Track Walk: Belle Isle 2021

Belle Isle is back

The seventh and eighth rounds of the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season take the series to Belle Isle. The 2.35-mile street course returns to the calendar after it was unable to host an event last year due to the pandemic and local restrictions. It is the second of five returning venues on the schedule. With an additional entry set for Belle Isle, there will be 25 cars on the grid this weekend, the largest Belle Isle field since 25 cars were entered for the 2013 doubleheader. These will be the final two races of spring and the 28th and 29th IndyCar races respectively held on Belle Isle Park.

Coverage
Time: Race one coverage begins at 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday June 12 with green flag scheduled for 2:05 p.m. ET. Race two coverage begins at noon ET on Sunday June 13 with green flag scheduled for 12:40 p.m. ET
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey and Townsend Bell will be in the booth. Marty Snider and Kevin Lee will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule 
Friday:

First Practice: 5:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)*

Saturday:

Qualifying: 11:00 a.m. ET *

Race: 2:05 p.m. ET (70 laps)
Sunday:
Qualifying: 9:00 a.m. ET (NBCSN will have live coverage)*
Race: 12:40 p.m. ET (70 laps)

* - All practice and qualifying sessions are available live on Peacock.

Palou on Top

While Hélio Castroneves was in the spotlight after his fourth Indianapolis 500 victory, runner-up Álex Palou finds himself leading the IndyCar championship entering Belle Isle. Palou has led the championship after three races this season. He first led after his first career victory at Barber in the season opener. Despite finishing 17th at St. Petersburg, the Spaniard held a two-point lead leaving Florida. He did lose the championship lead after the first Texas race, but Palou has stayed in the top three all season with his largest deficit to the top spot being 26 points. 

With 85 points from the Indianapolis 500, Palou has a 36-point lead over Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon. 

The championship leader after the Indianapolis 500 has a track record of remaining at the top of the field. Since 1997, the championship leader after Indianapolis has won the championship seven times, including Scott Dixon last year. In seven of the last 24 seasons the championship leader after Indianapolis has gone on to finish second in the championship. 

Since 2000, only once has the leader after Indianapolis not finished in the top five of the championship, and that was Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014, who went on to finish sixth. Jeff Ward and Mike Groff are the only other post-Indianapolis championship leaders not to finish in the top five of the championship since 1997. In both cases, those drivers were outside the top ten, with Ward falling to 11th. Groff was 14th, but he was replaced after fracturing his tibia in practice at Texas. He made one more start at Charlotte and missed the final two races after suffering a concussion at Loudon. 

Thirty-six points is not a small lead. This is the fourth-largest championship lead after Indianapolis since double points were adopted in 2014. Dixon won the title last year after holding an 84-point lead and Simon Pagenaud won off the back of a 57-point lead after Indianapolis in 2016. Hunter-Reay had a 40-point lead after his 2014 victory, but still dropped to sixth. 

While it looks favorable for Palou, who else is comfortable heading to Detroit?

Let's set the parameters. Since 1997, 23 of the last 24 champions have been in the top eight of the championship after the Indianapolis 500. Greg Ray is the one outlier as Ray went from 20th, 81 points back after the Indianapolis 500 to champion in 1999. The 1999 Indy Racing League is significantly different from the 2021 IndyCar Series. There were only ten races in 1999, all ovals and it could be statistically speaking one of the worst grids in IndyCar history. However, Ray sets the bar for worst championship position and largest deficit. 

Focusing on the DW12-era, five of the nine champions overcame a deficit of 40 points or greater after the Indianapolis 500. Scott Dixon overcame the largest deficit, as Dixon was 61 points behind Juan Pablo Montoya after the 2015 Indianapolis 500. 

Dixon is also one of two drivers in the DW12-era to be outside the championship top five after Indianapolis to go on and win the title. The New Zealander was eighth, 46 points behind Marco Andretti in 2013, and Dixon ended that season with his third championship. Josef Newgarden was seventh, 59 points behind then-Penske teammate Hélio Castroneves after Indianapolis in 2017 and Newgarden went onto win his first championship. 

Dixon is 36 points back in second with Patricio O'Ward 37 points off in third. Simon Pagenaud is up to fourth in the championship, 47 points behind Palou, with Rinus VeeKay rounding out the top five, trialing Palou by 57 markers. 

Newgarden finds himself sixth and 64 points off the top spot. There is a 30-point gulf between Newgarden and Colton Herta while Graham Rahal is 100 points off the top spot in eighth. 

Palou's weekend will start with a minor setback. Because the team changed an engine between Carb Day and the Indianapolis 500 without approval, Palou will have to serve a six-grid spot penalty in race one from Belle Isle. 

Possible History

Through six races there have been six winners this IndyCar season, representing six different nationalities. History could be made this weekend. There have been seven IndyCar seasons to feature seven different winners through the first seven races. The most recent was in 2017. 

There has only been one IndyCar season to feature eight different winners through the first eight races. That was 1911, which had 13 different winners to open that season. 

The good news is we have 19 drivers who could extend the streak on Saturday afternoon, including the most recent road course pole-sitter, Romain Grosjean. 

Grosjean returns in the #51 Honda for Dale Coyne Racing. He led 44 of 85 laps in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis from pole position before falling to second after a difficult battle in lapped traffic. A victory for Grosjean would not only be another winner, but the fourth first-time winner in 2021. The last time IndyCar had four first-time winners in a season was 2013. Only three drivers have scored their first IndyCar victory at Belle Isle. They are Hélio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud and Carlos Muñoz. Dale Coyne Racing has one victory at Belle Isle. It came with Mike Conway in the first race in 2013.

Dale Coyne Racing's other driver, Ed Jones, also could extend the streak and be the fourth first-time winner of 2021. Jones has yet to pick up a top ten finish this season and he has not had a top ten finish in his last 14 starts. His last top five finish was 29 starts ago, a third at Belle Isle. It is one of three tracks where Jones has a podium finishes. 

Three quarters of Andretti Autosport are winless this season. All three of those drivers are ranked 15th or worse in the championship. Alexander Rossi leads that grouping and for the second consecutive year Rossi exits the Indianapolis 500 coming off the worst finish in his IndyCar career. Last year, Rossi followed Indianapolis up without completing a lap in the next race. His best finish this season is seventh. This is his longest stretch without a top five finish to open a season in his IndyCar career. He has four top five finishes in eight Belle Isle starts and he has led 65 laps at the track.

Ryan Hunter-Reay also has not finished in the top five this season and he has finished in the top five of his last four Belle Isle starts, including a victory in the second race in 2018. James Hinchcliffe hasn't finished in the top 15 this season, let alone the top ten or top five. Hinchcliffe is 24th in the championship, ahead of only Dalton Kellett amongst the drivers to have started every race this season. 

Graham Rahal swept the Belle Isle races in 2017 and he has not won an IndyCar race since. Rahal's first victory made him the seventh different winner through seven races that season. In Rahal's 63 starts since his most recent victory, he has seven podium finishes, 18 top five finishes and 44 top five finishes. He is coming off a 32nd place finish in the Indianapolis 500. In 2014, Rahal was 33rd at Indianapolis and followed it up with a runner-up finish in Belle Isle. 

Takuma Sato could extend the streak and could also make it seven different nationalities to win a race. Sato has not had a top five finish since he was second in the first Gateway race last year. He has not had a top five finish on a street course since he was third in the first Belle Isle race in 2019. 

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing remains at a three-car lineup for a second consecutive race weekend, as Santino Ferrucci will remain the #45 Honda for the Belle Isle doubleheader. Ferrucci was sixth at the Indianapolis 500, the top RLLR finisher. He has finished in the top ten in all three of his Indianapolis 500 starts. Three years ago, Ferrucci made his IndyCar debut at Belle Isle and finished 22nd and 20th with Dale Coyne Racing. He was 19th and tenth at the track in 2019. After opening 2020 with three consecutive top ten finishes on road/street courses, Ferrucci finished outside the top ten in the final five road/street course races. 

Marcus Ericsson's first trip to Belle Isle started with a 13th-place result in the damp conditions on Saturday in 2019, but he followed it up with a runner-up finish the next day, Ericsson's first and so far only podium finish in IndyCar. He has three top ten finishes this season and 12 top ten finishes in 20 starts with Chip Ganassi Racing. 

Jack Harvey is another driver entering looking for a first career victory. Harvey carries the extra weight of driving for the Indianapolis 500 winning team, but not being the driver responsible for that victory. He has finished outside the top fifteen in his last three starts after starting the season with an 11th, fourth and seventh. This will be Harvey's first time competing at Belle Isle. Five of his six street course starts in IndyCar have come at St. Petersburg. He was 12th in the 2018 Grand Prix of Long Beach. 

A.J. Foyt Racing has fallen on hard times after opening the season with finishes of fifth and tenth with Sébastien Bourdais. Bourdais has not finished better than 19th in the last four races and Dalton Kellett's best finish this season is 18th. This is Bourdais' worst stretch of races since 2015-16, when he ended the 2015 season with three consecutive finishes outside the top fifteen and then opened the 2016 season with a 21st-place result at St. Petersburg. The Frenchman is a two-time Belle Isle winner, one of six former winners in the field this year and one of five drivers all-time with multiple victories at the circuit.

Conor Daly is coming off his best finish of the season in 13th. Daly led 40 laps in Indianapolis, the most in the race. It is the first time Daly has led the most laps in a race in his IndyCar career. Daly's only podium finish came at Belle Isle in the first race in 2016. Daly has not run at the track since 2017. 

Felix Rosenqvist is 20th in the championship, 129 points off his Arrow McLaren SP teammate Patricio O'Ward. Rosenqvist has not finished in the top ten this season. He was fourth in his first Belle Isle start two years ago, and he was running in the top ten before he spun with damaged suspension in race two.

Max Chilton and Jimmie Johnson are back this weekend. Chilton is three points ahead of Johnson in the championship. Both drivers have made the same number of starts, but Chilton started the double points Indianapolis 500 and Johnson did not. Johnson also has the better finish this season of 19th at Barber, while Chilton's best result was 20th, coincidentally at Barber.

Team Penske's Bagels

All four Team Penske drivers could also extend IndyCar's different winners streak, as the most successful team in IndyCar has yet to take a checkered flag first this season. The last time Team Penske did not win one of the first six races was in 2013, and that is when the team did not win until the eighth race of the season. 

Things are much better than that 2013 campaign. Eight years ago, Hélio Castroneves was the only driver with a podium finish through the first seven races. Will Power had only one top five finish. A.J. Allmendinger was part-time, having run five of the first seven events. Allmendinger was seventh at Indianapolis, but he was outside the top twenty in three starts, and he was taken out on the opening lap of both Belle Isle races. 

Flash-forward to 2021, and all four Team Penske drivers have been on the podium this season. Team Penske has had a podium finisher in five of six races this season. Three of the drivers have runner-up finishes. Three of the drivers are in the top ten of the championship and the worst Penske driver is in 12th. 

A third-place result at Indianapolis gave Simon Pagenaud two podium finishes this season, but it also lifted Pagenaud to fourth in the championship on 201 points, 47 behind Álex Palou. Pagenaud's first career victory came at Belle Isle in 2013, but he has only two podium finishes and three top five finishes in the 12 races since. He swept the pole positions for the 2016 races, but since then he has started seventh or worse. Pagenaud has started in the top ten in four of six races this season. He started in the top ten of four of 14 races in 2020. 

Josef Newgarden won the first Belle Isle race in 2019 and he is sixth in the championship. Since joining Team Penske, Newgarden has three top five finishes in six Belle Isle starts after having only one top five finish in his first nine starts at the track. He was on the front row for both races in 2019, but before that he had never started in the top five in 13 attempts. Newgarden has won a street course race in three of the last four seasons and four of the last six seasons. 

Scott McLaughlin may have made a mistake speeding on pit lane at Indianapolis, which dropped him to 20th at the finish, but McLaughlin is ninth in the championship. He was eighth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Among the Penske drivers, McLaughlin has the third best average finish at 10.5, but he has the second-best average starting position at 12th. He was the top Penske qualifier for the Indianapolis 500. 

We do not say this often but bringing up the rear for Team Penske is Will Power. Though 12th in the championship, Power has failed to finish in the top ten in his last four stats and he was runner-up at the Barber season opener. He does not have a pole position this season. It is only the third time in his IndyCar career he does not have a pole position through the first six races of a season. The other two were his rookie season in 2006 and reunification season in 2008. Strangely enough, Power has only one pole position at Belle Isle and that was for the Saturday race in 2015. He has only one top five start in his last eight Belle Isle appearances. 

If Team Penske does not win this weekend, it will be the first time the organization has not won one of the first eight races in a season since its last winless season in 1999. 

Qualifying Adjustment

This year's Belle Isle weekend will see a slightly modified qualifying session compared to previous seasons. 

Both Belle Isle races this weekend will feature a two-round qualifying session. Round one will see the grid split into two groups and each group will get ten minutes on track. The fastest six drivers from each round will advance to round two. Round two will be another ten-minute session that will set the first six rows of the grid. The drivers that do not advance from group one will set the odd-numbered positions on the grid from row seven downward with the drivers not advancing from group two setting the even-numbered positions from row seven downward. 

In previous years, only the first round of qualifying would take place at Belle Isle, with two groups split in half. The fastest time from the two groups would get pole position and the remaining drivers from that group would set the odd-numbered positions. The fastest time from the other group would start second and the remainder of that group would set the even-numbered positions. The fastest drivers from each group would receive a championship point. 

IMSA

IMSA joins IndyCar this weekend for the first of two companion weekends. Belle Isle marks the fourth round of the championship. Twenty cars are on the entry list. 

Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor are coming off their second victory of the season at Mid-Ohio last month and the drivers of the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura have 1,070 points, 55 points ahead of the #55 Mazda of Oliver Jarvis and Harry Tincknell. The #55 Mazda has finished on the podium of all three races this season, and it even was on the podium in the qualifying race ahead of the 24 Hours of Daytona. 

Sebring winners Loïc Duval and Tristan Vautier are third with 951 points in the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac. Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr have the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac on 918 points in fourth. Dane Cameron and Olivier Pla sit fifth with 904 points in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura. Chip Ganassi Racing has finished fifth in the last three races and Kevin Magnussen and Renger van der Zande enter Belle Isle will 859 points. 

Wayne Taylor Racing has won four of eight Belle Isle races since 2012. General Motors had won seven consecutive races before Team Penske and Acura won in 2019 with Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya. Ricky Taylor leads 

There will be 12 GT Daytona entries at Belle Isle, but this race only counts toward the WeatherTech Sprint Cup and not the overall GTD championship. Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley won at Mid-Ohio last month and they lead the Sprint Cup championship with 380 points in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW. The Turner twosome also lead the overall GTD championship with 920 points, seven ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn.

Lexus won at Belle Isle in 2019 and it has made a late change to its driver lineup in the #12 Lexus. Townsend Bell will be in the car with Frankie Montecalvo as Zach Veach has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be forced to miss the race. Montecalvo and Veach were second at Mid-Ohio last month. Jack Hawksworth won at Belle Isle two years in the #14 Lexus. At Mid-Ohio, Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz are coming off a lost opportunity at Mid-Ohio when suspension issues took the car out of the race after leading the opening stint. 

Katherine Legge and Mario Farnbacher each have two Belle Isle victories, and they won together in 2018 driving an Acura for Meyer Shank Racing. Farnbacher is still in an Acura, driving the #76 Compass Racing Acura with Jeff Kingsley, while Legge splits the #88 Porsche with Rob Ferriol for Team Hardpoint EBM. Richard Heistand won with Hawksworth two years ago. Now, Heistand will drive the #39 CarBahn with Peregine Racing Audi with Jeff Westphal. Westphal won at Belle Isle in 2014 with Scuderia Corsa. 

Lamborghini has yet to win at Belle Isle and the Italian manufacture has the #1 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers leading the way. Snow and Sellers have a pair of third place finishes this season.

Corvette will run both cars this weekend, the only two GT Le Mans cars competing. Belle Isle was designated as a non-championship event for the class. The #3 Corvette of Antonio García and Jordan Taylor lead the championship with 662 points after a victory at Daytona and fourth at Sebring. Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy trail the sister car by 47 points, as the #4 Corvette was second at Daytona and fifth at Sebring.

The IMSA race will take place at 5:10 p.m. ET on Saturday June 12. This race is scheduled for 100 minutes.

Indy Lights

While IndyCar and IMSA have been regulars at Belle Isle, Indy Lights makes its first trip to the street course since 2012. 

David Malukas and Linus Lundqvist split the Indy Lights races weekend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last month and they are 1-2 in the championship. Malukas has 151 points, 11 more points than Lundqvist. Malukas has five consecutive podium finishes. Kyle Kirkwood has five consecutive top five finishes and the American trails Malukas by 27 points. Toby Sowery was on the podium in both IMS road course races and the Briton rounds out the top four on 105 points. 

Alex Peroni picked up his first podium finish of the season with a third in the second IMS road course race. That result moved Peroni to fifth in the championship on 101 points, two points ahead Devlin DeFrancesco and six points ahead of Danial Frost. Benjamin Pedersen was runner-up in the opening race of the season at Barber, but Pedersen has not finished in the top five since and he has dropped to eighth on 88 points. Robert Megennis has only one top five finish and sits on 83 points. 

Reigning Indy Pro 2000 champion Sting Ray Robb rounds out the top ten on 72 points. Antonio Serravalle has 64 points, three more than Nikita Lastochkin and Christian Bogle is last in the championship on 59 points.

Gustavo Yacamán won the most recent Indy Lights race at Belle Isle nine years ago. It was a Colombian 1-2, as Carlos Muñoz was second and Oliver Webb rounded out the podium. There was only one American in that race, as 43-year-old Rodin Younessi was 12th out of 13 cars. Younessi retired after 12 of 40 laps and it was his second of two Indy Lights starts. 

Race one of the weekend will take place at 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday June 12 with race two scheduled for 10:35 a.m. ET on Sunday June 13.

Fast Facts

Saturday's race will be the 12th IndyCar race held on June 12 and first since Tony Kanaan won at Texas in 2004. 

There has been one Belle Isle race held on June 12. Paul Tracy won that race with Team Penske in 1994. 

Sunday's race will be the sixth IndyCar race held on June 13 and the first since Danny Sullivan's final IndyCar victory in 1993 at Belle Isle driving for Galles Racing. 

Honda has won nine of 15 Belle Isle races since 2012. Honda has swept the Belle Isle doubleheader three times since 2013 while Chevrolet has swept it twice. 

Five times has a driver won at Belle Isle and gone onto win the championship (Bobby Rahal 1992, Alex Zanardi 1998, Will Power 2014, Scott Dixon 2018 and Josef Newgarden 2019). Since becoming a doubleheader, the three drivers to win at Belle Isle and win the championship all won the first race of the weekend.

The average starting position for a Belle Isle winner is 5.629 with a median of fourth. 

Since 2013, the average starting position for a race one winner is eighth. Three of the seven race one winners have started outside the top ten. Three of the seven race one winners have started second. 

The average starting position for a race two winner is 6.428. Five of the seven race two winners have started outside the top five and the race two winner has never started on the front row. 

In 2019, only four drivers finished in the top ten of both Belle Isle races. All four drivers were Americans (Ryan Hunter-Reay, Alexander Rossi, Graham Rahal and Zach Veach).

The greatest number of drivers to finish in the top ten of both Belle Isle races is six and it has happened four times (2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018).

Only four drivers have finished on the podium of both Belle Isle races (Mike Conway 2013, Will Power 2014, Graham Rahal 2017 and Ryan Hunter-Reay 2018).

Five of the last six Belle Isle winners have led the most laps. 

American drivers have won four of the last six Belle Isle races. American drivers had won only four of the first 21 Belle Isle races. 

The average number of lead changes in a Belle Isle race is 4.333 with a median of five. 

Twelve of the last 13 Belle Isle races have featured at least five lead changes. Only three of the first 14 Belle Isle races had at least five lead changes. 

The average number of cautions in a Belle Isle race is 4.148 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 14.629 with a median of 14.

Five of the last eight Belle Isle races have featured two cautions or fewer. There has never been a caution-free race at Belle Isle. The most cautions were eight in 1999 and in the rain-shortened first race in 2015.

Possible Milestones:

Scott Dixon is one victory away from tying Mario Andretti for second all-time with 52 victories.

Scott Dixon is one podium finish away from his 125th podium finish.

Will Power is one victory away from the 40-victory milestone.

Alexander Rossi is one podium finish away from his 25th podium finish. 

Sébastien Bourdais needs to lead 43 laps to reach the 2,700 laps led milestone.

Josef Newgarden needs to lead one lap to reach 2,500 laps led milestone.

Ryan Hunter-Reay needs to lead 51 laps to reach the 1,600 laps led milestone.

James Hinchcliffe needs to lead 19 laps to reach the 800 laps led milestone.

Graham Rahal needs to lead 50 laps to reach the 500 laps led milestone.

Colton Herta needs to lead 136 laps to reach the 500 laps led milestone.

Predictions

We will reach eight different winners through the first eight races, as Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi split the weekend. One of those winners will start outside the top five. Álex Palou will finish outside the top ten in one of the races. The gap between first and second in the championship will be smaller than 36 points after this weekend. Sébastien Bourdais bounces back and gets top ten finishes in both races. Romain Grosjean will start ahead of his teammate in both races. Jimmie Johnson will not have a spin. James Hinchcliffe will pick up his best finish this season. There will be one race where both Arrow McLaren SP drivers finish on the lead lap and Felix Rosenqvist is at least four positions ahead of Patricio O'Ward. There will not be a red flag or delay due to rain. Sleepers: Marcus Ericsson and Ryan Hunter-Reay.