There is trouble brewing in the Team Penske stable. Two former IndyCar drivers won the final Suzuka 1000km in an upset. Jenson Button finished 12th in his Super GT debut and one car finished the Suzuka 1000km on its lid. Marc Márquez lost the MotoGP championship lead after suffering an engine failure. The 100th Moto3 race was contested. A pair of disqualifications shook up the FIA Formula Two feature race results. An American continues to put up respectable results in GP3. There was a first-time winner in IMSA competition and there was a first-time winner in NASCAR competition as well in what was a physical race. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
2018 IndyCar Schedule Talk Part Two
It has been a calm silly season in terms of IndyCar schedule speculation. I would argue that is a good thing considering how much turnover there had been from reunification to last season. The good news is we appear to have 100% retention rate for a second consecutive season, something that has not been heard of in IndyCar for almost two decades and there is a chance of schedule growth.
We already knew about St. Petersburg (March 11th), Long Beach (April 15th), the Indianapolis 500 (May 27th), Belle Isle (June 2-3rd) and Road America (June 24th). Since our last time pondering what the 2018 calendar will look like, it has all but been officially confirmed that Phoenix will return to the week prior to Long Beach on Saturday April 7th and with the release of the IMSA Prototype Challenge schedule we have learned that Barber will take place Sunday April 22nd. Texas is set for Saturday June 9th.
It appears the first half of the IndyCar season is pretty much set. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis has yet to be confirmed for its regular date of the second Saturday of May but it would seem that race is set to return to that date.
The second half of the season remains to be confirmed but we have yet to hear any news of any major date shifts. If the final seven race weekends do not change for 2018, the second half of the 2018 IndyCar schedule should look like this:
July 8th: Iowa
July 15th: Toronto:
July 29th: Mid-Ohio
August 19th: Pocono
August 25th: Gateway
September 2nd: Watkins Glen
September 16th: Sonoma
When looking at that theoretical second half of the schedule the first thing to notice is there are fewer clashes with NASCAR Cup races. Iowa would take place on the Sunday after the July Daytona race. Toronto would take place the day after Kentucky. Pocono would still occur on the Sunday after the Bristol night race and Gateway would still take place on a Cup off weekend. Watkins Glen would still fall the same day at the Southern 500 but Watkins Glen would be a day race while the Southern 500 would take place at night.
The two clashes would be Mid-Ohio with the second Pocono Cup race and Sonoma with the newly added Las Vegas Chase race, although Sonoma started after the Cup race at Chicagoland last year and it is scheduled to start after the Chicagoland race again this year.
The one possible addition to the IndyCar schedule could be a round in Mexico. Though original reports surrounding a trip south of the border were linking IndyCar to Autódromo Miguel E. Abed, a 1.25-mile oval located near Puebla, it now appears the potential Mexico race would take place at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. While currently being the home of the Mexican Grand Prix, Autódrome Hermanos Rodríguez has hosted eight IndyCar races. It hosted CART in 1980 and 1981 with Rick Mears winning both races. The series returned in 2002 and continued until the final Champ Car season in 2007. Sébastien Bourdais won three of the final six Mexico City races with Kenny Bräck, Paul Tracy and Justin Wilson splitting the other three.
What could be delaying any announcement of a race in Mexico is whether or not Esteban Gutiérrez has a full-time ride in IndyCar for next season. The general consensus is for any race to succeed in Mexico you need a regular Mexican driver, something IndyCar had been lacking before Gutiérrez stepped in as a substitute for the injured Sébastien Bourdais however with the return of the Frenchman, Gutiérrez is back on the unemployment line. What is on Gutiérrez's side is his connection with billionaire Carlos Slim, who has helped fund a slew of Mexican drivers over the years and whose company Telmex sponsored Chip Ganassi Racing's Daytona Prototype for years with Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett as drivers.
Gutiérrez's future in IndyCar aside for a moment, the timing of a Mexico race is in the air. It appears the race would be slotted into one of the two open weekends between Mid-Ohio and Pocono in August. Though I am sure there are good reasons for slotting Mexico in August, I believe it would be better to head to Mexico in late-March. There is tentatively a three-week gap between the season open at St. Petersburg and the second round of the season at Phoenix. The third week of that gap is Easter Sunday but putting a Mexico race on March 25th would create a flowing start to the season with St. Petersburg followed by an off week then Mexico, then the Easter off week and then Phoenix.
Adding Mexico to August would get rid of a two-week break but it would crowd an already crowded part of the schedule. It would either create a back-to-back situation where teams would have to go from Mid-Ohio on Sunday and have to be in Puebla or Mexico City for practice the following Friday or it would create a four-week stretch of races with Mexico leading off before a 500-mile race at Pocono, Gateway and Watkins Glen.
In my mind, it makes more sense to make sure to have an off-week before and after a race in Mexico to give the teams enough time and not wear the crews out. It doesn't appear there is any reason why Puebla couldn't host IndyCar in March. The issue with March for Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is the track hosts Formula E on the first weekend of March in 2018. I don't know how long circuit turnaround takes but it could prevent IndyCar from heading there the final weekend of that month, plus two major motorsports events in one month could be oversaturate the market. However, the FIA World Endurance Championship heads to Mexico City the first weekend in September. Unless the FIA WEC does not return to Mexico City in 2018 or has a different date next year, it appears IndyCar and FIA WEC could fall a month a part and could oversaturate the demand for motorsports in Mexico City late in the summer.
All is quiet on any other venues joining the IndyCar schedule. All talks of Portland returning have gone silent. Even if IndyCar doesn't add a new track in 2018, two consecutive years of 100% retention of races is a big step for IndyCar and consistency will only help the series grow.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Josef Newgarden but did you know...
Lewis Hamilton won the Belgian Grand Prix from pole position. Hamilton equaled Michael Schumacher's record for most career pole positions at 68. Sunday's race was also Hamilton's 200th Formula One start.
The #64 Epson Nakajima Racing Honda NSX of Bertrand Baguette and Kosuke Matsuura won the Suzuka 1000km. The #65 LEON Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 of Naoya Gamou and Haruki Kurosawa won in GT300.
Andrea Dovizioso won MotoGP's British Grand Prix, his second consecutive victory and he took the championship lead by nine points over Marc Márquez. Takaaki Nakagami won the Moto2 race. Arón Canet won the red-flag shortened Moto3 race. It was Canet's third victory of the season.
Santiago Urrutia won the Indy Lights race from Gateway. Victor Franzoni won the Pro Mazda race.
Artem Markelov won the Formula Two feature race from Spa-Francorchamps after Charles Leclerc and Oliver Rowland were disqualified for technical infractions. Sérgio Sette Câmara won the Formula Two sprint race. George Russell and Giuliano Alesi split the GP3 races. Alesi has won three consecutive GP3 sprint races. American Ryan Tveter finished sixth and third in the two GP3 races. He now has four consecutive points finishes and two consecutive podium finishes in sprint races.
The #27 SMP Racing Dallara-Gibson of Matevos Isaakyan and Egor Orduzhev won the 4 Hours of Le Castellet. The #2 United Autosport Ligier-Nissan of Sean Rayhall and John Falb won in LMP3. The #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE of Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Aaron Scott won in GTE, the team's second consecutive victory.
The #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio García won the IMSA race from Virginia International Raceway. It was the third victory of the season for Magnussen and García. The #16 Change Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 of Corey Lewis and Jeroen Mul won in GTD, the first victory for Change Racing.
Jeremy Clements won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Road America. It was his first career victory in his 256th start, the most starts before a first career victory.
Marcel Fässler and Dries Vanthoor swept the Blancpain Sprint Series weekend from the Hungaroring in the #5 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar has its penultimate round of the season at Watkins Glen.
All three Road to Indy champions will be crowd at Watkins Glen.
Formula One returns to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix, the final European round of the season.
NASCAR runs the 68th Southern 500.
The Pirelli World Challenge ends the SprintX season with a triple-header at Circuit of the Americas.
The FIA World Endurance Championship trudges on to Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the 6 Hours of Mexico.
The TCR International Series has its first round in almost two months in Buriram, Thailand.
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