Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes outfoxed Max Verstappen and Red Bull again, diving in for tires and then chasing down the Dutchman to take the victory, Hamilton's third of the season and 98th of his career. The box score does not tell the full story of the Formula E race at Monaco. There were five American citizens on the Formula Three grid this weekend and three of them scored points. The NASCAR Truck Series continues to break the bad records. NASCAR unveiled the next generation Cup car, which will only be as good as how much downforce and how much horsepower they give it. Ford reached a milestone in Australia. It is May 10, and it is raining. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Taking Temperature
We are getting toward the middle of May; Indianapolis 500 festivities will soon resume, and this is a good time to take the temperature of the room. Instead of having one topic, I have a few things on my mind, one looking back at the first few months of 2021 and the others looking at the moment.
It was a longer offseason and, while 2021 has not been as disjointed as 2020, it has been a different year. There have been some delays and some alterations. Schedules are firmer than they were at any point over the last 14 months, but there remains a flexibility in case of emergency.
I am glad the IndyCar season is here because of the rhythm it provides. It is tough to fill time when the schedule is delayed, even if it is only slightly off. Last year, you had to be creative, and it allowed for everyone to take chances. There were not many bad ideas last year. You could play around a little bit. No one was glad to have a pandemic upend their lives, but if there was a silver lining for such a disappointing time is it was a break. Most of live and are constantly on the move. We find ourselves tied up with work and other responsibilities that we will neglect to take care of ourselves. It was a pause that we hopefully used to realign our lives.
Back to the rhythm of the season, it is nice to be writing about races again and watching a weekend develop. I will admit some of the fun stuff to fill the offseason wasn't as much fun as first thought. It does take up a lot of time to try and come up with the best racer for every number from zero to 99 is a fun topic, but it became less fun the more time I spent on it. About halfway through it, it no longer felt worth it, but once you start something you are committed to it. A completionist must see it out.
The first third of the year was a good chance to reassess future decisions and projects to take on. I want to do fun stuff and get creative, but it's got to be condensed. It cannot be a two-week or three-week thing if it is going to be static. There needs to be variety to make it worth it, otherwise it should only get a few days of attention and be put to bed in a timely manner.
With racing back in action my next six months are taken care of. Once December rolls around it will be a time of reviews and previews and then the New Year will be here, and it will all begin again. The first three months are the toughest. Once we are through those everything becomes simple.
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It is May and I wrote a little over a week ago how it didn't feel like it. It is getting there. This year was always going to feel different as the Indianapolis 500 is its latest possible date. May 30 might be the historic home for the race, but it is quite distant from May 1 in 2021. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis is a week later than usual. Practice for the Indianapolis 500 doesn't begin until May 18. We go through almost two-thirds of the month before Indianapolis 500 practice begins. In the century-plus history of the event that is an extremely late date. Any start later than May 5 was once considered late.
This is a different time period, and it works. I was not a proponent of the road course race when it was first introduced but it has grown on me. There is no need for multiple qualifying weekends and two days is more than enough. Until we get back to 50 entries, which will likely never happen, one qualifying weekend will do.
There will be at least 35 entries and possibly 36, with each Honda and Chevrolet fielding 18 cars. The 18th Chevrolet is the biggest question mark. Stefan Wilson is the latest confirmed entry in a sixth Andretti Autosport Honda. I think we are all happy for Wilson. He is a good guy who never got a full-time shot despite respectable Indy Lights results. For the last decade, it has been difficult to find a seat and Wilson is one of at least a dozen drivers whose IndyCar careers are underrepresented.
With the Indianapolis 500 entry list basically at maximum capacity, I noticed the lack of recent Indy Lights drivers attempting this year's race. To be fair, we do have Patricio O'Ward, Colton Herta, Rinus VeeKay and Dalton Kellett, who are all full-time IndyCar drivers, but four of the last six Indy Lights champions are not entered. All four of those drivers are 27 years old or younger.
Gabby Chaves has been out of IndyCar for nearly three years. Spencer Pigot was relegated to a part-time driver last year and has nothing lined up for 2021. Kyle Kaiser has never been more than a sparse part-timer in Juncos Racing's first and ultimately unsuccessful expansion into IndyCar. Oliver Askew was infamously mishandled after experiencing concussion-like symptoms following an accident at Indianapolis last year and Arrow McLaren SP fired Askew after one season.
Not everyone can have a ride and this year does see a return of an old guard. Wilson is back for the first time in three years. Juan Pablo Montoya is returning for the first time since 2017. Simona de Silvestro is back after six years away! Add to it that Charlie Kimball, Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan has been relegated to part-time roles. Hélio Castroneves is moving into a new part-time seat. Santino Ferrucci is attempting Indianapolis only, as Ferrucci has turned his attention to NASCAR.
There are easily four seats that would have been opened that are now occupied but familiar faces. For the last ten years it has always been a case of there being more faces than seats. It is a good, yet frustrating, problem to have. We all wish these drivers would get a shot on track instead of having it come down to funding found in a board room. Solace can be found in that there will be bumping, and no one can rest on their checkbook.
I wish we could see those four former Indy Lights champions as well as Carlos Muñoz, Oriol Servià, Pippa Mann, Jack Hawksworth, Felipe Nasr and any other top driver at least be able to make a qualifying attempt, but we are not going to see 45 entries any time soon. Even if a third manufacture were to join the series, we would not see 45-48 cars. The entries would equally disperse with three manufactures fielding 12 cars, maybe one or two commits to 13 cars, not three groups of 18 lining up for qualifying. I have ideas on how IndyCar could accommodate one-off teams, but we will save that for another post, because there are loopholes I need to address.
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This May has brought change to the Indianapolis 500 atmosphere. Donald Davidson's retirement has ended "The Talk of Gasoline Alley," the radio program that was a regular fixture during the month of May, reminiscing about the history of the race and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The change had to come. No one could match Davidson's knowledge and frankly that show would suffer if it continued with someone else. There are plenty of knowledgeable people about the history of the Indianapolis 500, however, Davidson came at the right time to full encapsulate the event's century-plus history. His first visit was at 18 years old in 1964. Only 53 years had passed since the first race. Some of those early drivers, Ray Harroun included, were still alive. Davidson could soak up all those stories from prior to World War I and throughout the Great Depression. Along with everything that preceded him, Davidson added nearly another 60 years of races to his cerebral encyclopedia.
It would be unfair to expect anyone to have Davidson's depth of knowledge. It is impractical to think someone should be able to quote the careers and tell anecdotal stories of Louis Disbrow, Norman Batten and Arthur Duray when all those gentlemen were dead before most of us were alive. We could count on Davidson to have the answers. It would be tough for the listeners and program if that was no longer a guarantee.
There is a replacement in "Beyond the Bricks," with Jake Query and Mike Thompson co-hosting. The show intends on staying rooted in the past, appreciating history and reflecting on it, but it will be different, and it should be different. We will see where the show goes, but I think a show that straddles the past and the present and can connect what we are seeing today to what has come before us could be a suitable successor.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Lewis Hamilton, but did you know...
Aleksandr Smolyar, Olli Caldwell and Dennis Hauger split the Formula Three races from Barcelona.
António Félix da Costa won the Monaco ePrix.
Martin Truex, Jr. won the NASCAR Cup race from Darlington, his third victory of the season. Justin Allgaier won the Grand National Series race, his second victory of the season. Sheldon Creed won the Truck race.
Andre Heimgartner, Anton de Pasquale and Cameron Waters split the Supercars races from Tailem Bend. De Pasquale's victory was Ford's 400th in Supercars competition.
The #32 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi of Charlie Weerts and Dries Vanthoor and the #6 Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel and Luca Stolz split the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup races from Magny-Cours.
The #17 Real Racing Honda NSX of Bertrand Baguette and Koudai Tsukakoshi won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #60 LM Corsa Toyota Supra of Hiroki Yoshimoto and Shunsuke Kohne won in GT300.
Coming Up This Weekend
Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
MotoGP sweeps into Le Mans.
NASCAR makes its only trip to Dover.
IMSA has its first race in two months as it returns to competition at Mid-Ohio.
The Red Bull Ring hosts the second round of the European Le Mans Series season.
Autopolis hosts the third round of the Super Formula season.
