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| Let's Try This Again |
Coverage:
Time: Coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday June 6th with green flag scheduled for 8:45 p.m. ET.
TV Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy will be in the booth. Marty Snider and Kelli Stavast will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Saturday:
Rookie and First-Time Participants Practice: 1:10 p.m. ET (30 minutes)*
Practice: 1:40 p.m. ET (80 minutes)*
Qualifying: 5:00 p.m. ET (NBCSN will have live coverage of this session)
Race: 8:45 p.m. ET (200 laps)
* - All practice and qualifying sessions are available live with the NBC Sports Gold IndyCar pass.
We're Back!
Eighty-three days after the original season opener, multiple revisions, a few cancellations and a few postponements, IndyCar's first race will take place in a slightly truncated race at Texas.
Originally scheduled for 600 kilometers or 248 laps, this race has been shortened to 200 laps or 300 miles.
Texas had run a 600-kilometer (372-miles) race since 2014 but ten times has IndyCar run a 300-mile race at the 1.5-mile oval. The last 300-mile Texas race was in 2006. The 300-mile distance is the most frequent distance used in the 31 Texas races.
The fastest 300-mile race was the most recent 300-mile race in 2006. Hélio Castroneves won at an average speed of 185.71 MPH. It is the fourth fastest Texas race. The second race of the 2011 doubleheader was run at 206.693 MPH over 171 miles with Will Power taking the victory. Scott Dixon won a 600-kilometer race in 2015 at 191.94 MPH and last year's Texas race had an average speed of 186.084 MPH with Josef Newgarden taking the checkered flag.
Eight different drivers won the previous ten 300-mile races with Sam Hornish, Jr. and Castroneves being the only drivers with multiple victories.
When it comes to Texas, Team Penske leads all the teams with ten victories. Chip Ganassi Racing is tied for second with Panther Racing on five victories apiece. The defunct Kelly Racing has four victories. A.J. Foyt Racing, Andretti Autosport, Dale Coyne Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing all have only one Texas victory.
What Will be New at Texas?
After a near three-month delay, the aeroscreen makes its IndyCar debut and after originally planning to get seven cracks at road and street courses and the Indianapolis 500, the first IndyCar race to feature the device will be at the 1.5-mile oval at Texas Motor Speedway.
Texas did not host an official test with the aeroscreen, nor was it one of the tracks IndyCar visited last autumn when conducting a series of aeroscreen tests. However, four rookies completed their rookie oval test at Texas back at February. Rinus VeeKay, Oliver Askew and Álex Palou will hold the rare edge over the IndyCar veterans having run with the aeroscreen during that test. Scott McLaughlin was the fourth driver at that rookie test driving for Team Penske. McLaughlin will not be competing this weekend. The four rookies completed over 300 laps that day.
Since this will be a one-day show, cars will be impounded after qualifying, meaning teams will not be able to adjust the set-up before the race. Whatever set-up is on the car for qualifying will be the race set-up. Race set-up will be the only concerns and teams that roll off the truck fast will be feeling good while those struggling at the start of the day will have a long night ahead of them.
And the Tires
Due to lack of testing and uncertainty over tire wear, IndyCar is asking teams to keep their stints to a 35-lap limit. With the addition of the aeroscreen, each car will carry an extra 60 pounds on the front of the car. Without testing, Firestone is not sure how the tires will wear, and IndyCar implemented this limit as a precaution. Firestone will bring the same right-side tire compound used last year at Texas, but the left-side tire compound will be what was used at Indianapolis and the expectation is the left-side tires will wear quicker.
With the 35-lap limit, each team will have to make five pit stops. Last year, Newgarden won the 248-lap race having made four pit stops while the next three finishers completed the race on three stops. Of the remaining top ten finishers, three made four pit stops, two made five stops and one made three stops.
There will be some wiggle room for alternate strategies, but it is limited. If a driver runs to the maximum distance of 35 laps on each stint that driver would make his final stop with 25 laps to go. A driver could have the option to stop as early as 35 laps to go and make it to the end. Over the course of the race a driver will be able to run a cumulative ten laps shorter than the maximum distance over each stint, but one 25-lap stint forces a driver to go 35 laps on every other stint to make it on five stops.
This ten-lap buffer could set up an interesting dilemma at the end of the race. Teams will have to choose between stopping at the opening of the window and having a ten-lap advantage at the start of the run but be losing time in the closing laps and hoping to hold teams with fresher tires. However, teams that go the distance and stop later will sacrifice time and then have to sprint over the final laps to make up that time lost.
While some teams gamble, looking to make up time at the start or the end of the stint, it could set up perfectly for the teams splitting it down the middle, trying to maximize time over the final two stints of the race.
Starting with an Oval
This will be the first season to start with an oval since 2008 when Homestead commenced the first race of the reunified IndyCar era.
Chip Ganassi Racing won the last three season openers that were on an oval, all came at Homestead. Dan Wheldon won the first race in 2006 and 2007 with Scott Dixon taking the 2008 season opener.
From 1996 to 2008, in the Indy Racing League, the winner of the season opener won the championship six times out of 13 seasons. In the seven seasons where the champion did not start with a victory, only twice did the champion finish in the top five in the season opener. Buddy Lazier was second to Robbie Buhl at Orlando in 200 and Sam Hornish, Jr. was third in the 2006 Homestead opener. On three occasions, the champion finished outside the top ten starting with Tony Stewart in 12th at Loudon for the 1996-97 season. Kenny Bräck did one position worst in 1998 at Orlando. Greg Ray tops them all in 21st in 1999.
When it comes to season openers, Team Penske has won seven of the last 11 with Dale Coyne Racing picking up two victories. Chip Ganassi Racing has not won a season opener since 2011 with Dario Franchitti at St. Petersburg and Andretti Autosport last won a season opener in 2013 with James Hinchcliffe at St. Petersburg.
Of the other active IndyCar teams, only A.J. Foyt Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing have a season opener victory. Foyt won the 1996-97 IRL season opener with Scott Sharp at Loudon. RLLR won the 2000 CART season opener with Max Papis at Homestead.
Since We Last Joined You
There will be a few changes in the grid at Texas compared to the original entry list for the St. Petersburg season opener in March. Twenty-four cars are slated for the season opener.
On the plus side, James Hinchcliffe will be on the grid in the #29 Genesys Honda for Andretti Autosport. Texas was always one of the three races Hinchcliffe had signed up for with the two Indianapolis races being his other scheduled outings.
Conor Daly was to be in the #20 Air Force Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing at St. Petersburg but Ed Carpenter will move into the #20 Sonax Chevrolet for Texas. Daly will still be on the grid, as he has signed on to drive the #59 Gallagher Chevrolet for Carlin for the oval races, outside of the Indianapolis 500.
Carlin's other entry was accounted for at St. Petersburg, but it will not be on the grid at Texas. Due to the economic impact of the pandemic, the team will not be able to get that car to the grid this weekend. Felipe Nasr was set to make his IndyCar debut at St. Petersburg. On top of the economic situation, Nasr did not complete a rookie oval test and would not have been eligible to drive the #31 Chevrolet at Texas.
DragonSpeed entered Ben Hanley in the #81 Chevrolet for St. Petersburg and the team had planned on entering the Texas race at the start of the season but the team is not entered for this race. Another loss from the grid will be Sage Karam and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Karam's schedule for 2020 was to start at St. Petersburg with his other events being the two Indianapolis races, Iowa and the now-cancelled Toronto round.
The Streak Continues
One other change from St. Petersburg is Tony Kanaan will be in the #14 7-Eleven Chevrolet for A.J. Foyt Racing and he will have a chance to extend his streak of consecutive starts to 318 races. Sébastien Bourdais was scheduled to drive the car at St. Petersburg.
Kanaan is tied for the most Texas starts at 20 with Castroneves and Dixon. Of the driver with at least three Texas starts, Kanaan has the fourth best average finish at 6.5 behind only Ryan Briscoe, Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagenaud. Kanaan is tied with Castroneves for most top five finishes and most top ten finishes at Texas at 11 and 15 apiece in each respectively category.
After finishing no worse than 14th in his first 18 Texas starts, Kanaan has finished 21st and 16th in his last two trips to the 1.5-mile oval. Prior to his retirement in 2018, Kanaan had finished every Texas race and had completed all 3,780 out of a possible 3,783 laps. Last year, Kanaan started 22nd, his worst starting position at the track.
The only time Kanaan visited victory lane at Texas was the June 2004 race after leading 145 of 200 laps from third on the grid.
Looking to the Race
Six active drivers have won at Texas Motor Speedway and five of those winners have gone to victory lane in this race in the last six years.
Kanaan has as many Texas starts as Scott Dixon, but Dixon sits on three Texas victories, those coming in 2008, 2015 and 2018. Dixon is one victory away from tying Castroneves' record of four Texas victories. Every year Dixon has won at Texas, he has gone on to win the IndyCar championship. The bad news for Dixon is he has retired from three of the last four Texas races. In each retirement, he started second on the grid.
Will Power has two Texas victories, the second race of the 2011 doubleheader and the 2017 race. His 2017 victory is his only top five finish in his last five Texas starts.
Ed Carpenter's most recent IndyCar victory was at Texas in 2014 but he has finished outside the top ten in his last five Texas starts. He has also started outside the top ten in each of those five starts and has led only one lap in that span.
Graham Rahal's victory in the 2016 race is the closest in Texas history at 0.0080 seconds and it started off a great spell for Rahal. He has three top five finishes in his last four starts and his worst finish in those four races is sixth. Despite the good results, he has started only once in the top ten and he has led only nine laps in those four races.
Josef Newgarden had never finished in the top five at Texas prior to his victory last year. It was also the first time Newgarden has finished on the lead lap at the track. He has led a lap in four consecutive Texas races.
Takuma Sato is the most recent oval winner in IndyCar after he held off Carpenter at Gateway. Sato won pole position for Texas last year and led the first 60 laps before sliding through his pit box on his first pit stop. He collided with the pit wall and a crew member. The crew member was not hurt but Sato lost multiple laps and ended up finish three laps down in 15th.
Alexander Rossi has finished on the podium the last two years at Texas. He was third in 2018 after leading seven laps and he was second last year after leading three laps. Rossi had 11 consecutive top ten finishes on ovals prior to Pocono last year. He has finished outside the top ten in his last two oval starts.
Simon Pagenaud has four top five finishes and six top ten finishes in eight Texas starts. He has also started in the top ten in six of eight Texas appearances. Pagenaud had four top five finishes in five oval starts last season and he enters Texas with 16 consecutive top ten finishes on ovals.
Marco Andretti has made the most Texas starts without a victory. In Andretti's 15 Texas starts, he has four top five finishes and seven top ten finishes. His best finish was third in 2010. Only once has Andretti started in the top five at the track. He started second in 2013 and led 57 laps. It is one of only three times he has led at the track. He led 25 laps in the 2008 race and two laps in 2015.
Fast Facts
This will be the tenth IndyCar race to take place on June 6 and first since Scott Dixon won at Texas in 2015.
Two other Texas races have fell on June 6. Billy Boat picked up his first and only IndyCar victory on that day in 1998 and Hélio Castroneves scored his third Texas victory on that day in 2009.
Three drivers have picked up their first career IndyCar victory at Texas. Those drivers are Boat, Mark Dismore and Jeff Ward. It was the only IndyCar victory for those three drivers.
Honda has won ten Texas races while Chevrolet is tied with Oldsmobile for second-most Texas victories with nine.
This will be only the third time since 2000 an IndyCar/IRL season will not start in the state of the Florida. The only other times the season started elsewhere were in 2001 at Phoenix and 2010 in São Paulo.
This will be the first time the season has started in Texas since 1973. Al Unser won the 1973 season opener from Texas World Speedway.
The average starting position of a Texas winner is 5.629 with a median of fourth.
The pole-sitter has not won at Texas since Ryan Briscoe in 2010.
Only once in the last eight Texas races did the winner start in the top five. That winner was Ed Carpenter from fifth in 2014.
The Texas pole-sitter has finished in the top five only once in the DW12-era and that was Will Power finishing second in 2014.
The average finish for the pole-sitter at Texas since 2012 is 10.875.
The last Texas race where multiple top five starters finished in the top five was in 2015.
The race winner has led 100 laps or more in 11 of 31 Texas races.
The race winner has led 50 laps of fewer in 11 of 31 Texas races.
American drivers have won three of the last six Texas races. In the prior 14 Texas races, there had only been two American winners.
The average number of lead changes in a Texas race is 14.096 with a median of 14.
The average number of cautions in a Texas race is 4.387 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 34.7419 with a median of 32.
The greatest number of cautions in a Texas race is nine, coming in 2017 when concerns over tire wear led to two competition cautions added during the race.
Five Texas races have finished under caution (1997, June 2001, October 2003, 2008, 2017)
Possible Milestones:
Ryan Hunter-Reay needs to lead 55 laps to reach the 1,600 laps led milestone.
James Hinchcliffe needs to lead 24 laps to reach the 800 laps led milestone.
Ed Carpenter needs to lead 16 laps to reach the 400 laps led milestone.
Graham Rahal needs to lead 12 laps to reach the 400 laps led milestone.
Predictions
The Penske-era of ownership begins with a Penske victory, Will Power crosses the line in first place with a pair of Hondas and a pair of Chevrolets rounding out the rest of the top five. Tony Kanaan will finish in the top ten and Charlie Kimball will not. Oliver Askew will be the top rookie but none of them finish in the top ten. There will be more cautions than an average Texas race but not greater than seven and the first caution will come in the first 25 laps. There will be one accident in practice or qualifying that sends a team scrambling. The tire stint limit will not be as big of a deal as some will make it out to be. People will get excited for the television number, but that number will ultimately be disappointing to those who got their hopes up. Sleeper: Ryan Hunter-Reay.
