1. Will Power was masterful again, but a flag-to-flag victory from pole position is not a fair depiction of this victory. Power had Alexander Rossi, and in the closing laps Colton Herta, breathing down his neck, and while under pressure for majority of the 75 laps, Power never made a misstep.
After loads of races where Power started at the front and led laps but had a driveshaft break or a pit stop mistake or spun on his own, Power had everything go his way today and he picked up his 39th career victory, tying him with Al Unser for fifth all-time.
Nobody on the current IndyCar grid has the speed of Power. Prior to his 39th victory this afternoon, he picked up his 61st pole position, moving him within six of Mario Andretti's all-time record. This was his 18th victory from pole position, tying him with Sébastien Bourdais for third all-time, only behind Andretti and A.J. Foyt. The man is phenomenal, and somehow his career could have been greater. This was his second victory of the season in what has otherwise been a disappointing season. Since winning his championship six years ago, Power typically has about four or five things go wrong in a season to undo all the pole positions and victories and 2020 has been no different.
However, we get to see the sheer brilliance of Will Power a handful of times each season and it is magnificent. He is one of the best to ever run in IndyCar, though there are a few ahead of him when it comes to this generation. We are living in a great time because we got to see Power go against Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Hélio Castroneves and Sébastien Bourdais, all in their primes, while also having caught the strong careers of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta at the start of their careers.
This was a special day and how fitting was it for Power to pick up his 39th victory where Al Unser won his 39th and final race. Unser did it with his fourth Indianapolis 500. Power did it on the IMS road course. It is just a sign of the times.
2. After losing time and a shot at victory on the alternate tires in race one, Colton Herta and his team learned from yesterday's mistakes and were in contention for the victory today. Herta kept Power honest and remained on the Australian's rear for the final six laps. The tires just weren't there for Herta to make a move late and traffic never fell into his favor.
Yesterday, I highlighted races where the alternate tire has cost Herta great finishes. Today showed him and his team could master the compound. Unlike yesterday, where Herta was in command and gave it away, Herta was starting behind the leader and that could suggest the team does not have strategy perfected when starting at the front, though the team does have Laguna Seca as a case in its favor. This was a successful weekend for Herta and co. It could have been slightly better.
3. Alexander Rossi made the wrong decision to use the primary tire on the final stint. Until that point, Rossi was the main challenger to Power, falling about 4.5 seconds off Power before closing the gap to just over a second before the final round of pit stops.
It was difficult to get a handle on the tires today. Yesterday, the alternate tire did not have the legs at the end of the stint. Today, it appeared all the teams knew how to get more out of the alternate tires and make it work, and Rossi fell back. Herta passed him with about 15 laps to go and then he settled into third. This was Rossi's fourth consecutive podium finish, but it has to be frustrating to have the pace but have that victory remain out of his grasp with one race to go.
Rossi has a lot to play for in the finale, and he will not mind being a spoiler.
4. The championship battle is still alive. Josef Newgarden has kept Scott Dixon from hoisting the Astor Cup in Speedway, Indiana and with leave the title to be decided under the St. Petersburg sunshine. Newgarden started a little behind the mark in eighth, still six spots ahead of Dixon, but Newgarden had to have a good drive and he methodically worked his way to the front and a fourth-place finish.
One mistake and Newgarden could have seen his season end today. Instead, he put his head down and had a Penske-worthy drive to the front. He didn't step on any toes. He didn't make anyone made. He had a car that could drive from ninth to fourth. He will still some help at St. Petersburg, but with the gap down to 32 points, Newgarden took 85 points out of the deficit. When Dixon won at Gateway, we might have seen Dixon clinch this championship with two races to go. Newgarden deserves credit for keeping his title defense alive.
5. Patricio O'Ward bounced back with a top five finish today after starting fifth. I will admit I only recall seeing O'Ward in fifth. I am sure someone else was fifth today, but O'Ward settled in that position and sometimes you are just fifth. That is fine. I feel like Herta was in that position earlier this season. This has been a solid year for O'Ward.
6. Jack Harvey got his best finish of the season, coming home in sixth. This was Harvey's sixth top ten finish of the season, more than double the two-car A.J. Foyt Racing and he has as many top ten finishes as Ed Carpenter Racing. I know Meyer Shank Racing announced a big partnership with Liberty Media this weekend. MSR is in a great spot for the future. The results are already coming in for the team in its first full seasons. Harvey is maybe the most underrated driver this season. I am excited for what MSR's future has in store, and it will probably be a two-car team in no time. Once it expands, I think it will be contending for race victories.
7. Graham Rahal was seventh for the second consecutive days. This comes after a pair of fourth-place finishes at Mid-Ohio. Like I described yesterday, he is a seventh-place driver. I cannot explain it. The speed and consistency are there, but those big days escape him. When he wins, it is because he has been on top from the start. We don't see Rahal start a weekend sixth or seventh and then fight into contention for a race victory. He will stay sixth or seventh and finish there, which is good, but he will likely finish sixth in the championship this year. He is 26 points ahead of his teammate Takuma Sato and 22 points behind O'Ward. Constantly finishing sixth, seventh or eighth will get you a top ten championship finish, but that is far off where Dixon and Newgarden are.
8. Things were a little hairy when Scott Dixon qualified 15th. The day appeared to be unravelling in the closing laps when contact with Ryan Hunter-Reay damaged his floor and cost him some position. However, Dixon did not falter. Other drivers would have had the early adversity and the day would be done there. Forget a top ten finish. That driver would be hoping just to finish on the lead lap. Dixon does not panic, and he has been in a lot of difficult positions before. He got through it and exceeded what 95% of the grid could have accomplished if faced with that situation.
Climbing to eighth kept the gap at 32 points. Dixon can clinch the title with a ninth-place finish, but Dixon has been in a rut in the last four races. He has finished tenth, tenth, ninth and eighth in the last four races and that averages out to a 9.25 finish. Dixon has to be better than his current form. Now, he needs to finish at least ninth if Newgarden is perfect at St. Petersburg, but Dixon cannot be much worse than he has been in the last four races. Newgarden won at St. Petersburg last year and momentum is on his side.
I still think Dixon will pull through, but this could have been over.
9. Álex Palou finally had a good day and finished ninth. I think Palou has been better than his season has shown. First, he was taken out early at Texas. Second, his Iowa results do not show how well he was running in those two races. Three, he was strong in the Indianapolis 500 before his accident. He has made mistakes, but he can improve, and I think he would if given a second season.
Today was a little bit of an encapsulation of his season. Palou started fourth, but never factored in the top five. He brought it home in ninth, but that's disappointing compared to where the team was in the morning after qualifying.
10. Simon Pagenaud snuck into the top ten in what was a disappointing weekend. Pagenaud is going to finish in the top ten of the championship, but this team has been lost on setup all year. He has not qualified in the top five since the season opener. He has started outside the top ten in nine of 13 races.
The team somehow turned two 23rd-place starts at Iowa into a first and a fourth, but if we were to wipe away that weekend and if he had not been as fortunate with cautions, I think we would be talking about Pagenaud being back on the hot seat at Team Penske. He needs a big weekend at St. Petersburg, though the best thing he could probably do in the finale is run block for his teammate who is going for his second consecutive title and third title in four seasons.
I think Pagenaud is due for a shakeup in the offseason.
11. Felix Rosenqvist was off today. For starters, Rosenqvist was running block for Dixon early when Dixon first got his damage. Rosenqvist may have prevented Dixon's day from being worse. If it wasn't for Rosenqvist, Dixon might have lost three or four more spots early and this race could have gone much different for Dixon.
Then Rosenqvist made contact with Charlie Kimball when Kimball had yet to stop and Rosenqvist was on fresher tires. This cost Rosenqvist some ground. I thought the contact took him out of the race, because it appeared his right front suspension bent, but he continued.
This has been a strange year for Rosenqvist. This is kind of a sophomore slump. He got his first career victory, but outside of that Road America race and Texas, he hasn't really challenged for a race victory.
12. Quickly through the rest of the field: Santino Ferrucci was 12th. That was about it for Ferrucci. He just hung out just outside the top ten all race. James Hinchcliffe had a much better second day finishing 13th. Takuma Sato was nonexistent in 14th. Sato has these tracks and I don't understand why he struggles as much as he does on the IMS road course, especially since his one and only Formula One podium finish was at the track in the 2004 United States Grand Prix! Mid-Ohio is a similar track for Sato.
13. Marcus Ericsson took 15th from Ryan Hunter-Reay late. It was an off-day for Ericsson and after that contact with Dixon, Hunter-Reay switched to a three-stop strategy and it did not work out. For a moment, it looked like Hunter-Reay might have been able to turn the three-stop strategy into a top ten finish
14. Rinus VeeKay took a big step back for race two. I am not sure why VeeKay was as far off as he was. I believe he didn't have any new sets of alternate tires in this race and that might have been why he was as uncompetitive as he was. Sébastien Bourdais has a lot of work to do with A.J. Foyt Racing. Max Chilton was the final car on the lead lap.
15. Conor Daly has been a little disappointing in the #20 Chevrolet this year and he was 20th today. Hélio Castroneves also attempt the three-stop strategy and it didn't work. Marco Andretti is puzzling. He qualified fifth yesterday and 12th today. In both races he slipped back with every lap and he ended up 21st today, a lap down. I don't get it. He shows speed all the time, and then it is never there in the race. I am not sure what happens between the end of qualifying and the race and I don't know who can fix it.
Charlie Kimball attempted the three-stop strategy and it didn't work and he had contact with Felix Rosenqvist. There is not much else to say about Sage Karam. Dalton Kellett's IndyCar career may have ended in 25th, the only car two laps down.
16. This was a fun weekend, but that does not mean we need to do it all the time.
I was a critic of the IMS road course getting an IndyCar race six years ago, but it has developed into a competitive course. There have been some off races, but these two, plus last year's changing conditions race, the 2018 race where Power and Robert Wickens went back-and-forth on tire compounds and the first race, and this track has been pretty good to IndyCar, though it is a pretty tame layout.
I think the conditions played into why these two races were as exceptional as they were. We don't have many IndyCar races that are in the 50s or 60s on the thermometer. We start in St. Petersburg, which is in the 70s, head to Long Beach or Barber in April, both of which are normally in the 70s and then we hit May. Sometimes the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is in cooler conditions, but normally we get into May and we never have another race below 70º F.
These were prime conditions that allowed for this kind of racing. I definitely helped with performance and tire life. I am not qualified to say whether or not these conditions would create more or less dirty air, but it didn't seem like cars had as much difficulty following one another, as we have seen in past road course races, including at this track.
IndyCar doesn't want to race into October, because of football. I am not saying the season has to go deep into autumn, but a race like this shows that this early portion of the season is not only nice for spectators because they are not frying in the grandstands, but also for what happens on track.
17. I liked that there were two different race distances. I understand why the Saturday race was 75 laps for television. That distance did make it a straight-forward two-stop race, but it worked out and we saw three cars going for the lead for most of it and a two-car battle down to the wire. The 85-lap distance is great, though it was a three-stop race for everyone. No one attempted a two-stop race, though it went caution-free and would have possibly worked for a team.
I like the different race distances for the doubleheaders, the only problem is ten laps is a big difference. This 75-lap race was always in danger of being more boring than the 85-lap race, because the strategical element was nonexistent. If we ran ten more 75-lap races, we are more likely to have eight or nine stinkers, while the 85-lap distance would have a few bad ones, but likely have more races people applauded.
For what this weekend was, I think IndyCar did a great job make it different from the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
18. We will get a few weeks off, but our eyes are on St. Petersburg. The finish line is in sight and we have a championship race to dissect for 21 days.
