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| IndyCar will run two in the shadow of the Arch |
The eighth and ninth rounds of the 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season will be at the 1.25-mile Gateway Motorsports Park. The defending Gateway winner Takuma Sato returns to the track as a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. This is the fourth consecutive season Sato has won a race. He is looking to become the first Indianapolis 500 winner to win the race immediate after since Juan Pablo Montoya won at Milwaukee the week after winning the 2000 Indianapolis 500. With Gateway being a doubleheader, each race will be 200 laps, 48 laps shorter than a regular Gateway race. This is the first time the race following the Indianapolis 500 is an oval since 2011, when Texas hosted its famous Twin 275s.
Coverage
Time: On Saturday August 29, coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET. On Sunday August 30, coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBCSN
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy will be in the booth. Kelli Stavast and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET (90 minutes)*
Saturday:
Qualifying: 12:00 p.m. ET*
Race: 3:45 p.m. ET (200 laps)
Time: On Saturday August 29, coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET. On Sunday August 30, coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:45 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBCSN
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy will be in the booth. Kelli Stavast and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET (90 minutes)*
Saturday:
Qualifying: 12:00 p.m. ET*
Race: 3:45 p.m. ET (200 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 3:45 p.m. ET (200 laps)
* - All practice and qualifying sessions are available live with the NBC Sports Gold IndyCar pass.
Takuma Sato Appreciation
As mentioned above, Sato has now won two Indianapolis 500s and he returns to Gateway as the defending winner of this race.
This is Sato's 11th season in IndyCar and his career even prior to arriving to the series in 2010 was known for blistering pace and suspect control. That was the case in Formula One, where Sato entered in 2002 with Jordan, fresh off a British Formula Three championship against the likes of Anthony Davidson, James Courtney, Gianmaria Bruni, Andy Priaulx, André Lotterer, Ryan Dalziel and Alex Gurney. Sato had a handful of accident with Jordan but capped off that season with a fifth-place finish in the season finale at Suzuka.
Sato was BAR-Honda's test driver for 2003, but he got a shot to race at the Suzuka finale and finished sixth. The 2004 season was the height of Sato's Formula One career. He was third in the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis behind the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. He scored points in nine of 18 races and was eighth in the championship.
After a disastrous 2005 season with BAR-Honda and two-plus difficult season with Super Aguri, which did see Sato famously finish sixth in the Canadian Grand Prix, including a pass on the McLaren of Fernando Alonso, Sato came to IndyCar as a possibly quick but erratic driver.
It took him years to shake that reputation. A lot of it was earned. He had nine retirements in his rookie season in 2010. He had eight in 2012 and ten in 2013. The good was coming with the bad. In 2011, Sato had three top five finishes and two pole positions. In 2012, along with his famous spin attempting to win the Indianapolis 500, he was third in São Paulo and second in Edmonton. He joined A.J. Foyt Racing in 2013, won at Long Beach and was second in São Paulo, but he had seven consecutive finishes of 20th or worse and he ended the season with his best finish being 14th in the final ten races.
For the next three seasons, Sato's results yo-yoed. Two pole positions in 2014, but his average finish was 15.5 and he was 18th in the championship. He returned to the podium with a second at Belle Isle in 2015 and climbed to 14th in the championship, but he followed by dropping to 17th in the championship in 2016.
Sato turned 40 ahead of the 2017 season, where he joined Andretti Autosport. Since then, he has won a race in four consecutive seasons with five victories and eight podium finishes. His last three seasons have been his three best years in terms of average finish and championship finish. He has had 13 retirements since the start of 2017 compared to 43 in his first seven seasons.
At 43 years, six month and 27 days old, Sato become the sixth oldest Indianapolis 500 winner. He joined Bobby Unser as the only drivers to win multiple Indianapolis 500s after the age of 40. He has led 78 laps in his Indianapolis 500 career, more than the likes of Alexander Rossi, Troy Ruttman, Gil de Ferran, Mark Donohue and Buddy Lazier.
A third Indianapolis 500 is not out of the realm of possibility. There is no sign of Sato walking away from IndyCar anytime soon. He has found a good home at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. It took until the age of 40, but he has reined in his aggression and the results are better now than when in his 20s. A championship might be out of reach, however, Sato still holds the ability to pull in a few more race victories.
Where are We After Indianapolis?
Scott Dixon is running away with the championship. Dixon is on the verge of high stepping to the end zone because nobody is close to catching him.
With a second-place finish at Indianapolis and a second place starting position, Dixon left Speedway, Indiana with 88 points and lost ground to only one man. His championship points total has skyrocketed to 335 points while defending IndyCar championship Josef Newgarden is 84 points behind after Newgarden could only muster a fifth-place finish.
Dixon has three victories; two runner-up finishes and a fifth from seven races. Newgarden does head to Gateway with three consecutive top five finishes.
Patricio O'Ward earned Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors with his sixth-place finish and O'Ward has jumped to third in the championship, but he is 117 points behind Dixon. O'Ward has two top five finishes and four top ten finishes this season. Graham Rahal is four points behind O'Ward. Rahal has finished third in the last two races and he has three podium finishes this season, his most since 2017. He has not had four podium finishes in a season in 2016.
Simon Pagenaud dropped from second in the championship to fifth after finishing 22nd in the Indianapolis 500. While Pagenaud had three podium finishes, including a victory at Iowa, he has finished outside the top ten in three races this season. His 22nd-place finish at Indianapolis was his worst result since he was 24th at Long Beach in 2018. Pagenaud is 123 points behind Dixon.
Takuma Sato's Indianapolis 500 victory has leapfrogged him to sixth in the championship, 128 points behind Dixon. Sato has five top ten finishes from the seven races, with a did not start at Texas and a 21st in the second Iowa race being the blemishes on his 2020 campaign.
Colton Herta has five top ten finishes from seven races, including three top five finishes, and that leaves him seventh in the championship, 146 points back of Dixon. Santino Ferrucci matched his career-best finish with his fourth-place effort in the Indianapolis 500 and he is 154 points off the championship lead. Ferrucci has four top ten finishes in seven starts. Indianapolis was his first top five finishes of the season.
Will Power has finished outside the top ten in five of seven races, but two runner-up finishes have Power ninth in the championship, 160 points behind Dixon. Felix Rosenqvist's victory at Road America is the only thing keeping him in the top ten in the championship. Rosenqvist trails his Ganassi teammate by 178 points.
Despite finishing tenth at Indianapolis, Ryan Hunter-Reay is 11th in the championship on 149 points. Marcus Ericsson's string of five consecutive top ten finishes was snapped after his accident at Indianapolis and he dropped to 12th, two points behind Hunter-Reay. After starting the 2020 season with four consecutive finishes of 16th or worse, Jack Harvey has three consecutive top ten finishes from three oval races and Harvey sits 13th in the championship on 145 points. Alexander Rossi's accident in turn two at Indianapolis not only ended his hopes for a second Indianapolis 500 victory, it ended a streak of three consecutive top ten finishes. Rossi finds himself 14th in the championship, but 205 points behind Dixon.
Looking to Bounce Back
Regardless of how the rest of the 2020 schedule sorts out with the indefinitely postponed Mid-Ohio doubleheader, the Indianapolis 500 marked the halfway point of the season and if Mid-Ohio is not rescheduled there are only five races remaining. If Mid-Ohio finds a place on the calendar or those two races are made up elsewhere, there are still only seven races remaining and a handful of notable drivers are without a victory.
Will Power's season has been anything but rosy. As stated above, he has two runner-up finishes bloating what has otherwise been a frustrating summer for the 2014 champion. Power enters the final two oval races without a victory. He has at least one oval victory in each of the last four seasons and he has an oval victory in six of the last seven seasons. Power won at Gateway in 2018, but he has finished 20th and 22nd in his only other starts at the track.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is over two years removed from his most recent victory, but Hunter-Reay is over five years removed from his last oval victory. Since his last oval victory at Pocono, he has had 15 podium finishes, but only two have been on ovals. Of his 26 top five finishes since that victory, six have come on ovals. From 2011 to 2015, eight of Hunter-Reay's 12 victories were on ovals. He has yet to have a great day at Gateway with finishes of 15th, 20th and eighth. In the DW12-era, Hunter-Reay has the second most oval victories with seven, behind only Power, who has eight victories.
Marcus Ericsson suffered his first retirement of 2020 at Indianapolis and his 32nd-place finish is the worst finish of his IndyCar career. Ericsson dropped from eighth in the championship to 12th after the result. Last year, he ended the 2019 season with seven consecutive finishes outside the top ten.
Alexander Rossi picked up the worst finish of his Indianapolis 500 career and his IndyCar career. Rossi has twice reset his worst-career finish and he did it both times at Indianapolis. He was 25th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Rossi led his first laps of 2020 at Indianapolis and his first laps since his Road America victory in 2019. After finishes of sixth and second in his first two Gateway starts. He was 13th last year after mismanaged pit strategy.
Conor Daly's accident at Indianapolis was the sixth time Daly has finished outside the top twenty in the Indianapolis 500 in seven appearances. After winning pole position at Iowa in the first race, he has finishes of 13th and 29th. Gateway is the site of Daly's most recent top five finish and he has finishes of fifth and sixth in his two Gateway starts.
Marco Andretti had a pick-me-up with his Indianapolis 500 pole position, but Andretti faded in the race, not leading a lap and settling with a 13th place finish. Andretti is the first pole-sitter to fail to lead a lap since Scott Sharp in 2001, when Sharp spun in turn one and lap one. Thirteenth is still Andretti's second-best finish of 2020 and he has three finishes of 22nd this year.
Tony Kanaan could be making his final IndyCar starts this weekend. Though Kanaan has left the door open to returning to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to run one more Indianapolis 500 in front of spectators, Gateway was always set up to be the final races of his 2020 farewell tour. Last year, he ended up third at Gateway, his first podium finish since Texas 2017. This year's Indianapolis 500 was not his best day, ending up 19th the first car one-lap down.
Ed Carpenter opened 2020 with a fifth-place finish at Texas, but Carpenter has finished 15th, 23rd and 26th in the last three races. His Indianapolis 500 never really got started. Contact with Zach Veach in the South chute on lap one bent Carpenter's suspension and led to lengthy repairs before returning to the race. Last year, Carpenter made a late charge on Takuma Sato for the victory at Gateway, falling 0.040 seconds short of his first victory since 2014.
Rookies Battle for Footing
After a battering Indianapolis 500, the three IndyCar rookie of the year candidates are all with six points of one another entering the Gateway doubleheader.
Álex Palou's Indianapolis 500 ended after he made contact with the wall exiting turn one while running in the top ten on lap 122. Palou remained the top rookie in the championship on 127 points after Indianapolis. He did pick up three extra points for qualifying seventh for Indianapolis. The Spaniard has shown respectable pace on ovals, but he has yet to score a top ten finish in the first four oval races. His best finish was 11th in the first Iowa race.
Oliver Askew clobbered the inside wall off turn four when he spun to avoid Conor Daly's accident on lap 92. Askew had led four laps, albeit through pit cycles, but Askew was one of the many Chevrolets trying to run an alternate strategy to get to the front. Prior to Indianapolis, Askew had finished in the top ten of every oval race this season. He is now one points behind Palou in the rookie of the year battle. Askew won at Gateway last year in Indy Lights, from pole position, and he picked up fastest lap to boot.
Rinus VeeKay was the best rookie qualifier in fourth, but a penalty for hitting a crew member quickly dropped VeeKay out of contention. He was able to continue in the race and ended up a lap down, finishing 20th. VeeKay is six points behind Palou. He has finished outside the top ten in the last five races. VeeKay won at Gateway in Pro Mazda two years and he was runner-up at Indy Lights last year.
Last year, two rookies finished in the top ten at Gateway with Santino Ferrucci in fourth and Colton Herta in ninth. The year prior, Zach Veach was fifth at Gateway as a rookie.
Final Oval Races of 2020
With two oval races remaining, 108 points are left on the table, and seven drivers could end up as the top oval driver in 2020.
Scott Dixon has scored 215 points from four the four oval races. Dixon's oval finishes have been first, second, fifth and second. He is 33 points clear of Josef Newgarden who, like Dixon, has finished in the top five of every oval race this season. Newgarden has finished third, fifth, first and fifth and he has two pole positions on ovals.
The gap widens to 74 points between Dixon and Simon Pagenaud in third. Pagenaud had finishes of second, first and fourth in his first three oval races before his bad Indianapolis 500. Takuma Sato's victory leaps him one points behind Pagenaud. Sato picked up 108 points from the Indianapolis 500, meaning 76.59% of his oval points this year are from one race. Graham Rahal is two points behind his teammate. Rahal has finished third in the last two races and he has never had three podium finishes on ovals in a single season.
Patricio O'Ward is 89 points behind Dixon. O'Ward has not finished worse than 12th this season. The only time he has been to Gateway as in Indy Lights in 2018 when he finished third behind Ryan Norman and Colton Herta.
The final drivers alive for top oval driver is Jack Harvey, 105 points behind Dixon. Harvey will be eliminated once Dixon starts the first race on Saturday. After finishing 16th, one lap down at Texas, he has an average finish of 7.667 in his last three oval starts.
A Team Penske driver has been the de facto oval champion for six of the last seven seasons. The exception is Newgarden, who was the best oval driver in 2016 when with Ed Carpenter Racing. Dixon could become the first Honda driver to lead in oval points since engine competition returned in 2012. Dixon was the top oval driver in 2011.
Road to Indy
Only one Road to Indy series joins IndyCar at Gateway and that will be Indy Pro 2000.
Five-time USAC Silver Crown champion Kody Swanson stole the show at Indianapolis Raceway Park, winning on debut driving for Legacy Autosport. Swanson led the final 50 laps after starting second. He took the victory by 5.6772 seconds over Hunter McElrea. Swanson will be back this weekend in the #20 Legacy Autosport Tatuus.
Devlin DeFrancesco retook the championship lead with a fourth-place finish at Indianapolis Raceway Park and the Canadian has 136 points. The Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport driver is still looking for his first victory 2020. He had a runner-up finish at Road America and a second and third at Mid-Ohio. His worst finish this season was seventh.
Sting Ray Robb is seven points behind the Canadian DeFrancesco after finishing sixth at IRP. Danial Frost is on 127 points after finishing fifth. Artem Petrov has finished eighth and ninth in the last two races, and Petrov has dropped to 18 points behind DeFrancesco. Braden Eves rounds out the top five, 21 points back.
McElrea moved up to sixth in the championship on 104 points. He has finished second in the last two races. Manuel Sulaimán took a surprise pole position at IRP and Sulaimán led the first 40 laps but ended up dropping to third. The result lifted Sulaimán to seventh the championship on 103 points.
It has been a difficult year for Parker Thompson. Thompson was tenth at IRP for the second consecutive year after he won that race in 2018. Thompson is on 89 points and eighth in the championship.
The Gateway Indy Pro 2000 winner has gone onto win the championship every year with Victor Franzoni doing it in 2017, Rinus VeeKay in 2018 and Kyle Kirkwood last year.
Robb has run all three Indy Pro 2000 races at Gateway. He has finishes of seventh, ninth and fifth. Frost scored a fourth-place finish in this race last year. Petrov made his Indy Pro 2000 debut last year at Gateway and finished seventh.
The Indy Pro 2000 race will be at 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday August 30th.
Fast Facts
Saturday's race will be the 12th IndyCar race on August 29 and first since Ryan Briscoe won at Chicagoland in 2009.
Sunday's race will be the 15th IndyCar race on August 30 and first since Scott Dixon won at Sonoma in 2015. That victory gave Dixon the 2015 championship on tiebreaker over Juan Pablo Montoya. Sunday's race will be six years to the day of Tony Kanaan's most recent victory at Fontana.
Mario Andretti won on August 30, 1987 at Road America. Michael Andretti won on August 30, 1992 at Vancouver.
There have been ten different winners in the ten IndyCar races at Gateway.
Team Penske has won five of ten Gateway races. Chip Ganassi Racing has two victories. Newman/Haas Racing, Galles Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing all have one victory.
Chevrolet has three Gateway victories. Honda and Toyota have each won at the track twice. Mercedes-Benz, Ford-Cosworth and Oldsmobile each won at the track once.
Three of the previous ten Gateway races have been the 250-mile distance. Those were the Indy Racing League events from 2001 to 2003. The CART races from 1997 to 2000 were 300 miles. The three races from 2017 to 2019 were 310 miles, just shy of 500 kilometers.
Team Penske has won at all three distances.
The Gateway winner has gone on to win the championship twice, Alex Zanardi in 1998 and Josef Newgarden in 2017.
The average starting position for a Gateway winner is 4.6 with a median of third.
The pole-sitter has won three Gateway races, Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000, Gil de Ferran in 2002 and Hélio Castroneves in 2003.
The worst starting position for a Gateway winner was 11th in 1998 with Alex Zanardi and 1999 with Michael Andretti.
The only other time a Gateway winner started outside the top five was in 2001 when Al Unser, Jr. won from eighth.
The average number of lead changes in a Gateway race is nine with a median of ten.
The fewest lead changes was three in 1998 and the most was 13 last year.
The average number of cautions in a Gateway race is 4.7 with a median of 4.5 The average number of caution laps are 43.2 with a median of 39.
The most cautions were eight in 1997 and 1999. The fewest cautions was one in 2000.
Possible Milestones:
Scott Dixon is one victory away from becoming the third driver to reach the 50-victory milestone in IndyCar history.
If Scott Dixon starts both races this weekend, Dixon will surpass Al Unser, Jr. for fifth most starts in IndyCar history. Dixon will have made 330 starts if he takes the green flag in both races.
Scott Dixon needs to lead 87 laps to become the fifth driver with 6,000 laps in an IndyCar career.
Scott Dixon needs to lead 125 laps to surpass Hélio Castroneves for fourth all-time in laps led.
Will Power needs to lead 102 laps to surpass Paul Tracy for ninth all-time in laps led.
Tony Kanaan needs to lead 185 laps to surpass Paul Tracy for ninth all-time in laps led.
Josef Newgarden needs to lead 104 laps to become the 23rd driver to lead 2,500 laps in an IndyCar career.
Simon Pagenaud needs to lead 199 laps to become the 29th driver to lead 1,500 laps in an IndyCar career.
Predictions
Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon split the weekend. There will be five different drivers that stand on the podium between the two races. Satnino Ferrucci gets a top five finish in one race and finishes outside the top ten in the other. Conor Daly gets at least one top ten finishes. Multiple Andretti Autosport drivers get a top five finish this weekend. Felix Rosenqvist gets his second top ten finish of the weekend. Will Power will not be angry after both races. At least two of the rookies score a top ten this weekend. There will not be a caution that catches out the leaders and moves drivers outside the top ten to the front of the field in the closing laps. The biggest difference between starting position between the two races will be 13 positions. There will not be any rain. Sleeper: Santino Ferrucci.
