We have another American Formula One hopeful. Logan Sargeant won his first Formula Three race from Silverstone on Saturday and Sargeant leads the Formula Three championship by a point. Now we wait for the heartbreak. Elsewhere, Formula One remained at Silverstone and tires degraded. Marc Márquez's return was delay because he decided to close a window. The Formula E season restarted in Germany for a nine-day affair in the German capital and that championship was wrapped up early. NASCAR tried too hard on a qualifying formula to determine starting grids. Supercars delayed its race weekend from Darwin. There were a few sports car races around the globe. The Indianapolis 500 is upon us and that is where this conversation goes. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Thankful For What We Have
We have made it to the middle of August, and we are within a fortnight of the Indianapolis 500.
It feels like we have reached our destination and we aren't there yet. This journey has been long enough that seeing it on our horizon is enough.
Very little has gone to plan this entire year and even less has gone the way any of us would have hoped. We all wish the Indianapolis 500 had been in May with 300,000 people gathered together. We wish the original 2020 calendar had played out and we would be ending the Olympic break now, looking forward to Mid-Ohio and the final four races of the season.
During this journey, we have been looking for a sense of normalcy. Shreds of normal are strewed along the highway of life. We have these races but cannot attend. Restaurants are open, but fewer tables are available. Schools will be in session, but classes take place in dining rooms, living rooms or bedrooms. Our family is still there, but some we cannot visit for a Sunday brunch.
We are getting the Indianapolis 500, just like every year since 1946, but it is August. Carb Day will not feature the pit stop competition. The event will be held behind closed doors. In the last two weeks, IndyCar has had two rounds cancelled, three rounds expanded to doubleheaders and one of those additional doubleheaders was indefinitely delayed, hoping to occur in September or October.
Every time we think the barrage of punches are done, we turn around and get another haymaker. It is exhausting. We think the end is in sight, because how much longer could this go on? The answer is for as long as we can imagine. We hope to shed the pandemic when the calendar flips over. That is not how it works. This is a test of endurance, but this is not a race to a finish line. This is wandering the wilderness only realizing success when we are alone. Only then can we turn around and return to normal.
Everyone is trying to survive, hence an Indianapolis 500 held behind closed doors.
IndyCar needs the Indianapolis 500 to survive. Cancelling the race entirely kills the series. The television money is not for the entire season, it is for the Indianapolis 500 and NBC has to take the other 16 races like stepchildren. Sponsors are sold on the Indianapolis 500. It is the only race that gets a respectable television rating. Not having the Indianapolis 500 hurts the teams more than running it behind closed doors. The Indianapolis 500 allows teams to continue for the rest of 2020 and probably beyond. Without it, the series dies. We would no longer be talking about having a third manufacture, potential bumping, drivers crossing over from NASCAR, Formula One or sports cars if the Indianapolis 500 did not happen this year.
It also doesn't make any sense for IndyCar to run Texas, Road America, Iowa and any other race and not have the Indianapolis 500. It is the one event the series has that people know. It is the only time IndyCar is ever on the national radar and even then it is barely noticeable.
No one is enthusiastic that the Indianapolis 500 will be behind closed doors, but it is the only practical choice we have. There is no justifiable way to gather 80,000 people at this time. You can put all the safety protocols in place, but masks and six feet of separation may keep a dozen people or a hundred people safe, once you get up to 80,000 people, something is bound to go wrong and with a crowd of that size with people possibly coming from around the country, a lot of people could be put in danger.
Roger Penske and Indianapolis Motor Speedway cannot afford to become ground zero for a late summer outbreak. If cancelling the race would have killed the series and holding it behind closed doors takes a chunk out of the wallet, being a virus hotspot would tarnish the image of the Speedway for generations and it would likely never recover. No sponsor would want to be associated with it and no person would be able to shake the memory that the Indianapolis 500 got thousands of people sick. It would become the national equivalent of the diner that gave an entire lunch crowd food poisoning.
We can still broadcast the race and hopefully a couple million people will watch. It is hard to predict what the viewership will be on this different weekend and it will be against two NASCAR races from Dover, NBA playoff games and Major League Baseball games.
A lot of dreams have been sidelined, some for longer than others. It is hard to find positives during this time, but there is a lot to be thankful for.
For starters, we are still going to have the Indianapolis 500. It could have been lost. It will take place, and this will hopefully just be a blip in the history of the event. The one year it was held in August and held with empty grandstands.
There will be 33 cars, and there are some fun entries. We have a new partnership in Citrone/Buhl Autosport putting Spencer Pigot on the grid with help from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. James Davison is back with Dale Coyne Racing with help from Rick Ware Racing of all teams. Fernando Alonso is back with McLaren. Cole Pearn will be Conor Daly's engineer.
We will likely not have bumping this year, after two thrilling years. After the last 20 years, we are more used to no bumping than bumping. Bumping will be back in the future and after seeing what happened in 2018 and 2019, we should feel comfortable the drama will be back.
This year's entry list is again a strong crop of drivers from top to bottom. We could have eight previous winners participate and we have had nine different Indianapolis 500 winners over the last nine years! The only one of those previous winners with multiple victories is Hélio Castroneves, and he is going for four. Does Castroneves make history, does someone add a second "500" victory to his résumé or does someone make it a decade of different winners?
There are plenty of historical storylines. Besides Castroneves going for four, this will likely be Castroneves' final Indianapolis 500 with Team Penske. This could be Tony Kanaan's final Indianapolis 500, though he seems set on returning for one more go in 2021. Scott Dixon is having a historic season and Indianapolis 500 victory would put it over the top. Josef Newgarden is looking to make it three consecutive victories with three different drivers for Team Penske (though Castroneves could also accomplish that). Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti look to extend their family legacies. One of Colton Herta, Rinus VeeKay and Patricio O'Ward could become the youngest Indianapolis 500 winner.
The purse has been halved for 2020, but originally, Penske increased it by $2 million for 2020. He was looking to start raising the purse over the next few years after it had remained stagnant for over a decade. Besides the purse, Penske spent over $15 million on facility upgrades at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During this pandemic, many have professed gratefulness for Penske's leadership during this time and he wasn't even in charge this time a year ago. Sometimes inexplicable things happen for a reason.
Everything has been different, but the Indianapolis 500 remains. It is at a different time and under different circumstances, but it is still the Indianapolis 500. We are not celebrating Memorial Day weekend, but we get a chance to enjoy the fourth weekend of August, a weekend that we otherwise never recognize. Cancelling the Indianapolis 500 would not have made this year any better. Running the race at least gives us a little something to be thankful for.
Champions From the Weekend
António Félix da Costa clinched the Formula E drivers' championship with a pair of victories on Wednesday and Thursday at Berlin and a fourth and a second on Saturday and Sunday.
DS Techeetah clinched the Formula E teams' championship with three victories and five podium finishes over the four races in Berlin.
You know about Logan Sargeant and António Félix da Costa but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix from Silverstone.
Callum Ilott and Yuki Tsunoda split the Formula Two races from Silverstone. Bent Viscaal won the second Formula Three, his first Formula Three victory.
Callum Ilott and Yuki Tsunoda split the Formula Two races from Silverstone. Bent Viscaal won the second Formula Three, his first Formula Three victory.
Brad Binder won MotoGP's Czech Grand Prix, his first MotoGP victory in his third MotoGP start and it is KTM's first MotoGP victory. Enea Bastianini won the Moto2 race, his second consecutive victory. Dennis Foggia won the Moto3 race, his first career victory.
Kevin Harvick swept the NASCAR Cup races from Michigan, his fifth and sixth victories of the season. Austin Cindric won the Grand National Series race from Road America, his fourth victory of the season. Zane Smith won the Truck race from Michigan, his first career victory.
Maximilian Günther won on Saturday Formula E race in Berlin and Jean-Éric Vergne won on Sunday.
Jonathan Rea swept the three World Superbike races from Portimão. Andrea Locatelli swept the World Supersport races and he has won all five races in 2020.
The #17 Real Racing Honda of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Bertrand Baguette won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #2 Cars Tokai Dream28 Lotus of Hiroki Katoh and Masataka Yanagida won in GT300.
The #22 United Autosport Oreca-Gibson of Filipe Albuquerque and Philip Hanson won the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The #2 United Autosport Ligier-Nissan of Wayne Boyd, Tom Gamble and Robert Wheldon won in LMP3. The #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Michael Broniszewski, Nicola Cadei and David Perel won in GTE.
The #32 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts won the first and third GT World Challenge Europe Sprint races from Misano with the #88 AKKA ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy winning the second race.
The #1 Squadra Corsa Ferrari of Rodrigo Baptista and Martin Fuentes and the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura of Trent Hindman and Shelby Blackstock split the GT World Challenge America races from Sonoma.
The #17 Real Racing Honda of Koudai Tsukakoshi and Bertrand Baguette won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #2 Cars Tokai Dream28 Lotus of Hiroki Katoh and Masataka Yanagida won in GT300.
The #22 United Autosport Oreca-Gibson of Filipe Albuquerque and Philip Hanson won the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The #2 United Autosport Ligier-Nissan of Wayne Boyd, Tom Gamble and Robert Wheldon won in LMP3. The #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Michael Broniszewski, Nicola Cadei and David Perel won in GTE.
The #32 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts won the first and third GT World Challenge Europe Sprint races from Misano with the #88 AKKA ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy winning the second race.
The #1 Squadra Corsa Ferrari of Rodrigo Baptista and Martin Fuentes and the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura of Trent Hindman and Shelby Blackstock split the GT World Challenge America races from Sonoma.
The #47 Nolasport Porsche of Jason Hart and Matt Travis, the #71 Marco Polo Motorsports KTM of Nicolai Elghanayan and Mads Siljehaug and the #21 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin of Michael Dinan and Robby Foley split the GT4 America SprintX races from Sonoma.
Michael Cooper swept the GT4 America sprint races from Sonoma.
Coming Up This Weekend
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One will be in Barcelona.
MotoGP will be in Austria.
FIA World Endurance Championship keeps Spa-Francorchamps busy with its six-hour race.
NASCAR has all three national touring series at the Daytona road course.
Hopefully, Supercars get to race at Hidden Valley Raceway this weekend.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters has its second round of 2020 at Lausitz.
