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| IndyCar Begins May in Texas |
With Texas being a two-day show, we start this Saturday not knowing the starting lineup for the Genesys 300. We do know how the championship lines up entering this third race weekend of the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season.
Despite finishing 17th at St. Petersburg, Álex Palou maintained the IndyCar championship leader. The Barber winner has 67 points and a two-point cushion over Will Power. Five points separate the top four in the championship and 20 points cover the top ten. Palou qualified 16th for his Texas debut last year and unfortunately was collected in an accident when Rinus VeeKay spun exiting turn two. Palou did not pick up a top ten finish on an oval last season with his best result being 11th in the first Iowa race.
Will Power is within striking distance of the championship lead after he opened the season with finishes of second and eighth. Power has not had three consecutive top ten finishes to start a season since his championship season in 2014. Power has not led the IndyCar championship since the second Belle Isle race in 2018 when he had a five-point lead over Scott Dixon. The only time Power has won the third race of the season was Long Beach 2012.
Scott Dixon enters Texas with 12 consecutive top ten finishes, one shying of tying his personal best of 13 consecutive top ten finishes. He accomplished the 13-race streak from the first race at Belle Isle in 2017 through Phoenix 2018. He has finished on the podium in the third race of the season in six of the last seven seasons. If Dixon takes the green flag tonight, this will be his 275th consecutive start.
Colton Herta is the most recent winner in IndyCar and one week after his first street course victory, Herta looks to get his first oval victory at Texas. Herta has yet to finish on the podium in consecutive races in his IndyCar career. He scored top ten finishes in the final three oval races in 2020, including an eighth at the Indianapolis 500 and fourth in the first Gateway race, his first oval top five finish.
Simon Pagenaud's third place finish at St. Petersburg ended a nine-race drought without a top five finish, the longest top five drought of his career. Pagenaud was elevated to fifth in the championship after that result. He has scored consecutive podium finishes at least once in the previous two seasons and in four of the last five years.
Last year, Jack Harvey made his first appearance at oval other than Indianapolis when the season opened at Texas and he drove conservative all day. He was slowest in practice and slowest among those who completed a qualifying run, however he did finish only one lap down in 16th. Harvey picked up three top ten finishes on ovals last year, including ninth at Indianapolis. He also started in the top ten in four oval races last year, including fifth in the second Gateway race.
Sébastien Bourdais has three consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since he had seven consecutive top ten finishes from Pocono 2016 through Barber 2017. A.J. Foyt Racing is shooting for four consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since the final two races of 2001 and the first two races of 2002. Foyt has not won on an oval since Kansas 2002 with Airton Daré.
Rinus VeeKay's IndyCar debut was far from a dream last year at Texas. VeeKay had an accident after 11 practice laps and another one after 36 race laps. He does have top ten finishes in six of his last nine starts and he has been running at the finish of his last 11 starts.
Marcus Ericsson led two laps in his Texas debut in 2019 on his way to finishing seventh. Last year, Ericsson was looking set for a top ten finish but a re-fueling issue forced him to make an extra pit stop and he ended up 19th, four laps down. The Swede has three consecutive top ten finishes.
Josef Newgarden picked up his 13th runner-up finish last week at St. Petersburg. In the race following his previous 12 runner-up finishes, Newgarden has one victory, three top five finishes, seven top ten finishes and has an average finish of 9.9167. In two of the last four seasons, Newgarden has had multiple podium finishes within the first three races. In each of those seasons, he went on to win the championship.
After showing great speed and not getting the finish to match in the first two races, Patricio O'Ward looks to for a complete race weekend at Texas. O'Ward topped the test day held at the track on March 31. His fastest time was 23.325 seconds. The fastest lap at last year's Texas weekend was 24.0006, which Scott Dixon set in practice.
A qualifying accident prevented Takuma Sato from starting last year's Texas race and it ended his streak of 169 consecutive starts. Sato had started every race of the 2010s and he proceeded to miss the first race of the 2020s. Prior to last year he had started in the top ten for four consecutive Texas races.
Graham Rahal had his streak of six consecutive top ten finishes snapped at St. Petersburg. Prior to last year's Texas race, Rahal had four consecutive top ten finishes at Texas, starting with his victory in 2016 and his worst finish in that four-year span was sixth. He has not qualified in the top five at Texas since he was third in 2012.
Scott McLaughlin has improved his finishing position in each of his first three IndyCar starts and he will make his oval debut this weekend. McLaughlin could become the first driver to win on his oval debut since Sébastien Bourdais won at the Lausitzring in 2003. Before Bourdais, Scott Dixon won on his oval debut at Nazareth in 2001.
All seven of Alexander Rossi's IndyCar victories have come after a top ten finish the race before. Rossi was 21st after a tire puncture with Graham Rahal at St. Petersburg. Rossi's best finish in the race following a finish outside the top twenty is second, which came in the 2019 Indianapolis 500 after finishing 22nd in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis the race prior.
Conor Daly has not had a top ten finish in his last seven starts, all coming with Ed Carpenter Racing. In 11 starts with ECR, Daly's best finish is 12th. In nine starts with Carlin, Daly has five top ten finishes, two finishes of 11th and two finishes of 13th, plus a pole position.
Felix Rosenqvist spent much of last year's Texas race in the top five before his accident with nine laps to go. Rosenqvist has not had a top ten finish in his last four starts, the longest drought of his career. He has one top five finish in his last 12 starts after having seven in his first 21 races.
In 13 oval start, Ed Jones has three top ten finishes and his average finish is 14.23. He was ninth in his last Texas start in 2019 with Chip Ganassi Racing. Last year at Texas, both Dale Coyne Racing cars finished outside the top twenty. It was the first time Coyne did not have won top twenty finishes since it had three cars fail to crack the top twenty in the 2015 Indianapolis 500.
James Hinchcliffe has not finished in the top ten in his last five starts, his longest drought since he did not have a top ten finish in the final five races of the 2018 season. Hinchcliffe has finished in the top ten in his third start of the last five seasons, although the only time he has finished in the top five of his third start of a season was third at Long Beach in 2013.
Ryan Hunter-Reay has three consecutive top ten finishes at Texas after he finished outside the top ten and off the lead lap in his four previous Texas starts. Hunter-Reay was born in Dallas, Texas and the last Texas-born driver to win an IndyCar race in Texas was A.J. Foyt at Texas World Speedway on August 5, 1979.
Dalton Kellett makes his first trip to Texas Motor Speedway. Kellett was 31st after an accident in his Indianapolis 500 debut last year. He made 16 oval starts in Road to Indy competition with an average finish of 7.1875, including five podium finishes. The average grid size in those 16 races was 13.375 cars. Only his last five Indy Lights oval starts had fewer than a dozen starters. Four of those races had single-digit fields.
Tony Kanaan will make his first start of the 2021 season in the #48 Honda with Chip Ganassi Racing. This is Kanaan's first start with Ganassi since the 2017 season finale at Sonoma. This is the first time Kanaan has returned to a team in his career. He has driven for seven teams in his IndyCar career. In his first 67 starts with Ganassi, Kanaan has one victory, 12 podium finishes, 20 top five finishes and 41 top ten finishes. He finished on the podium in his last three Texas starts with Ganassi.
After 958 days, Pietro Fittipaldi makes his IndyCar return. Fittipaldi drove six races in the 2018 season with Dale Coyne Racing. His best finish was ninth at Portland and he started two oval races, Pocono and Gateway. He completed only six laps at Pocono before getting caught in the early turn two accident with Robert Wickens, Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe and Takuma Sato. He was a lap down at Gateway the following week in 11th.
Ed Carpenter is back for his 19th season of IndyCar competition. Carpenter's fifth place finish at Texas last year was his first top ten finish at the intermediate oval since his 2014 victory. Last year was also the second time Carpenter opened a season with a top five finish. He was fifth in the 2008 season opener at Homestead. All three of Carpenter's victories have come at three different tracks. Fontana is the only track he has multiple podium finishes at with finishes of first, second and third from 2012 through 2014.
Proceedings for the Genesys 300 from Texas Motor Speedway will all take place on Saturday. The day begins with a practice session at noon ET. Rookies will get the track for the first 15 minutes before the veterans join them for the next 60 minutes. Qualifying will be at 4:00 p.m. ET and it set the grids for both races. Each driver will get a two-lap qualifying run with the first lap setting the grid for the Genesys 300 and the second lap will set the field for Sunday's XPEL 375.
NBCSN's coverage of the Genesys 300 begins at 7:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 212 laps.
