Last week, IndyCar released its revised 2020 season with amendments after the covid-19 outbreak and, while it is still not set in concrete and races could still move around or be cancelled, it is something different that IndyCar has not experienced before.
The IndyCar season has had the same pattern for almost its entirety. The season starts in spring, a few races are completed, then comes the Indianapolis 500 and then there is a summer full of races. It has a particular feel.
Those first few races get the blood flowing. You get to see who has come out of the box strong and then who is going to be making up ground. After those first few races comes the Indianapolis 500. It is the first big test and it kind of sets the tone for the season. Success in May can launch a championship run throughout the season. By the time we get to the start of August we have an idea who the contenders are and you are out of it. When we reach Labor Day it is pretty much the homestretch. The title will be decided in a matter of a few races and then that is it. The season is over.
This year will not have that same pattern.
We could be starting at Belle Isle, which is still on the fence and could be postponed but right now it is the tentative season opener. It is not odd to be starting at a street course but it will be odd to start with a doubleheader. It is a quick launch out of the gates and, instead of having one bad day that teams need to comeback from, a team could have two bad days and find itself in a massive hole after the first weekend. It could be a much harder blow than a typical opening weekend.
The season is more condensed than IndyCar's most condensed seasons. The last few seasons have seen a spring break of sorts with either multiple weeks off between St. Petersburg and the second round of the season or last year between Long Beach and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. This year will be a whirlwind in comparison.
The Belle Isle doubleheader and Texas will be in consecutive weeks. After a week off, the teams will run Road America, Richmond, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Toronto and Iowa in five consecutive weeks and just like that seven of 14 scheduled races are in the bag in eight weeks. Last year, it took 13 weeks to complete the first seven races.
The Indianapolis 500 shifting to August is a colossal change in its own right but with the race now being the tenth race of the season versus the fourth, fifth or sixth race heightens its influence on the championship. When the race is in May and it is in the first quarter or first third of the season. It is the first benchmark. Teams are still figuring it out, there is still plenty of time to right a bad start and it is the race where the championship starts to take shape.
With the race being the tenth of 14th races, this year's Indianapolis 500 is likely going to be the decider over whether or not a driver is in the championship fight down to the wire. It will still be a double points race but only four races will come after it.
Last year, entering the tenth race Josef Newgarden had a 25-point lead over Alexander Rossi, 48 points over Simon Pagenaud and 89 points over Scott Dixon. If Indianapolis is the race where Rossi has a lap one accident and Newgarden goes on to finish fourth that will pretty much ends Rossi's championship hopes right then and there. You would be looking at a case of Rossi leaving with ten points and Newgarden leaving with 65 points and increasing his gap to Rossi to 75 points with four races to go and no double points in the finale. Rossi would have to claw back at least 26 or 27 points in the following three races to have a mathematical shot at the title in the finale.
Maybe we should transition into whether or not double points should have been dropped from the finale. I understand why IndyCar did it because we do not know when or where the finale will be. St. Petersburg is currently a to be determined date but the plan is for it to be the season finale. There is also a chance St. Petersburg will not be the finale. We are now looking at Belle Isle potentially being postponed and pushed to October with St. Petersburg. You cannot say the finale will be double points and then have the finale be cancelled or changed. In that case you cannot retroactively award double points to what became the season finale. It would just be too much of a mess.
However, IndyCar did lose three races but this season is not all that shorter than other seasons in the recent past. The 2012 season was only 15 races so 14 races is not some great abbreviation to the campaign. Last year, after 13 races, Newgarden had a 16-point lead over Rossi, 47-point lead over Pagenaud and 62-point lead over Dixon. If that scenario repeats in 2020, only Newgarden, Rossi and Pagenaud would have a shot at the title. If it were a double points finale though, only Dixon would be added to the drivers eligible for the title.
There would be a chance we could see six, seven or eight drivers alive for the title and that might not be a bad thing this year. With the finale likely taking place deeper into football season IndyCar might want seven drivers alive for the title. There would be plenty to tune in for in that case. In all likelihood we would only see four or five drivers and that is not different from what we have seen in reason years with double points finales.
There would be a chance we could see six, seven or eight drivers alive for the title and that might not be a bad thing this year. With the finale likely taking place deeper into football season IndyCar might want seven drivers alive for the title. There would be plenty to tune in for in that case. In all likelihood we would only see four or five drivers and that is not different from what we have seen in reason years with double points finales.
If IndyCar really cared about the championship and did not want double points to sway it the final results too much it should remove double points from the Indianapolis 500 as well, especially with it falling so late in the season.
Stepping back for a moment, IndyCar could be looking at its first doubleheader to open a season since 1975 when USAC started its season with California 500 qualifying races, a pair of 100-mile races the week before the longer race. The last time an IndyCar season started with a doubleheader which featured a full-field in each race was 1971 when the season started with a pair of 152.322-mile races on the 2.874-mile oval in Rafaela, Argentina. This year would be the first time the season opened with a doubleheader on a road/street course since May 4, 1912, when the season started with three races on the 8.417-mile Santa Monica road course.
If Belle Isle is postponed and Texas would be the season opener it would be the first time an oval hosted the opening round of a season since 2008 at Homestead, the first race after reunification.
Regardless of whether St. Petersburg or Belle Isle is the finale, 2020 could be the first season to end on a street course since the 2003 CART season at Surfers Paradise after the Fontana finale was cancelled due to wildfires. If Belle Isle ends the season, it could be the first time the season ended with a doubleheader since October 12, 1927, when two races at the 1.25-mile Rockingham Speedway board track in Salem, New Hampshire closed the season.
We aren't sure if another revision will be necessary for the 2020 season. It seems likely but whatever happens this year will likely never be seen again. Some of it we hope never to see again. We hope we never had to cancel or postpone the first six races of the season and move the Indianapolis 500 to August. Not wanting to see that again is understandable but it might be a good thing to see a doubleheader start a season or end a season. It might be good to start at an oval or finish at a street course. Sometimes we get stuck in our patterns and we do not try something new. This is a chance to break the mold and see if something else works without fearing making a mistake.
This is going to feel like a lost year but there is nothing wrong with making the most of it and taking chances. After all, what do we have to lose?
