First Impressions: Seventh Grand Prix of Indianapolis

1. In case you were dismissing the idea Scott Dixon locked up the title with his Texas victory, take today's victory as exhibit B in Dixon's favor.

It is not just Dixon but the entire team. The team nailed the strategy today, starting on the primary tire and committing to a three-stop strategy off the crack of the bat. It had the driver that could execute the strategy to perfection.

Dixon had the pace from the start. He made up ground on the first stint and he was in the right place when the caution came out for Oliver Askew's accident in the final corner. Dixon had his second stop in the bag while other three-stoppers, Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Jack Harvey, were caught out. Dixon took the lead of that pack but was still fourth because of the two-stoppers.

Many drivers would get stuck in traffic, lose some time and settled for a third or fourth-place finish. Dixon carved up the cars ahead of him. With Graham Rahal on the slower primary tires, Dixon closed in and was setting up to take the lead on the track before Rahal could make his final stop. Dixon did just that and immediately opened the lead to two seconds and then he added another two seconds and another two seconds and the race was over at that point.

Rahal had to keep the lead before his final stop, but his tires were gone before completing the stint. Once Rahal lost the lead, he could not stay glued to Dixon. The race was over with 27 laps to go.

It was not a surprise. Dixon does not struggle with traffic. He wasn't going to let two-stoppers slow him down. He had a clean shot at Rahal and took it. None of the other three-stoppers could counter. Colton Herta restarted behind Dixon but could not carve through traffic in the same way.

It was Dixon's race for the taking and now he has two victories from two races. Since the creation of USAC in 1956, ten times has a driver opened the season winning consecutive races. In seven of those ten occasions that driver won the championship.

Dixon has got this in the bag. Stay tuned if you want to see Dixon overtake Mario Andretti for second all-time in IndyCar victories and pick up his sixth title, putting him one behind A.J. Foyt's record. There has been plenty of history made in 2020. Dixon will look to make some on the racetrack.

2. Graham Rahal deserves some praise because he tried the two-stop strategy and it mostly worked. If Askew doesn't have his accident, Rahal might have pulled out the victory. He looked good on the first stint and ran competitive lap times all the way through. I think the unhindered two-stop strategy could have worked for Rahal, but that one caution negated what would have been in Rahal's favor, time. He lost the gap he would have had on track after all the three-stoppers made their second stops. Add to it that the primary tires were junk for the entire stint. The primary tire did not come to life while the alternate fell off. Second is still a great result for Rahal and the next two races are at Road America, a place Rahal has a fondness for.

3. How the hell did Simon Pagenaud pull off third from 20th on the grid? Answer: The #22 Menards Chevrolet of Team Penske has some of the best engineers and strategists in the business. Kudos to Ben Bretzman, because this team used similar tactics in the iRacing events held during the lockdown from March to May. This was the simulated world coming to life. Add to it Pagenaud is one of the smoothest drivers in IndyCar.

Pagenaud and Bretzman are pretty close to the Dixon, Mike Cannon, Mike Hull combination. Through two races, the only one keeping up with Dixon is Pagenaud and this fight might carry through to the end of October.

4. Colton Herta was fourth and a distant fourth. Herta could not keep up with Dixon when in traffic and Pagenaud leapfrogged him on the final stops. It is still a good run but Herta was in the distance today. It is not a bad result and it is one to build off of.

5. After the beating Rinus VeeKay took at Texas, the first driver to commit to the three-stop strategy pulled out a top five in his second start. Great bounce back for VeeKay and the Ed Carpenter Racing team.

6. Silently, Marcus Ericsson pulled out a sixth-place finish, all I can say is he played the three-stop strategy right. He didn't put his nose into any trouble and didn't make any mistakes. Good for Ericsson.

7. Josef Newgarden got caught out when the Askew caution came out. Newgarden was the second-best of the three-stoppers up to that point. This could have been a top five finish if it weren't for that caution. It is Newgarden's first top ten finish in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. He had to start somewhere.

8. Patricio O'Ward drove smart and got an eighth-place finish. Not much more could be say about his day.

9. This race was nearly a disaster for Santino Ferrucci. Ferrucci committed to the two-stop strategy but he had a problem getting his right rear tire on during his first stop. It cost him significant time, but the Askew caution neutralized that penalty and it allowed him to get a top ten. A few retirements also played into Ferrucci's failure, but if this race had gone caution-free, even with those retirements I think Ferrucci ends up outside the top fifteen.

10. I have no clue how Takuma Sato was tenth. He was not mentioned once and never factored into this one.

11. Quickly through the rest of the field: James Hinchcliffe was 11th, which is good but not great. Conor Daly was a two-stopper, and he could have been in position for a top five finish, but he did not have the pace after the caution and lost a lot of ground. Ryan Hunter-Reay was one of the last to commit to the three-stop strategy, but he had already lost a lot of time. The best he was going to pull out was 13th. Zach Veach had a late off drop him to 14th. Felix Rosenqvist was lost today and ended up 15th, not great when his teammates were first and sixth. Max Chilton was 16th, which is about right for him.

12. Jack Harvey appeared to be a podium contender or at least be in position for a top five. The Askew caution shuffled him back and he did not have the pace in traffic. Harvey ended up 17th but this could have been better.

13. A.J. Foyt Racing might have the ovals figured out, but it has some work to do on road courses. Charlie Kimball was 18th and Dalton Kellett was 21st. There is not much expectations for Kellett but after the speed Kimball showed at Texas, I bet he thought he would be more competitive.

14. Álex Palou didn't appear to do anything wrong but he was 19th. Palou did get an avoidable contact penalty, but what happened was no shown. Not a great day for Marco Andretti and Sage Karam.

15. The untimely Askew caution hurt Will Power enough, dropping him from fighting for a podium position to outside the top ten. It appeared he would get back into the fight at the front until Power stalled on his final stop and ended up 20th after what could have been a top five finish.

While Power stalled, Alexander Rossi suffered fuel pressure issues all day. It delayed Rossi's participation in the warm-up but the problem was fixed and the car was quick. Rossi was on VeeKay's heels coming to the restart and then the car coughed, and his race was over at halfway. Rossi's 43 consecutive finishes comes to an end and he has a lot of work to do after mechanical issues cost him at Texas. Rossi needs a massive rebound.

At least Rossi wasn't the only Honda driver to suffer mechanical issues. Spencer Pigot was losing the engine while in third. Pigot might have been able to pull out a podium or at least a top five finish, but instead he dropped down the order and he dropped out of the race with six laps to go. Pigot was stout all weekend and that is an encouraging sign for when he returns to the track for Indianapolis 500 practice.

16. Oliver Askew led Arrow McLaren SP all weekend. It was one moment exiting the final corner that washed that out. He had a wiggle, overcorrected a tad and ended up in the barrier. This is his first setback, hopefully he can put it behind him, and he can keep up his speed for the rest of the year.

17. This was the first IndyCar/NASCAR combined weekend, though it really wasn't. There had been plenty of IndyCar/Truck weekends before this and this was the first time one of the top two NASCAR national series were with IndyCar, but it was pseudo-combination weekend.

With the pandemic, it was not going to be the massive cross-pollination of drivers mingling as we expected, the Cup cars and IndyCar didn't share the facility on the same day. There were no spectators on hand. It was a convenient weekend to make up the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.

The one enticing thing about an IndyCar/NASCAR weekend is seeing an IndyCar session with a Cup session following. It is about walking down one side of the garage area seeing Joe Gibbs Racing tweak its race cars and then going around to the other side and seeing Team Penske's three IndyCars resting in the garage. If any future IndyCar/NASCAR combined weekends see IndyCar practice, qualifying and race before a Cup car hits the track then it is not worth it. That was the initial plan for this weekend. Cup was not going to hit the track until after the Grand National Series road course. If you are not going to see both series on the same day or have to wait four hours, then it is not worth it.

In this soft trial, things worked well. IndyCar didn't have any issues and the NASCAR Grand National Series didn't have any issues. The extra curbing for the NASCAR race could wait to be put in until after the IndyCar festivities were complete. I think a road course will always work better than an oval. One, there is less of a worry about weather delaying sessions and causing battles over track time. Two, different tire brands don't cause nearly as many problems on a road course. On an oval, it can make the track one-lane only, but on a road courses, different tires don't completely ruin the racing line. You just drive through it and make it work.

IndyCar hasn't had problems with IMSA and Pirelli World Challenge before, it wasn't going to have a problem with NASCAR and maybe this is how IndyCar gets back to Watkins Glen. We can talk about future combined weekends down the road.

18. This is the start of the gauntlet. Next week there are two races at Road America and a week after that there are two races in Iowa. IndyCar was gone for a while and then had a month off between rounds. Now, we have five races in 15 days. With a reduced calendar, we are going to be in the middle of the calendar in a blink. This season is going to fly by, and the championship picture will be clear in quick time.