Red Bull wore white after Labor Day, but it was Valtteri Bottas on top at the Turkish Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton was upset about his strategy. Formula One lost its Medical Car team for the weekend due to COVID cases. The Norisring hosts its first event in over 27 months and there was a controversial and incredible championship comeback. Romain Grosjean and Jimmie Johnson ran laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. There was also a Firestone tire test at the Speedway. Alpine confirmed an LMDh program for 2024. Jacques Villeneuve is going to test a NASCAR Cup car. Andretti Autosport could be on the verge of taking over Sauber. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Reverse It
Another Indy Lights season ended last weekend and looking at the numbers it was a top-heavy season.
Champion Kyle Kirkwood won ten races. Runner-up David Malukas won seven races. Third in the championship, Linus Lundqvist, won three races. The rest of the grid combined for zero victories.
It is the fewest race winners in an Indy Lights season since 1995 when Greg Moore won ten races and Robbie Buhl and Pedro Chaves each won once in a 12-race season. But the number of winners was not the number of the most concern. In 20 races, there were a grand total of 11 official lead changes and there were zero lead changes through the first seven races.
Three of those lead changes are erroneous as they were times when the pole-sitter did not lead the opening lap, but for some reason in the United States we count that as a lead change. Think about how absurd that is. David Malukas led every lap in the second Road America race and yet a lead change is marked down because Malukas started second. There were really eight lead changes in Indy Lights over a 20-race season. That is an average of 0.4 lead changes per race.
I don't have a problem with only three drivers winning all the races. All credit to Kirkwood, Malukas and Lundqvist. They combined to lead 678 of 682 laps all season. Shout out to Benjamin Pedersen (one lap), Danial Frost (one lap) and Toby Sowery (two laps) for leading the rest. But I think this shows a small problem with Indy Lights and it could be one of the things holding the series back.
Indy Lights does not have pit stops in its races. The longest race was 85 miles in 2021 with the shortest at 59 miles. These are sprint races that take no longer than 45 minutes to complete and for each race the field is set via a qualifying session. That sounds great and it is fair for everyone, but what we end up getting is the top drivers always starting at the front and less competition, especially as the leaders get the advantage of clean air while the rest of the pack has to cut through the turbulence, slowing them down and allowing the leaders to run away.
Thirteen of 20 races were won from pole position and 16 races were won from the front row. It is a series that only had 11-13 cars in each race. It is unlikely a car is going to win from ninth, but Indy Lights has its own agency to make the series a little more competitive.
While Indy Lights is a development series, it is the series right below IndyCar. This is no longer a bunch of drivers trying to learn what it is like to drive a race car. These are drivers on the cusp of high-level motorsports, some are already competing in high-level motorsports, such as the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship and European Le Mans Series.
Like many other ladder series around the world, Indy Lights runs doubleheaders each weekend. Most other ladder series around the world invert part of the grid for one of the races. Indy Lights does not as it runs separate qualifying sessions for each race.
With barely a dozen entries, Indy Lights has more to gain than lose from introducing an inversion to its race weekends. For starters, it might keep drivers on the grid. It does not look good when drivers leave Indy Lights midseason because they are no longer in contention for the championship. It is not a good thing when Toby Sowery, a previous Indy Lights race winner, and Alex Peroni, a respectable driver who moved over from Europe this season, both leave the championship early. It is even worse because unlike Formula Two or Formula Three where a team will fill a seat, in Indy Lights, a team will be just as happy not to run a car than not run one. Juncos Racing did fill the Sowery vacancy, but Carlin did not replace Peroni.
There is a correct way to introduce an inversion. Indy Lights has so few entries I would be ok with flipping the entire field. It would be risky with the likes of Christian Bogle and Antonio Serravalle leading the field, but Indy Lights has to do something different. It could have a different points system for the second race, award points for most positions made up and just be something different after doing basically the same thing forever.
Inversion would also give drivers who are normally at the front a chance to pass cars. Indy Lights drivers are not going to enter IndyCar and immediately qualify on the front row each week. It is more likely they will be starting between tenth and 20th every weekend. If they are going to be passing cars in IndyCar, they mind as well get some practice in Indy Lights.
More importantly, an inversion might give people a reason to tune into both races. In the current format, it is easy to see why people might bypass an Indy Lights race weekend. If Indy Lights inverted the field or at least inverted the top eight, it would give people a different race than the first one and people would tune in to see how the top finishers from race one do making it through the field in race two.
Again, Indy Lights might be a development series, but there is a reason why those races are broadcasted on Peacock, and the likes of Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000 are not. Indy Lights needs viewers. Viewers bring in sponsors. Sponsors pay the bills for race cars. Race cars are a good thing for a racing series.
This would not be a crazy thing for the drivers. Again, Indy Lights is the step below IndyCar. If the drivers in Formula Two and Formula Three can handle it, the drivers in Indy Lights should not have a problem either, especially when many of these drivers have already experienced it in Europe. Indy Lights is not a little kid series. Some of these drivers might be teenagers, but they have spent years in race cars. Though not in the top division, they are professionals. They spend their every waking moment training to be in a race car. Facing added difficult on the racetrack will only be good for their development.
Penske has brought Indy Lights back under the IndyCar umbrella after Andersen Promotions ran it for eight years. There will be some changes with new management. Hopefully, Penske sees that Indy Lights needs to do something on the racetrack to increase competition. An increase in competition is once again a good thing for a racing series.
Champions From the Weekend
Maximilian Götz clinched the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship after sweeping the races from the Norisring.
The #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Cô Ledomegar and Nicklas Nielsen clinched the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with a seventh-place finish at Barcelona.
The #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn won the IMSA WeatherTeach GT Daytona Sprint Cup championship.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Valtteri Bottas and Maximilian Götz, but did you know...
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Charlotte, his seventh victory of the season. A.J. Allmendinger won the Grand National Series race, his fifth victory of the season.
The #4 Corvette of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner won the IMSA race from Virginia International Raceway, the team's third consecutive victory. The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor and Zacharie Robichon won in the GT Daytona class, the team's fourth victory of the season.
The #88 AKKA ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Felipe Fraga, Jules Gounon and Raffaele Marciello won the 3 Hours of Barcelona.
Néstor Girolami and Norbert Michelisz split the World Touring Car Cup races from Most.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Super Formula season has its penultimate race at Motegi.
The Intercontinental GT Challenge returns for the third Indianapolis 8 Hours.
NASCAR begins its semifinal round in Texas.
World Rally Championship runs its penultimate round with Rally Catalunya
World Superbike is apparently going to Argentina.
World Touring Car Cup will race in Pau, but not that Pau, Circuit Pau-Arnos to be specific.
