who won in 2000 weere Max Papis, Paul Tracy, Adrián Fernández, Michael Andretti, Gil de Ferran, Juan Pablo Montoya, Hélio Castroneves, Roberto Moreno, Cristiano da Matta, Jimmy Vasser and Christian Fittipaldi.
The drivers who won in 2001 were da Matta, Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Kenny Bräck, Papis, Dario Franchitti, Andretti, Patrick Carpentier, Bruno Junqueira, Moreno and de Ferran.
In twelve IndyCar races at Fontana, the average amount of lead changes in a race is 31.8333. The most lead changes is 78 in the 2001 race won by Cristiano da Matta. The least amount of lead changes is 13 in the first race at Fontana in 1997, won by Mark Blundell.
The last two IndyCar races at Fontana have featured seven cautions. The average amount of cautions for a Fontana race is 6.083 for an average of 42.5833 laps.
Chevrolet has won five consecutive races and won eight consecutive pole positions this season.
Scott Dixon needs to lead 180 laps to become the eighth driver to reach the 4,500 laps led club.
Juan Pablo Montoya needs to lead 148 laps to become the twenty-third driver to join the 2,000 laps led club.
Ryan Briscoe needs to lead 65 laps to become the twenty-seventh driver to join the 1,500 laps led club.
Carlos Muñoz won the last two Indy Lights races at Fontana.
The three Penske drivers are 1-2-3 in oval points. Juan Pablo Montoya has scored 275 points on ovals while Hélio Castroneves is second with 266 points and Will Power is third with 240 points. Ryan Hunter-Reay and Carlos Muñoz round out the top five in oval points with 221 and 212 respectively. Simon Pagenaud has scored 201 points on ovals while Ed Carpenter has scored 191 points.
More facts can always be found at the Telemetry Center.
Predictions
Will Power does learn from his previous missteps, plays it conservation but doesn't play prevent defense and comes home with a top ten finish and his first IndyCar championship.
We will see the eleventh different winner in the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season at Fontana and it will be a first time winner. Josef Newgarden takes the MAVTV 500 with his future teammate/co-owner Ed Carpenter in tow. Andretti Autosport puts three cars in the top ten. Carlos Muñoz wins Rookie of the Year. Simon Pagenaud comes home in the top ten. Fourteen cars are running at the end. Sleeper: Mikhail Aleshin.
