IndyCar finally had its Mid-Ohio doubleheader and there were two first-time winners at the track. One was Will Power, who has now won at 22 different tracks. The other was Colton Herta, who has now won at three different tracks. Ferrari had its 1,000th Formula One race in the first Tuscan Grand Prix from Mugello and it was a mess with three red flags. A Ferrari did win in Italy this weekend, but it was not a car and it was at Misano. NASCAR made its first and only trip to Richmond, and tires were the top story. The World Touring Car Cup opened its 2020 season and Santiago Urrutia landed a ride in WTCC. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Can Anyone Else Reach 50?
Scott Dixon's 50th IndyCar victory at Gateway made him only the third driver to reach the milestone, joining A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti in the exclusive club.
It took Dixon 329 starts to get his 50th victory, far more than either Foyt or Andretti. Foyt's 50th victory came in his 230th start. Andretti's 50th victory was in his 298th start.
The same weekend Dixon won his 50th race, Josef Newgarden picked up his 16th victory. Newgarden has a way to go until he reaches the half-century mark, but what caught my eye after Newgarden's Gateway victory is it was his 32nd podium finish and it was his 50th top five finish. Half the time Newgarden is on the podium, he is on the top step. Thirty-two percent of the time Newgarden is in the top five, he is first. If you thought top five finishes would be evenly dispersed through 50 top five finishes, Newgarden is outshooting the mark by 12%!
Newgarden is still young, he will only turn 29 years old this December. Dixon's 50th victory came a little over a month after his 40th birthday. That gives Newgarden 11 years and Newgarden will likely be around for another decade, if not more. We are seeing plenty of drivers remain competitive in their 40s. There is no sign of Newgarden being any different.
This got me wondering, what are the chances we see another driver reach 50 victories?
Newgarden is currently 34 victories away from the 50-victory milestone. If he averages three victories a season for the next 11 seasons, he would be on the doorstep. That appears possible for Newgarden. It is not going to be easy, but it is not unthinkable either.
It was 32 years, four months and 19 days between admittances to the 50-victory club. It is rare. There were 13 years and four days between Foyt and Andretti reaching 50 victories. If Andretti had not spent most of the 1970s focused on Formula One, not only might he have been the first to 50 victories, but the gap between him and Foyt reaching 50 victories would likely be smaller. That also means the gap between the second driver reaching 50 victories and Dixon reaching the milestone would likely be greater than 32 years and probably closer to 40 years.
Dixon's winning percentage at the time of his 50th victory was 15.197%. There are 14 other race winners in IndyCar, and those are the only drivers I can project out to 50 victories. They have a winning percentage. Multiplying a winning percentage of zero leaves you with zero, meaning the likes of Patricio O'Ward, Oliver Askew, Marcus Ericsson, Álex Palou, Rinus VeeKay, Santino Ferrucci, Zach Veach and anyone without an IndyCar victory is not including. It is not that those drivers cannot do it or will not do it. They absolutely could. For the sake of this thought experiment, they have to be omitted. Once they have a victory, they can be included.
The first thing I decided to do was figure out how many victories each driver should have at their 329th start, when Dixon reached 50. What I did was take the number of starts Dixon has, divided it by the number of starts each driver has made and then multiplied that number to each driver's victory total at this time.
Two drivers, Tony Kanaan and Hélio Castroneves, have already surpassed 329 starts, so they are omitted.
There is one driver on pace to reach 50 victories prior to start 329.
Number of victories on pace for at 329th start:
Marco Andretti - 2.685
Colton Herta - 34.034
James Hinchcliffe - 13.901
Ryan Hunter-Reay - 22.517
Charlie Kimball - 2.1644
Josef Newgarden - 36.303
Simon Pagenaud - 30.276
Will Power - 53.8879
Graham Rahal - 8.891
Felix Rosenqvist - 11.75
Alexander Rossi - 29.52
Takuma Sato - 11.027
Will Power has our attention!
Power is on a BETTER pace than Dixon! For the last five years, we have been eyeing Dixon's ascension up the all-time victories list, and rightfully so, but with Dixon at 50, and three away from surpassing Mario Andretti for second all-time, I think once Dixon gets 53, we need to shift our attention to Power.
Power is on 38 victories. It is possible Power could be ahead of Andretti's 52 victories before his 329th start. Power's pace got me thinking, at what start would Power reach his 50th victory?
Let's take the winning percentage for all the drivers and figure out if they kept up their current winning percentage, when would they reach their 50th victory?
Pace for 50th Victory:
Marco Andretti: 6,125th start
Hélio Castroneves: 581.667th start
Colton Herta: 483.333th start
James Hinchcliffe: 1,183.33rd start
Ryan Hunter-Reay: 730.555th start
Tony Kanaan: 1,126.47th start
Charlie Kimball: 7600th start
Josef Newgarden: 453.125th start
Simon Pagenaud: 543.333th start
Will Power: 305.263th start
Graham Rahal: 1,850rd start
Felix Rosenqvist: 1400th start
Takuma Sato: 1491.667th start
At the current rate, we are about 73 starts away from Power's 50th victory. If the IndyCar schedule gets back to 17 races starting next year and Power keeps up his winning percentage, Power's 50th victory would come sometime during the 2025 season, but possibly by the end of the 2024 season.
A few drivers are out of the running.
There have been, according to the IndyCar record book, 1,694 races in the history of American championship car open-wheel racing. For the likes of Andretti and Kimball, they would need 450 to 550 years. That's not going to happen. Hinchcliffe, Rahal and Sato are also likely out of it. Kanaan has one foot in retirement. It is not going to happen for Kanaan.
It is also unlikely Castroneves and Hunter-Reay to reach the milestone. Castroneves is older than Dixon and Hunter-Reay turns 40 years old this December. Castroneves has made 349 starts. At his current winning percentage, Castroneves would be on pace to get his 50th victory in about another 232 starts. That would take at least another 13 years. I don't think Castroneves is going to be racing until he is 58 years old. Hunter-Reay is 467 starts away from the projected start of his 50th victory. That is over 27 years away. I doubt Hunter-Reay will race in IndyCar until he is almost 67 years old, and possibly against his sons and grandchildren.
That leaves Herta, Newgarden, Pagenaud, Power, Rosenqvist, and Rossi.
It is too soon to say for Herta and Rosenqvist. Neither have reached 30 starts yet. Dixon had one victory at 30 starts. We will truly know where these two drivers stand 100 starts from now and 125 starts from now.
Newgarden, Pagenaud, Power and Rossi have all run enough races to really compare where they are compared to Dixon.
Dixon's career hasn't been a clear path to 50 victories from the beginning. He won his third start and then didn't win again until his 40th start! At 50 starts, he had four victories and a winning percentage of 8%. His next victory would not come until his 86th start at Watkins Glen and his winning percentage was down to 5.8%. At his 100th start, he had won seven races, under half his current winning percentage.
When does it turnaround for Dixon?
If a driver wins four out of every 25 races, that driver's winning percentage is 16%, better than Dixon's current winning percentage, but four victories in 25 races is feasible. That is four victories in every season and a half of competition. That is not a crazy number of victories and the top drivers should be able to keep up that consistent pace.
If you break up Dixon's career into 25-start increments, you can see where he turns the curve.
From start 101 through start 125, Dixon won seven more races, bringing his career winning percentage up to 11.2%. The next 25 races, he won seven more and his winning percentage at 150 starts was 14%. Since Dixon reached 150 starts, his number of victories over his last seven 25-start increments are four, four, four, four, three, four and five.
In 50 starts from the end of 2006 to the end of 2009, Dixon turns around what was a slow five years to start his career.
Newgarden did not win until his 55th start. At his 100th start, Newgarden had seven victories, just like Dixon. At start 125, he had 12 victories, only two off of where Dixon was at.
Pagenaud did not win until his 39th start, but he was up to his fourth victory at his 75th start, just like Dixon, but Pagenaud had eight victories at his 100th start, one better than Dixon. Pagenaud has not kept the pace over his last 63 starts. He was at 11 victories at start 125, three behind Dixon's pace, and he was at 14 victories at start 150, seven off Dixon's pace.
Rossi is still early in the game and he only reached the 75-start milestone at Gateway. He had one victory in his first 25 starts, like Dixon, but had five victories in his first 50 starts. Rossi only won twice in his next 25 starts, slowing his pace, but not entirely ending any hope of 50 victories, because Rossi's seven victories at 75 starts is almost double the number of victories Dixon had at the same point in his career.
Power has been ahead of Dixon's pace almost the entire time. In Power's first 25 starts, he had two victories. Dixon held the edge at start 50 with four victories to Power's three, but at start 75, Power had 11 victories, almost triple what Dixon had. At start 100, Power had 18 victories!
Power was ahead of Dixon by eight victories at start 125, but Power's career has slowed down since. At 150 starts, Power had 25 victories to Dixon's 21. Twenty-five starts later, Power's 30 victories were five more than Dixon's at that milestone and he had five more victories than Dixon did at the 200-start milestone with 34 to 29. At 225 starts, Power held the advantage at 37 victories to Dixon's 33.
There are a lot of things that come into play into whether another driver reaches the 50-victory milestone. Part of it is timing. Power is on pace, but he is also 39 years old, he got a later start in IndyCar than Scott Dixon, and for the entire 2020 season it has felt Power has lost some interest in IndyCar. Last year, on Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s podcast, Power talked about how he almost walked away from IndyCar a few years ago. He could reach 50 victories in the next five years, but he could decide to walk before then because he has had enough.
IndyCar is tough and while the likes of Newgarden and Rossi could increase their winning percentage over the next two or three seasons, can they hold onto that for at least another ten to 15 years? The drivers entering the series are not going to be weaker. They are going to provide a stiff challenge and winning 15% of every 25 races will be a difficult task.
It is very possible there will be a fourth driver in the 50-victory club before the 2020s end, but between age, an increasingly talented field and the unknowns of engine and team combinations could mean our wait for another member could be over three decades away.
Champion From the Weekend
Oscar Piastri clinched the Formula Three championship with a seventh-place finish in the second Mugello race. French driver Thèo Pourchaire was second, three points behind Piastri with America Logan Sargeant dropping to third, four points behind Piastri after being taken out on lap one of the final race.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Will Power and Colton Herta but did you know...
Lewis Hamilton won the Tuscan Grand Prix, his sixth victory of the season and 90th of his career.
Nikita Mazepin and Christian Lundgaard split the Formula Two races from Mugello. Frederik Vesti and Liam Lawson split the Formula Three races.
Manuel Sulaimán and Sting Ray Robb split the Indy Pro 2000 races. Michael d'Orlando, Reece Gold and Christian Rasmussen split the U.S. F2000 races.
Franco Morbidelli won MotoGP's San Marino and Rimini Coast Grand Prix, the fourth first-time MotoGP winner this season. Luca Marini won the Moto2 race, his second victory of the season. John McPhee won the Moto3 race. Matteo Ferrari won the MotoE race.
Brad Keselowski won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond, his fourth victory of the season. Justin Allgaier swept the Grand National Series races. Grant Enfinger won the Truck race, his third victory of the season. It was the first Truck race at Richmond since 2005.
Nico Müller and Robin Frijns split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from Nürburgring.
The #17 Real Racing Honda of Bertrand Baguette and Koudai Tsukakoshi won the Super GT race from Motegi, its second victory of the season. The #65 K2 R&D Leon Racing Mercedes-AMG of Naoya Gamou and Togo Suganami won in GT300.
The #4 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engle and Luca Stolz and the #26 Saintéloc Racing Audi of Simon Gachet and Steven Palette split the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup races from Magny-Cours.
Néstor Girolami and Yann Ehrlacher split the World Touring Car Cup races from Zolder.
Coming Up this Weekend
The 24 Hours of Le Mans.
MotoGP remains at Misano for the Emilia-Romagna and Rimini Coast Grand Prix.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters remain at Nürburgring but will run the sprint course this time.
NASCAR concludes round one of its playoffs at Bristol.
GT World Challenge America will be in Austin.
Supercars visit Tailem Bend.
World Superbike heads to Barcelona.
