The seventh round of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season takes place at Belle Isle. The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix comes after Honda has picked up a head of steam this IndyCar season. Honda swept the Indianapolis races and will look to make it three consecutive victories this season to counter the four consecutive victories Chevrolet had to open the season. Things have also balanced out in the championship picture. The manufactures each have five drivers represented in the top ten of the championship, and Honda has taken seven of 12 podium finishes over the last four races.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday June 5 with green flag scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Dave Burns will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider, Kevin Lee and Dave Burns will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 3:30 p.m. ET (60 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 8:30 a.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 12:35 p.m. ET
Qualifying: 12:35 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-Up: 10:15 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Warm-Up: 10:15 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 3:30 p.m. ET (70 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
Ericsson Goes Full Circle
The last time IndyCar visited Belle Isle, it was a doubleheader weekend and a stubborn Chevrolet engine would not start behind Will Power after a red flag was lifted to pick up Romain Grosjean's stranded car late in the Saturday race. With Power unable to restart, he lost the lead and Marcus Ericsson inherited the top spot with five laps to go. Ericsson held off Rinus VeeKay in the closing laps and scored his first career IndyCar victory.
Nearly a year later, Ericsson returns to Detroit as the Indianapolis 500 winner. The Swede led 13 laps around Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including the final 11 laps and held off a late charge from Patricio O'Ward when the race restarted with two laps remaining. It was Ericsson's first career oval victory, his third career victory overall, and it was the first time he has won from a top ten starting position. His first two victories were from outside the top ten, including from 15th in the Saturday Belle Isle race last year.
In 359 days, Ericsson won three races after going 2,891 days between victories. His last victory prior to his Belle Isle triumph was the 2013 GP2 Series feature race at the Nürburgring.
Strangely, Ericsson's 13 laps led at Indianapolis were his second highest in a race behind only the 37 laps he led at Nashville last year on his way to victory. Only four times has he led a double-digit number of laps in a race and three of those were this season. He led ten laps at Texas and ten laps at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
In the last 16 races, Ericsson has 13 top ten finishes, six of which were top five results. Eleven times he has finished better than his starting position, but he has only started in the top five twice in that span, including fifth last week at Indianapolis. In six races this season, Ericsson has been the top Ganassi finisher in three of them while Álex Palou has been the top Ganassi finisher in the others.
Ericsson will have a chance to do something last done by a Ganassi driver. It has been 22 years since the winner of the Indianapolis 500 followed it up with a victory in the next race. Juan Pablo Montoya is the last driver to do it, winning at Indianapolis in 2000 and then Montoya won at Milwaukee the following weekend.
The Indianapolis 500 winner has regularly had a hangover in recent years. Since 2013, the only time an Indianapolis 500 winner has finished in the top five at the following race was Takuma Sato in 2020 when Sato was second at Gateway charging down Scott Dixon in the closing laps. Going against Ericsson's favor is after each of his first two victories he finished ninth in the next race.
In four Belle Isle starts, Ericsson has two podium finishes and three top ten finishes, however, he has never started better than 12th at the track, and he has only led seven laps, five of which were in his victory last year.
The Championship Flip
As has been usual in recent years, double points have flipped the IndyCar championship picture after Indianapolis.
Ericsson went from eighth, 53 points off the championship lead, to first on 226 points and he has a 13-point championship lead. It was a 66-point swing thanks to his Indianapolis victory. This was the sixth time in nine seasons the championship lead has changed after the Indianapolis 500. Ericsson's jump from eighth to first is the largest leap besting Will Power's improvement from seventh to first in 2018. Fifty-three points is also the largest margin overcome for a driver taking the championship lead after Indianapolis. The previous largest margin overcome was 44 points by Simon Pagenaud in 2019.
While Ericsson went from eighth to first, Patricio O'Ward's runner-up finish jumped him from seventh to second with O'Ward on 213 points. Ericsson and O'Ward split the Belle Isle weekend last year and both drivers have two podium finishes and three top five finishes this season.
Álex Palou's comeback at Indianapolis from an emergency pit stop to finish ninth kept Palou in the championship fight. Palou dropped from second in the championship to third, but he lost no points to the championship leader, remaining 14 points off the top spot. Palou has been in the top three of the championship for 22 consecutive races.
Will Power dropped from first to fourth in the championship after finishing 15th at Indianapolis, snapping his top five finish streak at five races, and he is 24 points behind Ericsson. Power has split results at Belle Isle. In his last 12 Belle Isle starts, he has five top five finishes, but he has also finished 18th or worse five times in that timeframe.
Rounding out the top five in the championship is Josef Newgarden, who is 52 points back despite having finished outside the top ten in four of six races this seasons. Newgarden's two victories are propping up his season so far. He has finished outside the top ten in three consecutive races, the first time has had three consecutive finishes outside the top ten driving for Team Penske and this is his longest top ten drought since 2014 when he went three races without a top ten between the Toronto doubleheader and Mid-Ohio.
One speeding penalty knocked Scott Dixon down to sixth in the championship. If Dixon held on for victory at Indianapolis, he would have scored the maximum 115 points. Instead, he wound up 21st and scored 33 points. Instead of leading the championship on 248 points, Dixon is sixth on 166 points. Instead of being up 35 points, Dixon trails Ericsson by 60 points, a 95-point swing. Dixon might have found the right place to rebound. He has two victories, five top five finishes and nine top ten finishes in his last ten Belle Isle starts.
Scott McLaughlin has fallen to seventh in the championship, 64 points back after finishing 29th at Indianapolis. McLaughlin has dropped positions in the championship after the last two races and last year he finished 19th and 20th at Belle Isle. Simon Pagenaud's quiet eighth-place finish at Indianapolis moved him up three spots in the championship and he is 69 points back.
Felix Rosenqvist was another big gainer at Indianapolis. Rosenqvist's fourth-place finish moved him up five spots from 14th to ninth, 72 points off his fellow Swede Ericsson. Despite retiring from Indianapolis, Colton Herta remains in the championship top ten, but Herta drops four spots, and Herta is now 84 points back. Herta's Andretti Autosport teammate Alexander Rossi moved up from 15th to 11th with his first top five finish of the season and Rossi is a point behind Herta.
Conor Daly's sixth-place finish at Indianapolis has him up to 12th in the championship, the first time Daly has been in the top fifteen of the championship since after the second Gateway race in 2020. Daly is 89 points back. Rinus VeeKay dropped three spots after being the first retirement in Indianapolis and VeeKay is 92 points back in the championship. Graham Rahal was 14th in Indianapolis and Rahal is 14th in the championship, trailing by 96 points. Romain Grosjean rounds out the top fifteen, 98 points behind Ericsson.
Hélio Castroneves is 103 points back in 16th, Christian Lundgaard is the top rookie in 17th, 123 points behind Ericsson, Takuma Sato fell from 13th to 18th and has 126 points between him and the lead, David Malukas is ten points behind his teammate Sato in 19th and with his third-place result in Indianapolis, Tony Kanaan rounds out the top twenty in the championship with only one start to his name.
Kanaan is ahead of Kyle Kirkwood, Jack Harvey, Callum Ilott, Jimmie Johnson and Devlin DeFrancesco, who have all started in at least five races. Ilott will miss Belle Isle due the broken hand he suffered in his accident at Indianapolis. Santino Ferrucci will drive the #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet this weekend.
Passing Around the Pole
Through six races this season, there have been six different pole-sitters from five different teams. Dating back to the end of the 2021 season, there have been seven consecutive different pole-sitters.
Josef Newgarden rounded out the 2021 season on pole at Long Beach. Scott McLaughlin opened 2022 with a shocking qualifying run that turned into his first career victory. Felix Rosenqvist followed it with another surprise at Texas. Colton Herta did what was expected at Long Beach. Rinus VeeKay was a semi-stunner at Barber. It was busy as usual at Indianapolis with Will Power on pole position for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis while Scott Dixon won his fifth Indianapolis 500 pole position.
Who could continue this streak at Belle Isle?
Álex Palou has the best qualifying average this season at 5.1667 and he has yet to start on a pole position. Palou has started second in the last two races and he started third at Long Beach and Barber. Palou's only pole position in his IndyCar career came at Portland last year and he won that race, though it was far from a straightforward.
The top two drivers in average starting position this season have yet to win a pole position as Josef Newgarden has averaged a seventh-place starting position through six races. Newgarden's 14th-place starting position at Indianapolis was his worst of the season.
Romain Grosjean and Patricio O'Ward both have an average starting position of 8.5 and neither have a pole position this season. Grosjean has started in the top ten of five of six races this season, and he started third and fifth last year at Belle Isle. O'Ward has four top ten starts through six races.
Marcus Ericsson could continue the trend, but his fifth-place starting position at Indianapolis was just the third time in his IndyCar career he has started in the top five for an IndyCar race. Ericsson could become the third driver to score a first career pole position at Belle Isle. The other two were Scott Pruett and Mike Conway.
Hélio Castroneves is the all-time leader in pole position at Belle Isle with three. Nineteen drivers have won pole position at Belle Isle, including Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato, who have all won two Belle Isle pole positions and do not have a pole position this year. O'Ward and Graham Rahal each have one pole position at Belle Isle but none in 2022.
Rossi has started in the top five for six of ten Belle Isle starts. Pagenaud won pole position for both races in 2016, but he has not started in the top five at Belle Isle since. Sato has started outside the top fifteen in four of the last five Belle Isle races. Rahal has one top five start in the last 32 races.
Surprisingly, Will Power's only Belle Isle pole position was in the first race in 2015. Scott Dixon won pole position in 2008 and in the Belle Isle return in 2012, but he hasn't won pole position again at the track. Colton Herta has never started worse than sixth here, and he is still looking for his first Belle Isle pole position.
Final Trip to the Isle
This will be the 31st and, as of now, final IndyCar race held on Belle Isle. Starting in 2023, IndyCar will move at a 1.7-mile, ten-turn circuit located in downtown Detroit.
Belle Isle first hosted IndyCar from 1992 through 2001 with the CART series. In 2007, Belle Isle returned with a shorter 2.07-mile configuration on the Indy Racing League schedule and it hosted two races before withdrawing from the schedule due to the recession. In 2012, with the return of Chevrolet to IndyCar, Belle Isle returned to the schedule, but it had a race that was marred with the track coming apart, which forced a lengthy red flag and shortened the race distance.
In 2013, after an extensive repave and returning to the longer 2.35-mile configuration, Belle Isle became a doubleheader event and hosted two races for eight seasons. This year the weekend returns to a single-race format.
Twenty-two drivers have won on Belle Isle with Scott Dixon and Hélio Castroneves tied for the all-time lead with three victories apiece. Dixon has also started 20 Belle Isle races, more than any other driver. Unsurprising to anyone, Team Penske leads all teams with seven Belle Isle victories, four of which have come since Belle Isle returned to the schedule in 2012.
Belle Isle was the location of Danny Sullivan's final victory and Hélio Castroneves' first. Newman-Haas Racing won its final race at Belle Isle in 2008 with Justin Wilson. We have seen surprises, such as Mike Conway's victory in 2013 driving as part-timer for Dale Coyne Racing. Carlos Muñoz scored his one and only IndyCar victory with a smart drive in changing conditions in 2015.
Graham Rahal was the only driver to sweep a Belle Isle doubleheader in 2017. Ryan Hunter-Reay famously charged down Alexander Rossi in the second race in 2018 with Hunter-Reay on a three-stop strategy to Rossi's two. Hunter-Reay's speed caused a Rossi lock up, sealing the victory for the 2012 IndyCar champion.
Of the 22 Belle Isle winners, 15 have at least one IndyCar championship to their name, but only five times has a Belle Isle winner gone on to win the championship that season. Two of those came in the last three years with Scott Dixon in 2018 and Josef Newgarden in 2019.
While it is Chevrolet's backyard, Honda has made itself quite at home at Belle Isle. In the 17 races since engine competition returned to IndyCar, Honda has won ten times at Belle Isle, including six of the last eight races.
Though it developed a reputation for dull races, Belle Isle has had a variety of outcomes in recent years. Four of the last five Belle Isle races have been won from outside a top five starting position and since Belle Isle reverted to the 2.35-mile configuration, ten of 16 races have been won from outside a top five grid position, including five victories from outside the top ten and three victories from outside the top fifteen. Last year, the two winners combined to lead eight laps.
IMSA
For the second and final time this season, IndyCar and IMSA share a weekend. Belle Isle marks the sixth round of the IMSA season, the halfway point for its season. As in previous years, this will be an hour and 40-minute race with the Daytona Prototype international and GT Daytona classes competing.
Wayne Taylor Racing has won the last two races and the #10 Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor lead the championship. The Portuguese-American duo has 1,707 points and is 22 points ahead of the other Acura on the grid, the #60 Meyer Shank Racing entry for Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis. Meyer Shank has been runner-up the last two races.
General Motors has dominated at Belle Isle, winning eight of nine races since 2012. Last year, Chip Ganassi Racing scored its first DPi victory in this race and Ganassi has the #02 Cadillac of Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber third in the championship, 104 points off the #10 Acura. Sébastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande won at Long Beach in April, but the #01 Cadillac has finished fifth or worse in every other race this season. Bourdais and van der Zande are 207 points off the championship lead.
Sandwiched in-between the Ganassi cars in the championship are the JDC-Miller and Whelen Engineering Cadillacs. Tristan Vautier and Richard Westbrook is fourth in the championship with 1,583 points for the #5 Cadillac. There has been a change at Whelen Engineering Racing. Olivier Pla will replace Tristan Nunez as Pipo Derani's co-driver in the #31 Cadillac. Derani and Nunez had finished third in three races this season. They scored 1,575 points together.
In GT Daytona, it is Stevan McAleer who sits alone leading the championship despite finishing off the podium in the last three races. McAleer was second at Daytona and third at Sebring in the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG. McAleer has 1,237 points and Mike Skeen will be his co-driver at Belle Isle.
Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen have won twice, Daytona and Laguna Seca, and they have the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 12 points behind McAleer. Turner Motorsport was awarded the Mid-Ohio victory after the Inception Racing McLaren failed post-race inspection. The victory lifted Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley to third in the championship with the #96 BMW on 1,161 points. It was a BMW 1-2 at Mid-Ohio, as the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow followed the #96 BMW on track. Sellers and Snow lead the WeatherTech Sprint Cup championship and won at Long Beach in April.
Robert Megennis and Jeff Westphal are fourth in the championship and has scored 1,012 points in the #39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Lamborghini. Megennis and Westphal have finished in the top five of the last two races after finishing outside the top ten in the first three races. Heart of Racing Team won at Belle Isle last year and Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn both return in the #27 Aston Martin. Heart of Racing Team is still looking for its first top five finish this season.
Lexus won this race in 2019, but it will be without Jack Hawksworth, who suffered injuries in a motocross accident and will not be able to compete. Kyle Kirkwood will have double duty this weekend and share the #17 Vasser Sullivan Lexus with Ben Barnicoat. The #12 Lexus lineup remains unchanged. Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz continue together and they have finished third in two of the last three races.
Winward Racing has won two pole positions this season, but the #57 Mercedes-AMG of Phillip Ellis and Russell Ward has one top five finish. Ryan Eversley and Aidan Read are back in the #51 Rick Ware Racing Acura as a WeatherTech Sprint Cup-only entry.
The Chevrolet Sports Car Classic will take start at 3:10 p.m. ET on Saturday June 4.
Road to Indy
Indy Lights will have a doubleheader at Belle Isle, the second of three doubleheaders this season.
Linus Lundqvist extended his championship lead with a fifth and first at the IMS road course doubleheader last month. Lundqvist has 175 points, 34 points ahead of Danial Frost, who won the first IMS road course race. Sting Ray Robb has finished third in the last three races and Robb is third in the championship on 137 points. Benjamin Pedersen is six points behind Robb in the championship.
Matthew Brabham has fallen to fifth in the championship after finishing outside the top five in the last three races. Brabham has 119 points and is six points ahead of his Andretti Autosport teammate Christian Rasmussen. Rasmussen bounced back in Indianapolis with finishes of fourth and second after failing to crack the top ten in the first two races. Hunter McElrea makes its tic-tac-toe, three Andretti drivers in-a-row in seventh. McElrea was second and sixth at Indianapolis after not finishing in the top ten in either of the first two races as well. McElrea has 105 points.
Jacob Abel has 102 points and is eighth in the championship. Antonio Serravalle and Ernie Francis, Jr. round out the top ten in the championship on 93 points and 92 points respectively. Kyffin Simpson is a point outside the top ten. Christian Bogle and James Roe, Jr. round out the championship on 80 points and 68 points respectively. Roe, Jr. has finished 13th in all four races.
The first Indy Lights race will be at 11:25 a.m. ET on Saturday June 4. The second race will be at 12:05 p.m. ET on Sunday June 5.
Fast Facts
This will be the 12th IndyCar race to take place on June 5 and the first since Will Power won the second Belle Isle race in 2016.
Six current IndyCar teams have won at Belle Isle (Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Autosport, Arrow McLaren SP, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Dale Coyne Racing).
Besides Hélio Castroneves, Carlos Muñoz and Marcus Ericsson, the only other driver to have his first IndyCar victory come at Belle Isle was Simon Pagenaud in the second Belle Isle race in 2013.
Only four of the first 21 Belle Isle races had an American winner. There have been four American winners in the last eight Belle Isle races.
Through six races this season, there have been five winners, 11 podium finishers, 14 top five finishes and 23 top ten finishers.
Twenty-four drivers have led a lap this season, but only ten drivers have led ten laps or more.
In each of the odd-numbered races this season, the driver who has led the most laps has won the race.
Kyle Kirkwood could join Tony Kanaan as the only drivers to win at Belle Isle in Indy Lights and IndyCar.
The average starting position for a Belle Isle winner is 6.3103 with a median of fourth.
The average number of lead changes in a Belle Isle race is 4.413 with a median of five.
Last year, the first Belle Isle race had ten lead changes, matching the most every at the circuit, and the second Belle Isle race had one lead change. It was the second consecutive year at least one of the Belle Isle races had exactly only one lead change.
Thirteen of the last 16 Belle Isle races had at least five lead changes.
Three of the last six Belle Isle races have had the final lead change come in the final ten laps.
Only once has the lead changed on the final lap at Belle Isle. Greg Moore passed Maurício Gugelmin on the final lap of the 1997 race after Gugelmin ran out of fuel.
The average number of cautions in a Belle Isle race is 4.034 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 14.31 with a median of 14 laps.
There has never been a caution-free at Belle Isle.
The most cautions in a Belle Isle race was eight on two occasions. The first was the 1999 race and the second was the Saturday race in 2015, which was also shortened due to weather.
Predictions
Josef Newgarden makes it three victories from seven races and he will not get the tire strategy wrong. There will also not be a string of late cautions to close the field on him. Marcus Ericsson finishes in the top ten, but he loses the championship lead. Scott Dixon recovers and has his best finish of the season. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has at least one top ten finishers. Andretti Autosport will end the weekend with at least two drivers in the top ten of the championship. There will be no red flags during the race. Romain Grosjean will not catch on fire. Sleeper: Takuma Sato.
