First Impressions: Pocono 2017

1. Alright, it is a few minutes after 8:00 p.m. ET, I have been home for about a half hour and now I look back on the race I just attended after having about 100 minutes in the car. Will Power stole it again and that is what makes Team Penske the greatest team perhaps in motorsports history. It isn't that Power didn't have the speed to compete in the front but nine times out of ten when a team needs to make an unscheduled pit stop or front wing change it is game over and if you can get a top ten finish than it is considered a day salvaged. Not Team Penske and not Will Power. That team stopped when there was no way to make it on one more stop and ran hard enough to cycle out with a sizable lead and then short stint to maintain the advantage.

2. It didn't come easy for Power. Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi ran him down and they were breathing down his neck for the final ten laps. Newgarden couldn't maintain his runs into turn three. Power took away the inside lap each lap and Newgarden could keep the momentum up through turn three and down the front straightaway. It isn't a win but it is a great day in the championship for Newgarden. He needed a solid run and he only had Power gain ground on him. It is far from over but Newgarden held onto the advantage, which didn't appear likely at the start of today.

3. Alexander Rossi might have been the best driver out there today and this feels like a second consecutive year of Honda being the best for the first 350 miles and then lost it in the final 150 miles. Rossi was on the back of Newgarden the whole way but he couldn't get by and challenge Power. It is a good day and this is a bit of redemption after how he race ended last year but he probably feels like he should have won this one. Honda has to be slightly disappointed not to win this one. It had the top four cars consistently in this race and its best finisher was in third.

4. I will be honest, the entire drive home I thought Tony Kanaan finished fourth. I didn't realize it was Simon Pagenaud. He had a good day. He seemed to stop on the first lap or two of a fuel window and then would come out three or four positions better than he was only to lose those positions after a few laps. The streak continues for Pagenaud. He will head to Gateway having completed every lap this season.

5. Tony Kanaan finished fifth and he was the best guy on restarts all race. I think he went third to first into turn one at least twice. He had a really good car at the start of runs but he didn't have it over long stints and that is where the likes of Rossi, Scott Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay had Kanaan beat but Kanaan got a solid result out of this one.

6. Scott Dixon finished sixth and like Rossi, this probably should have been a better result. Dixon led a fair share of this race and he was consistently in the top five. He trails Newgarden by 18 points and while Newgarden might have the edge at Gateway, Dixon is arguably the man to beat at Watkins Glen and Sonoma. Next week might be about making sure the bleeding isn't too bad and giving himself a good shot at it in the final two.

7. Hélio Castroneves finished seventh and that was probably the best he could have asked for. He got to the fringe of the top ten but never really challenged for the top five. This is a good recovery after yesterday's qualifying accident.

8. Ryan Hunter-Reay started a position behind Castroneves and finished a position behind Castroneves but he had a far better day than Castroneves. Hunter-Reay definitely deserved a top five, if not a podium finish. For a good portion of this race it looked like either Rossi or Hunter-Reay were going to win this one. He got shuffled back during the last pit cycle when someone came out and he got caught behind him and lost all momentum.

9. Speaking of drivers that deserved a better finish, Graham Rahal was much better than ninth. He and Kanaan traded the lead for every lap for almost a dozen laps. I don't think Rahal could have won it but he should have been ahead of at least three of the four Penskes. During that never-ending position swap between him and Kanaan, I was trying to figure out why and what I noticed was the wind was blowing head on toward the exit of turn two and the only thing I can think of was the leader was slowed on exit, the trailing car didn't have that disadvantage and could use the leader as a pick into turn three.

10. Carlos Muñoz rounded out the top ten. He had a good day but he wasn't a factor. It is still a good showing in what has been a difficult year for him and A.J Foyt Racing.

11. One final driver that should have finished better than he did: Marco Andretti. He led a handful of laps during the pit cycle and he had to pit for a splash of gas and that didn't go as smoothly as it could have. Even if that splash and go was to perfection, at best I think Andretti would have come out in sixth or seventh, which is kind of where he should have been. He seemed to be ahead of Newgarden for most of the day and he was running with Hunter-Reay for a bit in this one.

12. Ed Carpenter finished 12th. Who knew?

13. Takuma Sato went directly to the back when the green flag fell, which is disappointing considering how positive his pole position was yesterday. Thirteenth can't be spun as a positive.

14. Conor Daly gets his first lead lap finish on an oval, and his third consecutive lead lap finish, in finished 14th. He was running with Muñoz for a good portion of today. I don't know if he could have cracked the top ten but I think Muñoz finished about four spots better than he should have and had the cautions gone differently, Daly could have finished ahead of his teammate.

15. Quickly through the rest of the field: Gabby Chaves was another car that dropped through the field like a rock at the start. Fifteenth is still good considering this is the team's third race ever and it is the team's worst result but I am sure they were really hopeful after starting eighth. Charlie Kimball had to change his front wing early and never got back into this one. Ed Jones spent a good portion of the race around 11th but finished 17th. Max Chilton had mechanical issues hamper his day. J.R. Hildebrand and James Hinchcliffe got together. Hinchcliffe let his botched pit stop get the better of him and he never recovered, although he made the save of the decade, perhaps the century exiting turn one on one lap. Sebastián Saavedra did nothing spectacular before brushing the wall. Esteban Gutiérrez had a really good start and his race was over after completing just over 50 miles.

16. I have gone to every Pocono race since the series returned. This had to be the biggest crowd in that period and it felt bigger. This isn't some wishful bullshit of thinking it looks bigger because of rose tinted glasses. It looked like there were more heads to my left when I looked toward turn three and more to my right when I looked toward turn one. It wasn't a sellout and I am not going to pretend it was a sellout but if you said 35,000 to 40,000 people were there, I would buy it and I could even buy about 45,000.

Whatever Pocono did, they have to do it again. I think they have found a great date in late August. It was another comfortable day, which only helps attract people to the track and they saw a top-notch race today. My only request would be to start the race an hour earlier. A 2:40 p.m. start time was good but I think a 1:30 p.m. would be better.

A few years ago I was worried about IndyCar's future at Pocono. I am hopefully now but races are delicate. A track could try to do too much and ruin all the progress made. One increase in ticket prices could be a death sentence and I am afraid that will happen. I can understand why a track would want to do it but greediness can bite.

17. On to Gateway. IndyCar's final races come thick and fast and the title is going to Sonoma. Forty-two points cover the top five; 100 points cover the top eight. It should be a good one.