Scott Dixon took his fifth IndyCar championship while Ryan Hunter-Reay won the 18th race of his IndyCar career. Brad Keselowski won Team Penske's 500th race as an organization and Keselowski tied Mark Donohue for most Team Penske victories at 59 in the process. There was a popular first time winner in Las Vegas. IndyCar wasn't the only series crowning a champion this weekend. There was a podium sweep in an endurance race. A famous Formula One face won in Japan. World Supersport had a strangely dramatic final lap in Portugal with Lucas Mahias trying to make it back to the pit lane on a flat rear tire to claim his victory after a red flag came out. Unfortunately for him, he did not make it back in time. An Estonian is on fire in the World Rally Championship. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
2018 IndyCar Predictions: Revisited
Each December we start predicting the upcoming year and now it is time to look back and see how wrong we were during the Christmas season. How did the 2018 IndyCar predictions turn out?
1. Andretti Autosport has at least one driver finish in the top five of the championship
Correct! The team had two drivers in the top five with Alexander Rossi coming in second and Ryan Hunter-Reay in fourth. This is the season the team needed. Andretti Autosport had not had a driver finish in the top five of the championship since Marco Andretti finished fifth in 2013. The team didn't fall that far off. It was unfortunate Hunter-Reay didn't finish in the top five in 2014. He was going to until a late spin at Fontana season finale. The team had some rough years during the aero kit epoch and it seemed it got the worst of Honda's wave of engine failures last year.
Though it didn't take the drivers' championship I think Andretti Autosport was the best Honda team in 2018 and you could make a case that Andretti Autosport topped Team Penske this year.
2. Ed Jones wins a race
Wrong! This was after buying the hype Chip Ganassi Racing was spewing in the preseason and seven months later the team's rhetoric hasn't aged well. We kept hearing Chip likes winners; Chip hires winners. I don't think this team was confident in Ed Jones' ability from the start but thought if they said it long enough they could convince themselves he would be the guy and the results would come. Jones was at best Ganassi's third option for this seat and it doesn't look like this is going to be a happy breakup.
This is old Chip Ganassi Racing coming to light. It is hidden under another Scott Dixon championship but after fallouts last year with Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton and Jones this year you have to worry when this team loses Scott Dixon to either retirement or McLaren or somebody else. This feels like we are on the verge of a post-Montoya/post-Vasser Chip Ganassi Racing where Nicolas Minassian didn't work out, Memo Gidley did well but not well enough, Kenny Bräck was a one-and-done, Tomas Scheckter was a one-and-done, Darren Manning got in at the wrong time when the Toyota engine was horrible and Ryan Briscoe had the same fate as Manning.
When is Ganassi going to make a smart hire? If you have had eyes for the last six years you know Felix Rosenqvist is a talent but Ganassi is a big enough team that he should have been able to grab a top IndyCar free agent. Why isn't Sébastien Bourdais on that time if he likes winners so much? Ganassi could have the top two active drivers in victories! That is the obvious move to make!
Dixon keeps winning but I think Ganassi could be facing difficult times in the near future.
3. Takuma Sato has more top ten finishes than he did in his first season with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Correct! Sato had eight top ten finishes this season, three more than he had with RLLR in 2012! On top of all that, Sato got his third career victory at Portland in a surprising turn of events where he started 20th and timely cautions got him to the front.
It wasn't a stellar year from Sato. He actually had more top ten finishes seasons than last year when he had seven top ten finishes but it is hard to say this year is better when he dropped ... positions in the championship and last year he won the Indianapolis 500. It was a respectable year for Sato.
For the longest time I said Sato wasn't going to change. We knew who he was, a driver who was quick but would overstep the line but he has been running at the finish of at least 75% of the races the last four seasons. He has had an average finish below 15th for the last four seasons. Two of his three retirements this season were out of his hands when he got into James Davison at Indianapolis and he was an innocent bystander in the lap seven Pocono incident in turn two. He has honed it in at the age of 41. He might not be a championship contender but he has become a respected member of the grid and we know he is a sleeper in every race.
4. No rookie finishes in the top 13 of the championship
Wrong! Robert Wickens was outstanding in 2018 and he should have been better than 11th in the championship, 11th on tiebreaker nonetheless after his teammate James Hinchcliffe gets the nod because of his victory at Iowa.
Wickens was better than Hinchcliffe this year and that was before Hinchcliffe's horrendous end to the season. Wickens had 391 points from 14 starts. If we game him last place points for the final three races, which would have been eight at Gateway, five at Portland and ten at Sonoma, that would have given him 414 points and put him eighth in the championship ahead of Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti and Hinchcliffe. Wickens was better than Rahal this year. He was better than Andretti as well. He would have been 11 points behind Bourdais in this scenario and he was better than Bourdais this year.
Wickens was averaging 27.9 points a race. Even if you rounded down to 27 points and then made that 54 points for the Sonoma season finale he would have ended up on 499 points and ahead of Simon Pagenaud and Wickens was better than Pagenaud this year. It doesn't work that way but it shows the flaws to a points system that rewards every position because it makes participation too much of a factor in deciding who is best.
If the Formula One points system from 1961-1991 had been used, the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system, Wickens would have finished sixth and that is probably where he rightfully belonged. Let's just go over the entire 9-6-4-3-2-1 results... yes this is going off on a tangent:
Dixon would still be champion with 67 points. Power and Rossi would have tied on 54 points and second would go to Power because they were equal on three victories but Power had more runner-up finishes. Ryan Hunter-Reay would be fourth on 50 points followed by Josef Newgarden on 35 points and Wickens on 28 points. Hinchcliffe and Bourdais would be tied on 23 points, tied with one victory, tied with a third-place finish but Hinchcliffe had finished fourth on three occasions to Bourdais' two times finishing fourth. Pagenaud would have been ninth while Sato would round out the top ten on 18 points ahead of his teammate Rahal on 12 points. Spencer Pigot would have been the final driver in double figures with ten points.
The remainder of the championship would have been Jones on nine points, Ed Carpenter on six points, all from his runner-up finish at Indianapolis, then Andretti with six points over Zach Veach with six points because Andretti would have had a seventh-place finish and Veach did not. Charlie Kimball would end on two points and Hélio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan would have each had a point.
That's it. Nineteen drivers would have scored and while it isn't that different from the actual championship results I think that championship is more representative of who was the best this season and Wickens would have been more properly placed in the final standings.
5. There is at least one driver who wins his or her first 500-mile race
Wrong! Will Power won his fourth 500-mile race when he took his first Indianapolis 500 victory in May and Alexander Rossi mopped the floor with the field at Pocono, leading 450 of 500 miles on his way to his second 500-mile race victory.
This was a bit of a surprise but not entirely shocking. There is still an impressive list of drivers without a 500-mile victory: Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Sébastien Bourdais and Ed Carpenter. Carpenter was actually the one who came closest to a long awaited 500-mile race victory when he led the most laps and finished second at Indianapolis.
6. At least two part-time drivers (except Ed Carpenter) finish in the top ten in the Indianapolis 500
Wrong! Carlos Muñoz finished seventh and Ed Carpenter finished second. That was it for the part-timers. J.R. Hildebrand finished 11th, one position outside the top ten in what was another one-off performance for the Californian. But, there were not two part-timers not named Ed Carpenter in the top ten of the Indianapolis 500.
I am going to use this space to remind you Muñoz should be a full-time IndyCar driver. His average finish in the Indianapolis 500 is 7.5, the sixth best all-time amongst drivers with at least five Indianapolis 500 starts. He is behind only Bill Holland, Ted Horn, Jimmy Murphy, Harry Hartz and Dan Wheldon. There is more to IndyCar than the Indianapolis 500. He twice finished in the top ten of the championship twice, including an eighth place finish as a rookie. As a rookie he had podium finishes at Long Beach, Houston and Pocono. In his first road course race of 2018 in a car where he had one test session prior to the race weekend he ends up with fastest lap.
7. Honda wins at two tracks that it has won at once or fewer in the DW12-era (excluding Portland and Gateway)
Correct! And this one went to the wire. Honda had to win Sonoma for this prediction to be correct and Hunter-Reay came through. The other victory that fulfilled this prediction was Bourdais' victory at St. Petersburg.
8. The total number of caution laps is up by at least 4.5%
Wrong! I am surprised by this one. It seemed like at the start of the season people were concerned that a new car with larger braking zones and less aero turbulence would mean more attempted passes, more chances of a driver getting into another entering a corner and races would be slowed more often. That wasn't the case. Not only did the total number of caution laps not go up by at least 4.5%, the total number went down!
The 2017 season had 13.34% of all laps under caution. This season had only 10.515%. That is a difference of 2.825%! Six of the final eight races had less than 7% of the total laps under caution. The race with the highest percentage of caution laps was St. Petersburg at 22.72%. The only other races above 15% were Long Beach (18.82%), Barber (17.07%), the Indianapolis 500 (20.5%) and Portland (17.142%).
I am a bit surprised. We had some pretty clean races and on top of that there weren't as many cautions for slow cars as in previous years. This is one I am happy to get wrong.
9. No more than three new track records are set
Correct! This one came down to the wire. Three track records were broken this season.
At St. Petersburg, Jordan King ran a lap at 107.914 MPH in the first group of round one, besting Will Power's record of 107.561 MPH. The Toronto track record is a bit misleading because the track has been reconfigured since the pit lane moved but either way Scott Dixon ran a 109.805 MPH lap in round two, topping Simon Pagenaud's 109.138 MPH from the year before. Will Power broke the Portland track record with a lap at 123.577 MPH in group two of round one. Justin Wilson held the prior track record at 122.756 MPH.
10. At least three teams have multiple race winners
Wrong! This prediction was really leaning on the Ed Jones prediction because if Jones was going to win a race then Dixon was definitely going to win a race and Team Penske was always going to have at least two drivers win a race and I think most of us thought Rossi would win a few and Hunter-Reay could get a victory. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing did get a victory, which isn't a surprise and even if Sato and Rahal had each won I don't think anyone would be flabbergasted.
It is difficult to win in IndyCar. Penske and Andretti Autosport came up big for this prediction and the likes of Ganassi, RLLR and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports were good but not good enough.
11. At least three races are won by drivers starting outside the top ten
Correct! There were three races won from outside the top ten. For the second consecutive year, Sébastien Bourdais won at St. Petersburg from outside the top ten, this time from 14th. James Hinchcliffe had a hard charge from 11th and took a victory out of Josef Newgarden's hands after it appeared the American would lap the field. Takuma Sato won from 20th at Portland after a handful of cautions shuffled the field and got the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver to the front of the field and ahead of Ryan Hunter-Reay.
12. A new title sponsor is not announced prior to the Sonoma finale
Correct! And now we wait.
Six-for-twelve, batting .500. That's not great but it could have been worse.
Champions From the Weekend
You know about Scott Dixon but did you know...
The #88 AKKA ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello and Michael Meadows won the Blancpain Sprint Series championship with finishes of fourth and first at the Nürburgring.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Ryan Hunter-Reay, Brad Keselowski, Raffaele Marciello and Michael Meadows but did you know...
Lewis Hamilton won the Singapore Grand Prix, the 69th grand prix victory of his Formula One career.
Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell won the Sandown 500 in a sweep of the podium for Triple Eight Race Engineering ahead of Shane Van Gisbergen and Earl Bamber and Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards.
Ross Chastain won the Grand National Series race from Las Vegas, his first career victory. Grant Enfinger won the Truck race.
Jonathan Rea swept the World Superbike races from Portimão for the third consecutive visit to the track. Federico Caricasulo won the World Supersport race, his second consecutive victory.
The #1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi of Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas won the first Blancpain Sprint Series race from the Nürburgring.
The #100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Jenson Button and Naoki Yamamoto won the Super GT race from Sportsland SUGO and took the GT500 championship lead. The #61 R&D Sport Subaru of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi won in GT300.
Ott Tänak won Rally of Turkey, his third consecutive victory.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP has its penultimate European round (and penultimate Spanish round) of the season from Aragón.
NASCAR has its penultimate race of round one from Richmond and it is the final Saturday night race of the season.
European Le Mans Series has its penultimate round from Spa-Francorchamps.
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters has its penultimate round from the Red Bull Ring.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
