1. This race felt a lot like the 1997 Portland race, except for the nonstop wet weather. This race started in the dry and I can't even put into words what the first 75% of this race was. It was waiting. We waited for the rain. Everyone's pit stop was made with bated breath because no one wanted to stop and then get caught in the showers and have to stop again. It wasn't clear what was going to happen and then Hélio Castroneves spun and stalled after switching to the wet weather tires with just over 20 laps to go.
At this point the rain broke in and the racetrack was lost. A bunch of drivers had to make that extra start, including Simon Pagenaud. He stayed out despite having a chance to come in when Castroneves spun. He was on slicks and had to come on for wets. He dropped to sixth but it appeared the race was out of his hands. Scott Dixon led and Pagenaud had the likes of Spencer Pigot, Matheus Leist and Ed Jones in front of him.
Dixon pulled away and Pagenaud went to work, picking off one driver at a time. He made quick work of the Ed Carpenter Racing drivers but he had a longer fight with Leist but came on through. He sat on the rear wing of Harvey and was quicker but Harvey drove smart and was keeping second. Pagenaud didn't get second until six laps to go and he was 5.5 seconds behind Dixon. We were just getting started.
Pagenaud clawed away at the gap with no push-to-pass and with two laps to go he was a half-second behind Dixon. It appeared he was waiting until the final lap in turn one, a place where Pagenaud was braking later than everyone by a scary margin. We didn't have to wait that long. The door opened in turn nine! Turn nine of all places on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and he threw his car up the inside of Dixon and into first place.
Despite having no boost, Pagenaud pulled away and won by 2.0469 seconds over Dixon.
On a day when it appear no Chevrolet let alone a Team Penske car would be competing for a victory, Simon Pagenaud pulled off one of the most dazzling performances in IndyCar history. It was not quite Mark Blundell chasing down Gil de Ferran at Portland in 1997 but it was damn close and it wasn't a photo-finish with the top three but it was still an incredible finish and Pagenaud deserves to take a bow.
2. It is hard to say Scott Dixon blew this race but when you are leading by over five seconds with six laps to go on a road course you close those out 99% of the time. This was the one percent and as angry as Dixon may be, Pagenaud was just that better in the wet. He is kicking himself for leaving the door open in turn nine. If he keeps Pagenaud behind him there the Frenchman was going to make a no guts no glory move into turn one and Dixon may have lost the race there anyway. The good news for Dixon is he took a large chunk out of the championship lead and he heads into Indianapolis 500 practice six points behind Josef Newgarden.
3. Jack Harvey would have been the star of the day had Simon Pagenaud not won this race. The Meyer Shank Racing driver was at the front for the entire race and in the middle section of the race he was stronger than Dixon. We saw the deficit this team is competing at. At one point, Dixon, Harvey and Pagenaud were the top three cars and all stopped on the same lap. Harvey went from second, less than a second behind Dixon to third and over a second behind Pagenaud. This team is behind the giants when it comes to pit stops but the equipment and the driver are there. This was a much deserved third place finish.
4. Like the 1997 Portland race, a Brazilian finished fourth but more like the 2001 Portland race, another wet race, it was a relatively unheralded Brazilian that finished fourth. In 1997, it was Christian Fittipaldi in fourth but Matheus Leist is closer aligned to the 2001 fourth place finisher at Portland, Max Wilson. Leist had never finished in the top ten in an IndyCar race let alone the top five and here he is with a fourth place finish in his 22nd career start. Everything went his way to day. He stopped at the right times. He put wet tires on at the right time and he finished fourth. I think Leist could end up like Max Wilson and never pick up another top ten finish in his IndyCar career but congratulations to Leist, his great day in the sun comes during a rainstorm.
5. Spencer Pigot restarted in second behind Dixon but he did not have it to compete with the big dogs and quickly dropped back. All in all, though, this was a great day for Pigot. At the start, he quickly worked his way from 12th to seventh and he spent most of this day in the top ten.
6. And Pigot passed Ed Jones for fifth late in this race. Jones was another driver that spent much of the day in the top ten. Ed Carpenter Racing has been lost through the first four races and in the fifth it gets a fifth and a sixth place finish. Not bad momentum heading into Indianapolis 500 practice with Ed Carpenter returning to the cockpit and both Pigot and Jones rounding out the ECR lineup.
7. It is not often we get to write that Will Power was just the seventh best car today but Will Power was the seventh best car today. Power was not pushing to be in the front but he wasn't awful. He was seventh. It is odd but Chevrolet took five of the top seven spots and I am not sure anyone could have seen that coming let alone only two of those cars belonging to Team Penske and A.J. Foyt Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing finishing ahead of the second best Penske entry.
8. Felix Rosenqvist's first career pole position ends in an eighth place result. It seems like every race Rosenqvist falls back. In this one, he started at the front and then got snookered when Dixon made a daring move to the lead. From there, Rosenqvist fell back and he wasn't a factor in this one after lap 15. Add to it, he had two pit stops that resulted in fire. Not of his doing but on a day when it seemed like Chip Ganassi Racing was positioned to return to having both cars be contenders, the #10 team stumbled and continued on its rough run of form dating back to the end of the Dario Franchitti-era.
9. Graham Rahal finished ninth and he was good in this one but he was in the same boat as Pagenaud and did not stop for wet tires before the caution came out for Castroneves' spin. After the restart, he lost some spots when he was tussling with the likes of Pigot and Jones only to choose the wrong line, lose momentum and have a car behind pass him for position. This day could have been better but ninth is ok.
10. Somehow Santino Ferrucci finished tenth and he was not shown more than twice all race. At one point he was pressuring Power for position but outside of that he was not in contention. He kept his nose clean and it got him a top ten and he was a position ahead of teammate Sébastien Bourdais. It is a minor victory for the kid.
11. This was the weekend from hell for Andretti Autosport. One car started in the top fifteen. None of its cars were in the top ten at any point. Zach Veach and Marco Andretti were the top two finishers in 12th and 13th and I will praise Andretti because he was good in the wet but it was too little too late but the rest of the team was lost.
It didn't help that Alexander Rossi was drilled from behind before the green flag when Patricio O'Ward was a bit too enthusiastic. This sent Rossi into a tank slapper, the right rear tire slammed the pit lane wall and his race was over. The car got repaired but he was four laps down and the best he could pull off was 22nd. Ryan Hunter-Reay got tapped from behind and lost a lap because of the contact from James Hinchcliffe. Hunter-Reay spent most of this race a lap down and he got the wave around but all he could do was 17th. And this isn't even mentioning Colton Herta spun after side-to-side contact with Harvey while Herta was in the top five. Hunter-Reay spun into Herta thanks to the contact from Hinchcliffe and Herta's day was done right then and there.
The team has to be thinking this is it for misfortune heading into Indianapolis 500 practice. The team can't be thinking all five cars and Herta will have zero issues but it can't have effectively three cars get hosed on the oval, can they? This is
13. Speaking of these incidents, should drivers be penalized more severely if the car that driver affected lost a lap or more? At one point, O'Ward served his penalty and cycled into second place while Rossi was four laps down. Even Hinchcliffe seemed to benefit from his penalty. I have written about this before and I think sometimes a penalty can be beneficial to a driver, not on purpose but it works out that way.
There is no way to legislate a driver that serves a penalty cannot comeback to have a good result but I think when a car is sitting on pit lane and losing a lap or two for repairs or lost a lap because the car stalled and the safety crew could not get restarted fast enough then the driver that committed the crime should lose a lap as well.
Tony Kanaan took out half the field at Texas a few years ago and he lost two laps. Unfortunately, IndyCar threw two competition cautions because of fears over tire failures and he got waved around both times and ended up finishing second but it shouldn't take ruining a race for half the field for a driver to receive a lap penalty. I am not saying O'Ward should have lost four laps but he should have been put one or two laps down and it should have been extremely hard for him to significantly outscore Rossi and the same for Hinchcliffe and Hunter-Reay.
Now, there was a bit of "ball don't lie" in this race because Hinchcliffe only finished a spot ahead of Hunter-Reay in 16th and O'Ward had a problem and finished 19th, three spots ahead of Rossi but for a moment in appeared both cars were going to finish in the top five and O'Ward was in position for a podium finish and it warrants asking the question if a drive through penalty is enough when a driver can basically make a timely pit stop and then have a caution leapfrog them to the front of the field?
14. Takuma Sato was 14th and he had a few trips through the grass. If he had kept it on the road I think he gets a top ten finish.
15. Josef Newgarden cannot get a break in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Newgarden put on slicks prior to the caution for Castroneves but under that yellow it became clear wet tires were going to be needed. Newgarden comes back in, puts on wet tires only for a tire to roll away and force a penalty that dropped him to the rear. There was no coming back from that. He is still the championship leader but instead of a top ten finish for Newgarden, he finished 15th and he leads Dixon by only six points. Rossi is fortunate after today because he is only 36 points back. He still leads Pagenaud by 44 points and Sato by 50 points but he left the two drivers with the fewest flaws within striking distance heading into the double points race that is the Indianapolis 500.
16. A round up of the rest of the field: Max Chilton was 18th so he beat his teammate O'Ward but the bad days continue to pile up for Chilton. Tony Kanaan was 20th and this is getting harder to watch. Castroneves came home in 21st after the spin. Marcus Ericsson's first trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway ended after 11 laps when he spun exiting turn 14 and hit the SAFER Barrier in turn one. You do not see that accident often.
17. I am going to bring you down a bit because you are happy for Jack Harvey after he finished third today but next week he might be one of the cars bumped from the Indianapolis 500. You doubt that now but this place doesn't care what you did last week. It doesn't care you had a great day and are in a good mood. This place can turn the dream job into a nightmare and make you wish you never got involved.
Harvey might be ok but don't think just because he finished third today means he will be set next week in qualifying. Things go wrong. The script gets flipped. You begin to question your sanity and realize no joy is safe, not even your own if such a wonderful result such as today's can be completely forgotten after a few bad hours the following weekend.
It is not only Harvey you should be concerned about. Neither Pagenaud nor Dixon are safe. Leist is not safe. Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Hélio Castroneves is not safe. It is a scary time and it is the way it should be.
18. We get two days off before Indianapolis 500 practice begins. Who else has goosebumps?
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