First Impressions: Barber 2015

HE DID IT! Josef Newgarden finally broke through for his first IndyCar victory.

1. It's about damn time. It took 55 starts but Josef Newgarden finally broke through for his first career victory. The merger of Ed Carpenter Racing and Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing has paid off greatly. Luca Filippi has two top tens in two races (finished 11th today) but Newgarden has looked good all season. He has three top ten finishes, has made the Fast 12 all three times and has made the Fast 6 twice. A championship assault might be just out of his reach but I bet this won't be the only race in which we find him in contention for a victory this season.

2. Graham Rahal was the best Honda all weekend and he nearly charged down Newgarden. I was a little unsure why he stayed out when he would have had to make two more pit stops to make it to the finish. I wasn't sure if a caution would have fallen his way but it was actually better that a caution didn't come. He had seven laps of fuel on the leaders and could run nearly two seconds faster while the leaders were in fuel-save mode. It nearly fell into his lap. He has to be shaking his head.

3. Scott Dixon is 6-for-6 at Barber Motorsports Park in terms of podiums. The bad news is he has never finished on the top step. When this became a fuel mileage race, I bet we all thought it was going to fall into Dixon's lap but Newgarden didn't falter and Dixon wasn't able to get control of this race. Not a bad race for him but I bet he is tired of finishing second and third at Barber.

4. Will Power overcame a penalty for running into Takuma Sato on pit out to finish fourth. Not many other drivers can overcome penalties like Will Power. He finishes fourth, Sato finishes 17th.

5. Ryan Hunter-Reay finished fifth after using pit strategy to his favor. As did his teammate Carlos Muñoz, who finished right behind him in sixth. Hunter-Reay scored fastest lap, a week after the Chevrolets dominated Hondas in terms of fastest lap. Hunter-Reay was the only driver to run a sub-70 second lap in the race with a 69.7188.

6. James Hinchcliffe finished seventh and was on the same strategy as Rahal. If it wasn't for Francesco Dracone and Rodolfo González, he might have finished in the top five. Remember how I was saying all weekend Honda should start cheating? They had a driver on the podium, had two in the top five and four of the top seven and scored fastest lap. They might not have won the race they sponsored but Honda had their best showing by far at Barber. Let's hope they continue making strides in the right direction.

7. Frenchmen Sébastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud finished eighth and ninth. Both had speed but got caught out on the first caution having yet to make their first pit stops while everyone else had. They were never a factor from that point on but were competitive.

8. Marco Andretti finished tenth. This is what he does. He keeps his nose clean and brings the car home in the top ten. He is much more competent than most people give him credit for. By the way, three Andretti cars in the top ten compared to two Penske and one Ganassi and Chevrolet and Honda evenly split the top ten.

9. A quick look at those who finished outside the top ten. Charlie Kimball and Tony Kanaan in 12th and 13th. The Ganassis looked to abuse the tires more than the other cars out there today. Juan Pablo Montoya had an unscheduled stop for a flat tire drop him out of contention and he came home in 14th. Hélio Castroneves had to pit on the final lap and fell from fourth to 15th. Rough break for him considering he was going to be the points leader. Montoya holds a three-point advantage after this one.

10. Gabby Chaves was the top rookie in 16th. Sage Karam finished 18th and struggled with the tires on the first stint. Not a great race for Karam. I wonder if the pressure is getting to him. At Indianapolis last year, no one believed in him. He was starting on the last row for an Indianapolis-only team. Now all the weight has been put on his shoulders and he is only 20 years old. Plenty of time for him to develop but the problem is Ganassi will chew him up and spit him out before he can legally buy booze. Stefano Coletti finished 19th. He was tenth but had to serve a penalty for pitting when the pits were closed. Then he made contact with James Jakes and had to serve another penalty. The Monegasque driver just needs one break to go his way.

11. Rodolfo González came home in 20th but had the second slowest fastest lap only quicker than his teammate Francesco Dracone, who finished 23rd, last place. It's the first time Dracone finished last in his IndyCar career. The good news is he can make it back to Europe in time for the Auto GP season opener next week in Hungary.

12. Like I said at Long Beach, crap starts are back in IndyCar. Wait until the Indianapolis 500. Thirty-three rows of one coming to the green.

13. Two full-course caution in this one but they weren't for anything major. The first for the Power-Sato incident and it wasn't for a car stopped on track. Both continued after the contact. Some debris came off Sato but to be honest, I think it flew off and wasn't on the track at all. The other was for the Coletti-Jakes incident and Jakes stalling in turn five. Other than that, I thought this race was great and is giving the FIA WEC season opener from Silverstone a run for it's money as the clubhouse leader for best race of 2015.

14. Four races, four different winners, four different teams. Yes, three wins belong to Chevrolet but Honda looked much better today. Sébastien Bourdais will surely find himself in contention for a victory, which would be a fifth different team. These aero kits haven't been so bad after all.

15. Indianapolis is on the horizon. The teams "get a week off" by testing their oval aero kits at the Speedway. Then the Grand Prix of Indianapolis the week after that followed by the track opening for Indianapolis 500 practice. It's only April but we are a quarter of the way through the 2015 season. This is just flying by.