1. I know this is a little later than normal, and this is going to be quicker than normal...
Josef Newgarden needed to have his best race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course today and he got it, taking a victory that was much closer than the 14.294 seconds on paper. At the start, Newgarden was a part of the trio that pulled away from the field with Rinus VeeKay and Colton Herta. During the second stint, Newgarden led for a portion but the alternate tires on Herta's car elevated the #88 Honda into the lead. However, the alternate tires fell off toward the end of the stint and brought Newgarden back into the race.
Herta stopped earlier than the window would allow for him to make it on fuel and it handed Newgarden the race. Newgarden made his final stop later, came out significantly ahead and Herta had to conserve, running mostly in the 73-second range to make it to the end. Meanwhile, Newgarden had clear track and fuel to burn. No one was going to touch him.
This victory cuts his deficit to Scott Dixon to 40 points, within the necessary margin to make St. Petersburg a contested finale, but not small enough to mean Newgarden is out of the woods for tomorrow. One slip up and Dixon could leave this weekend with the Astor Cup strapped into the passenger seat of his daily driver. Only half the job was completed today and Newgarden has more work to do.
2. Alexander Rossi drove an impressive race up to second. Rossi had battles throughout the field, first with Dixon, which saw him be penalized for exceeding track limits on the Hulman straightaway. He had to sacrifice a position and then had to fight back for that spot. Once he got it and after the pit cycle, he fought with Rinus VeeKay and Will Power to get up to fourth. With Herta saving fuel, that allowed Rossi to catch him and Felix Rosenqvist and soon Rossi was second.
Rossi got no favors from Takuma Sato, who was already a lap down and many seconds off the next car ahead of him. Rossi likely would not have caught Newgarden, but the gap would hav been much smaller than 14.294 seconds.
This was another race where Rossi started on the back foot in eighth. He was in the unfortunate qualifying group yesterday and ended up eighth on the grid. If he had ended up starting on one of the first two rows, he likely would have been in the Herta/Newgarden battle from the start. Either way, he gets his third consecutive podium finish, though victory remains elusive.
3. For a moment, I thought this was only going to be a good day for Rinus VeeKay. VeeKay stared on pole position and had a good opening stint but did not have the pace of Herta and Newgarden. The Dutchman settled into the top five and I thought he would come home fifth or sixth and I would get to say he did reasonably well.
However, VeeKay turned it on in that final stint. With Herta saving fuel and Rosenqvist unable to get ahead, VeeKay caught both and passed both and ended up third, his first career podium finish. The Rookie of the Year award is his. This was another impressive day.
4. Colton Herta salvaged fourth after another race where Herta struggled on alternate tires. We can go back to Road America last year, where he started on pole position and got the tire strategy wrong, doing two stints on alternate tires, even though he lost significant time on the first stint. At Portland later that season, Herta again started on the front on the alternate tire but could barely hang on to finish the stint and lost the lead before he even made it for pit stops.
Today, Herta stopped earlier than the window would allow, and he had to run a tight fuel save for 25 laps, while the rest of the field stopped three to six laps later. I am not sure if that has anything to do with driving style or car setup, but it is a pattern. Herta should have been on the podium today and probably should have been on the top step. For how strong he ran those middle stints, there is no excuse. The top drivers take what Herta did over the first 50 laps and turn it into a victory, not a fourth-place result. Fourth is still good, but it should have been better.
5. Felix Rosenqvist had a quiet top five finish. Though, I think we have to say it could have been better because he caught Herta in no time at the start of that opening stint and while Herta continued to run 73-second laps, Rosenqvist was stuck and race pace was around a high 71-second or low 72-second lap time. Rosenqvist should have passed Herta early and then ran away with a second-place result.
This is still a good day for Rosenqvist considering his season, but like Herta, this has to be better and the top drivers in IndyCar today would have at least finished second in Rosenqvist's position, not fifth.
6. Will Power got air going wide in the final corner and that cost him positions late to Rossi and VeeKay, but he still picked up a sixth-place result. Power was in or around the top five all race, though was never a factor in this one. I have to admit this is a day Power should not be angry about. He has been angry after a lot of races this season. Yes, he made that mistake, but a great save followed. I think sixth is respective of how Power's day was.
7. Graham Rahal had a spun very early in this race and you would never know it because he ran flawless afterward. That spin did not set him back. It did not throw off strategy. He was actually catching Power at the end. Without that spin, Rahal likely finishes fourth or fifth. He would have been in that battle late.
This is kind of the tale of Rahal's season and really the last three years, he is seventh-place driver, and that is not a knock, but push come to shove, he ends up sixth or seventh or eighth. He runs well but that final piece is missing.
8. Jack Harvey was not mentioned once and ended up eighth. Harvey might be mad that this finish came after starting sixth, but Harvey is a single-car team, one of two single-car teams. This was Harvey's fifth top ten finish this season. The two-car, and sometime three-car, A.J. Foyt Racing has three top ten finishes. The two-car Dale Coyne Racing has six top ten finishes. The two-car Ed Carpenter Racing has six top ten finishes. The other single-car effort Carlin has four top ten finishes.
Harvey is pulling his weight. There were a couple of races that went against earlier in the year, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis being one of them, and his championship position could be a lot better if a caution or two fell in his favor. Harvey should be proud of this season and there are still two races to go.
9. And here is the championship leader. Scott Dixon ended up ninth but was around fifth or sixth for most of this race. Dixon was one of the handful of guys struggling on his tires in the final stint, and it cost him. He lost two positions in the final laps when he went off in turn seven, and that cost him four points.
The good news is Dixon built up enough insurance that a mistake like that still has his lead at 40 points. If he exits this weekend with a 50-point lead, all he will have to do is start St. Petersburg to win the championship. If he has a 49-point lead, all he needs is for Newgarden not to win pole position and start to take the title. Of course, he is only 14 points away from making sure he can seal the title this weekend and then St. Petersburg will be for kicks and giggles.
Fourteen points is doable. Newgarden has to repeat today's performance again while Dixon knows he can do better and likely will.
10. Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top ten. It was a good day. Ericsson started 15th, he didn't make any mistakes, he was already over six seconds behind Dixon when Dixon went off, so he wasn't a threat to take away more points from his teammate. He made it three Ganassi cars in the top ten. That's good enough today.
11. Max Chilton was painfully close to that elusive top ten finish! Chilton was 11th and started ninth. Carlin has some good cars. We saw what Conor Daly could do on the ovals. The pace is there. I know I kind of put Carlin down before in the Harvey point, but four top ten finishes for this team is impressive. I think Chilton could pull out a top ten in one of the next two races, more likely tomorrow than St. Petersburg.
12. I going to take the final 14 finishers in chunks: Conor Daly was nowhere close to his teammate and that is not a good sign considering Daly has 62 IndyCar starts to VeeKay's 12. The #20 Chevrolet has not had road course pace this season. Daly matched his best road course finish of 12th, which came at the IMS road course in July. Charlie Kimball was 13th, which is good for A.J. Foyt Racing but the team has work to do. James Hinchcliffe was the best of the late season substitutes in 14th.
13. Santino Ferrucci had another off-road excursion and contact with another driver deep into a breaking zone, this time with Ryan Hunter-Reay into turn one. Ferrucci actually had multiple times he went wide into turn one. He is aggressive, but overly aggressive too much. It cost him a shot at a top ten finish today.
14. Simon Pagenaud could not work strategy magic today and went from 22nd to 16th. Álex Palou took himself out of the race after a penalty for an improper pit exit on his first stop. I think Palou did the same in practice yesterday. Today's mistake hit him harder and he finished 17th. Takuma Sato was never a factor in 18th. Ryan Hunter-Reay had some pretty bad damage after that hit from Ferrucci and was 19th.
15. Hinchcliffe might have finished on the lead lap, but all the late season substitutes struggled this weekend. Hélio Castroneves was 20th and Sébastien Bourdais was 21st. I am not sure we can take much from this weekend. Neither driver has been in the car on a road course during the season. Bourdais had push-to-pass issues from the start. Patricio O'Ward had a pit lane issues, at least one spin or half-spin and another time he went off course. I am not sure what dropped him to 22nd.
16. I honestly think Sage Karam should return to Indy Lights next year. I don't think he has lost the ability, but he has done next to no road course races over the last five years and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing had not done road courses since 2013 before this year. Karam needs more seat time. Dalton Kellett was 24th, but he was salvaged a last-place finish when Marco Andretti lost his engine with six laps to go. Andretti qualified fifth, but this was another race where the race pace did not match. He had just fallen out of the top ten when his engine detonated. An 11th-place finish was not the kind of day Andretti was hoping for from fifth on the grid, but an engine failure that late is much worse.
17. I am going to save overall thoughts on the Harvest Grand Prix weekend until after tomorrow, but IndyCar had a tremendous race on a Friday afternoon in October on the television channel USA. This was probably the best race of the season and it could not have happened for a more obscurely schedule time and place. I think the conditions had a lot to do with it. It was not brutally hot. The tires could wear but the grip was there for drivers to attempt aggressive moves, and most of those paid off.
Tomorrow will be different with ten fewer laps, it will likely be a two-stop race, although Kevin Lee pointed out that the cooler temperatures meant the cars burned more fuel so maybe tomorrow will be a three-stop race. I bet a handful of drivers try to stretch it and make it on two stops. I am looking forward for what race two could be.
