The World Rally Championship season finale from Australia was cancelled because of bushfires in the area of New South Wales where the rally was located. Elsewhere in the world, MotoGP closed its season in Valencia. NASCAR closed its season in Homestead. One of NASCAR's champions did not have a race victory. Jorge Lorenzo announced his retirement. Formula One went to Brazil and McLaren got its first podium since the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. Macau was buzzing and American Logan Sargeant finished third, the first America to score a Macau podium since Richard Antinucci was second to Mike Conway in 2006. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
NASCAR Might Be Onto Something
Another NASCAR season closed this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway and three champions were crowned based on the result of one race.
This is the sixth year NASCAR has been using this elimination format in the Cup Series, with 16 drivers being whittled down to four after three rounds of three races before a one-race, best finisher of the final four gets the title finale. The lower two national touring divisions has used this format for the fourth season.
The system is just another evolution from the Chase format introduced 15 years. What was a season split into two, a 26-race aggregate with the top ten advancing to a 10-race aggregate, has morphed into this charade. NASCAR caught the bug with championships coming down to the last lap and, like an addict needing a greater high, made sure that would always be the case.
It was a grand departure from what NASCAR was for five and a half decades and a grand departure from what every other motorsports series in the world is. The door is open for someone to win every race preceding the finale, be the first retirement in the finale and then have the champion be a driver that never won a race, which has happened anyway, even though winning is stressed in this format.
Depending on the metrics that tickle your fancy, whether or not NASCAR made the right decision is unclear. Grandstands and television ratings compared to 15 years ago tell one story. Twitter polls and surveys with leading questions will tell another. There is something about this format that does not sit right. It is contrived. It is glory chasing. It is manufactured.
However... NASCAR might be onto something.
I realize, days after a champion was crowned without scoring a victory all season, recent evidence dismisses this claim but winning does matter. If you tune into any of the final seven races in the Cup Series, you know that winner means something. The first round, not so much outside of the roval, but you know Talladega matters and Kansas matters and then you get to the semifinal round and those three races are significant.
Those winners mean something for the next few weeks. There is a great reason to watch that week and the week after that. Martin Truex, Jr. won at Martinsville, great, now who was going to win at Texas and join him in the final four spots? The same goes with Texas to Phoenix and in the finale no one can sit back.
Compare it to the IndyCar finale where Josef Newgarden entered with a championship lead and knew what he had to do to win the championship. All Newgarden really had to do was sit on the rear wing of Alexander Rossi and Newgarden would be champion. If Rossi won and Newgarden was second, Newgarden would be champion. Control was out of Rossi's hand and there was no reason for Newgarden to get ahead of Rossi.
In NASCAR, that would not be the case. Newgarden would have had to get ahead of Rossi and he would also have had to be ahead of Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon to be champion. He could not settle for an eighth place finish if Dixon, Pagenaud and Rossi were third, fourth and sixth respectively. In NASCAR, Pagenaud would have to get after Dixon for third. Colton Herta might have won the race and Will Power might have been second but the championship would have been the race for third. It would have gone to the wire.
Isn't that what we want? We want every lap to matter and every lap position to matter. As manipulated as it is, NASCAR has done that.
But let's dive into this a little more. It is not as simple as going to the last lap and every position mattering. Through 16 races, Newgarden built up an insurance that allowed him to stay on Rossi's rear wing and ultimately settle for an eighth place finish. The same way Newgarden built insurance; Rossi, Pagenaud and Dixon had 16 races to get a position of power in the final race. Two races here and there and any of those three could have had the advantage over Newgarden.
The one thing you can say is the IndyCar season weighs a little more than the NASCAR season. We can get amped up for all these playoff races but the truth is there is a shorter shelf life for a victory. Kyle Larson won at Dover and while that was great for a week, what did it mean in the end? Ryan Blaney won at Talladega, did it really have any role in the championship?
Extending it into the 26-race regular season, what did Joey Logano's dominance at Michigan in June or Kurt Busch's photo-finish victory over his brother Kyle Busch at Kentucky really mean at the end of the season? Ultimately, nothing. Logano was eliminated after Phoenix, a race where he was dreadful. That one race cancelled out that Michigan performance and his other victory at Las Vegas and it meant he could finish no better than fifth in the championship.
Those points Kyle Busch lost at Kentucky really didn't matter. They might have been worth something going into the final ten races or transferring from one of the rounds but in the finale itself, the five points Busch lost and the five playoff points Busch lost didn't matter in determining a championship. It all came down to his Homestead result.
In IndyCar, every race a driver didn't win is a place where something was left on the table. Alexander Rossi was runner-up to Josef Newgarden in the first Belle Isle race and Texas despite having the lead for a good portion of the race and appearing to be the better car than Newgarden. Scott Dixon hit a barrier while in a podium position in the first Belle Isle race, had a radiator puncture while in the top five at Gateway and lost power because of an electrical issue at Portland.
Those days Rossi and Dixon left points on the table haunted their seasons. There was no reset with four races to go. Their victories at Road America and Mid-Ohio were not a safety net. It still came down to the finale but it was not as simple as being the best of a four-driver group. For Rossi and Dixon, they had to be the best of the four but they also needed misfortune to befall Newgarden. It came down to the final lap but being the leader of the group was not going to be enough because the drivers carried the baggage of the previous 16 races.
Numbers might be low from NASCAR but, in this time period where people aren't really investing emotionally for the long-term, this format might be a short-term loser but a long-term winner. NASCAR isn't looking for people to invest into a 36-race schedule. It wants you to buy into the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600, the two road course races, Talladega, the regular season finale, which will be at Daytona in 2020, and then the final ten races.
Just look at the final ten races for 2020: NASCAR stacked the deck.
It put the biggest races into the final ten weeks. The first round is the Southern 500, Richmond and Bristol. The second round starts at Las Vegas but Talladega and the Charlotte roval follow. The semifinal round is Kansas, Texas and Martinsville. Martinsville is the "go or go home" race.
The finale at Phoenix doesn't look good on paper but the ball is in NASCAR's court. It is the final race of the year. The championship is on the line. NASCAR has the fan base around its finger at that point. You are going to watch. You are not going to miss the final race for nearly three months.
NASCAR might be onto something but I don't want other series to copy it. I don't want NASCAR to have this format for crying out loud! The great championship fights, the ones that went to the wire, were great because of the organic nature. Some years were settled early. Some years went to the final race but only a disaster would change the championship leader. When you had a finale where two drivers were ten points apart entering or four drivers were alive and all could conceivably take the title with a victory and a tinge of help, those years stood out.
It was special because everything that happened over the prior six or seven or eight months brought you to that moment. It was the stars aligning in the sky above. We could watch and wonder how in this vast motorsports universe we could see something so spectacular?
When it becomes the norm, that specialness disappears. We know what every year is going to be like in NASCAR, and that could be a good thing. People like when they know what is coming. It is just not going to be the same as what came before and people probably do not care.
This format is not going anywhere for NASCAR but it really is a dead end. When the result of one race decides a championship there is really not much else NASCAR can do except for add more qualified drivers. It could become the best finish of six, eight or ten drivers down the road but that is it. And NASCAR controls the winds in American motorsports. If NASCAR does it and others do not do it then it is viewed as others are doing it wrong. It has been that way for 25 years.
I am curious to see how people feel in ten years. Will NASCAR have re-captured former glory? Will IndyCar and IMSA have been forced to adopt a similar format? Will the audience be satisfied?
Champions From the Weekend
Kyle Busch clinched the NASCAR Cup Series championship with a victory at Homestead. It is Busch's second Cup championship.
Tyler Reddick clinched the NASCAR Grand National Series championship with a victory at Homestead. It is Reddick's second consecutive championship.
Matt Crafton clinched the NASCAR Truck Series championship with a second place finish at Homestead. It is Crafton's third Truck Series championship.
Matteo Ferrari clinched the MotoE World Cup championship with finishes of third and fifth from Valencia.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Kyle Busch and Tyler Reddick but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Brazilian Grand Prix, his third victory of the season.
Marc Márquez won MotoGP's Valencian Community Grand Prix, his 12th victory of the season. Brad Binder won the Moto2 race, his third consecutive victory and his fifth victory of the season. Sergio García won the Moto3 race, his first career grand prix victory. Eric Granado swept the MotoE races and Granado is now tied with Matteo Ferrari for most MotoE victories all-time.
Austin Hill won the NASCAR Truck race, his fourth victory of the season.
Richard Verschoor won the Macau Grand Prix. Verschoor is the first Dutch winner of the Macau Grand Prix.
Yvan Muller won the first two World Touring Car Cup races from Macau with Andy Priaulx winning the third.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula E season opener from Saudi Arabia.
The Supercar season ends in Newcastle.
The Kyalami 9 Hours is the final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge season.
The Asian Le Mans Series season begins in Shanghai.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
