The ninth round of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season takes the series to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the first race of summer. After a two-week break, IndyCar is back for what will be a busy summer stretch. Mid-Ohio is the first of six races held in a 36-day period. Just over a third of the 2022 season will take place over the next three-dozen days. There will be two road course races, two oval races and two street course races in this six-race stretch. With nine races remaining and 486 points left on the table, every human being is still mathematically alive to lift the Astor Cup as IndyCar champion.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at noon ET on Sunday July 3 with green flag scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 3:30 p.m. ET (75 minutes)
Saturday:
Second Practice: 8:35 a.m. ET (40 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:45 p.m. ET
Qualifying: 2:45 p.m. ET
Sunday:
Warm-Up: 9:45 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 12:50 p.m. ET (80 laps)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
Who Has a Case for Redemption?
In the last two IndyCar races, the winner had experienced some heartbreak at that track the year before.
In 2021, Will Power was leading when the red flag came out in the first Belle Isle race with six laps to go. When it was time to restart the cars, Power's wouldn't and he lost the lead and a likely victory. In 2022, Power went from 16th to first in one of the most impressive victories of his IndyCar career.
In 2021, Josef Newgarden led the most laps at Road America. Late cautions meant for a late restart. With two laps to go, Newgarden's gearbox failed and dropped him down the order. In 2022, Newgarden took the lead from Alexander Rossi through the first pit cycle and went on to hold off all challenges to take his third victory of the season.
Could we see a third redemption story in as many races?
Power has another case for redemption. He qualified fourth in last year's Mid-Ohio race, but spun on lap three and collected Ed Jones, eliminating both cars from the race. It was the worst Mid-Ohio finish for Power and only the third time in 14 starts he finished outside the top ten.
Colton Herta started second in last year's race, but pit lane issues from hell ruined Herta's race. A re-fueling issue cost him spots on the first stop, he stalled on his second stop, and the team did not get the car full of fuel on that stop, meaning Herta had to make a late stop for a splash for fuel, costing him a top ten finish.
It might not be because of last year at Mid-Ohio, but Alexander Rossi has redemption from the last race. Already on a 44-race winless streak, Rossi felt confident starting on pole position at Road America. Pit lane traffic cost Rossi on his first pit stop and he lost the lead. He pushed to make a late run at Josef Newgarden, but Rossi ended up losing a spot on the final restart and finished third. Now on a 45-race winless streak, and after finishes of second and third, Rossi looks for his third consecutive trip to the podium be a first. He has five consecutive top five finishes at Mid-Ohio, a streak that began with his 2018 victory.
It might not be a 45-race winless streak, but it has been 32 races since Felix Rosenqvist's one and only IndyCar victory in the second race of the Road America doubleheader. The Swede enters on a good run of form. He has four consecutive top ten finishes, the first time he has had four consecutive top ten finishes in his IndyCar career. Rosenqvist signed an extension with McLaren during the break, but the multi-year agreement does not specify which series he will drive in next year. He could drive in either IndyCar or Formula E in 2023. A victory at Mid-Ohio could assure Rosenqvist the long projected third Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar seat, keeping him next to Patricio O'Ward and Rossi, AMSP's new signing.
Takuma Sato has the most Mid-Ohio starts without a victory at the track. Sato has 13 starts on the 2.25-mile road course, but he has never even finished on the podium. He has only two top five finishes and his tenth-place result in 2021 was only the fourth time he has finished in the top ten. He has finished outside the top fifteen in eight of 13 starts.
Do We Have Nine?
Eight races and eight different pole-sitters and IndyCar is on the verge of doing something of matching a record. Nine different pole-sitters through the first nine races in a season has only been done twice before, though one of those years has an asterisk.
It was first done in 1952, but there is a note that the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb counted toward the championship that season. No pole position was technically awarded as there was no qualifying for that race, but in the first nine races where qualifying was held, nine different drivers took the top spot.
Fred Agabashian was on pole position in the Cummins Diesel Special for the Indianapolis 500, the first turbocharged engine in Indianapolis 500. In the next eight races, Jim Rigsby, Cliff Griffith, Mike Nazaruk, Bob Sweikert, Jimmy Reece, Bill Schinlder, Jack McGrath and Bill Vukovich started on pole position. McGrath became the first repeat pole-sitter.
The last time the season opened with nine different pole-sitters was in 1961. Tony Bettenhausen, Eddie Sachs, Dick Rathmann, Al Keller, Don Branson, Parnelli Jones, Jim Hurtubise, Rodger Ward and A.J. Foyt were those pole-sitters. Sachs was the first repeat pole-sitter.
Who could extend this streak in 2022 and put IndyCar on the brink of history?
The defending IndyCar champion has yet to start on pole position this season. Not only does Álex Palou not have a pole position, but his average starting position of 6.5 is second best in IndyCar. Palou has started in the top three in five of the last six races. In three Mid-Ohio starts, Palou has started 20th, fourth and seventh.
Patricio O'Ward, third in average starting position at 7.625, but like Palou, the Mexican driver does not have a pole position this season. He has started in the top five in four of the last five races with his worst starting position in that stretch being seventh. O'Ward has never started in the top ten at Mid-Ohio. In three races, he has started 15th, 21st and 20th.
Romain Grosjean makes it three drivers in the top five of average starting position this season without a pole position. Grosjean averages 8.625 in starting position, but he has only started in the top five once this season, fifth in the St. Petersburg season opener. Grosjean started 18th at Mid-Ohio last year.
Marcus Ericsson has yet to score a pole position in his IndyCar career, and Ericsson has started in the top five in two of the last three races. Ericsson's best career starting position came at Mid-Ohio last year when he started third.
Among the drivers with a pole position at Mid-Ohio who could extend this streak to nine different pole-sitters, Hélio Castroneves has two pole positions at the track. However, those came in 2007 and 2008, the first two races at Mid-Ohio with the Indy Racing League. Simon Pagenaud was on pole position in 2016 and went on to win that race.
Who could break the streak?
Will Power has five Mid-Ohio pole positions, the most all-time. Power has started on the front row nine times at Mid-Ohio and in the top five 11 times in 14 starts. Mid-Ohio is known as Scott Dixon's track, and Dixon has two pole positions here. He has started in the top five in eight of 18 Mid-Ohio starts.
Josef Newgarden has started in the top ten in ten of 11 Mid-Ohio starts and eight of those have been top five starts. Colton Herta has started on the front row in the last two Mid-Ohio races. Alexander Rossi has made it to the second round of qualifying in every one of his Mid-Ohio appearances. Rossi has made the Fast six in four of seven starts.
Big American Weekend
Independence Day is Monday and IndyCar will have eight drivers entered at Mid-Ohio this weekend.
Josef Newgarden is not only the top American in the championship. Newgarden is the only active American driver with an IndyCar championship and he leads all active American drivers in race victories. His 23 victories has him 19th all-time and 13th among America drivers. A victory this weekend would level him with Ted Horn and Bobby Rahal on victories. This is the fifth-time Newgarden has won three races in a season. He has won four races in three seasons, but he has never won five times in a season.
Alexander Rossi is on a good run of form. Three consecutive top five finishes have lifted Rossi from 15th to seventh in the championship. His 16 laps led last race at Road America were his most since he led 61 laps at St. Petersburg in 2020. Outside of Texas where era issue ended his race after 11 laps, Rossi has finished on the lead lap of the other seven races.
Colton Herta finds himself outside the top ten in the championship in what has been a boom-or-bust season for him. Herta was fifth at Road America, only his third top five finish this season. He has yet to have top five results in consecutive races and his longest stretch of top ten finishes has only been two events.
Conor Daly is 13th in the championship, his best championship position through the first eight races of a season. Daly has completed the third most laps this season, 920. The three laps he did not complete all came at Texas. Daly has two top ten finishes at Mid-Ohio, but the most recent one was in 2017.
Graham Rahal is back home in Ohio this weekend, but the driver of the #15 Honda likely wanted to return better than 15th in the championship. Rahal has finished in the top ten of half the races this season, but his best finish is only seventh. He has made 81 starts since his most recent IndyCar victory at Belle Isle in 2017.
David Malukas will make his first Mid-Ohio start in an IndyCar this weekend. Malukas never won at Mid-Ohio in ten starts. He was third in both Indy Lights races last July and runner-up in both Indy Lights races last October at the season finale.
Kyle Kirkwood was the Scott Dixon of Mid-Ohio in the Road to Indy series. Kirkwood has eight Mid-Ohio victories in nine Road to Indy starts at the track. He also won at Mid-Ohio twice in the F4 United States Championship and three times in the F3 Americas Championship.
Jimmie Johnson returns to make his second Mid-Ohio start. Johnson was 22nd in last year's race, one lap down. He has finished outside the top twenty in the last five races, and he has started outside the top twenty in all the road/street course races this season.
Newgarden and Herta are the only American winners this season and they have combined for four victories. American drivers have combined for at least five victories in six of the previous seven seasons.
At Mid-Ohio, American drivers have won six of the last ten races at the track. American drivers had won only eight of the first 28 Mid-Ohio races and had gone 14 Mid-Ohio races without a victory before Charlie Kimball's victory in 2013.
Rookie Roundup
IndyCar's class of 2022 is about to hit the halfway point of their rookie seasons and it is time to ask, how are they doing?
In short, not great.
None of the rookies are ranked in the top fifteen in the championship. No rookie has a top five finish, and the rookies have a combined four top ten finishes between 45 combined starts.
Christian Lundgaard leads the five rookies, sitting 16th in the championship. The Dane is the only rookie with multiple top ten finishes this season. He was eighth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and tenth at Road America, where the Dane also led a lap through the pit cycle. Lundgaard's average finish of 14.25 is the best among the rookies, and better than veterans Takuma Sato, Rinus VeeKay, Jack Harvey and Hélio Castroneves. Lundgaard has finished on the lead lap in six of eight races, including five consecutive.
While Lundgaard has the best average finish among the rookies, Callum Ilott has the best average starting position at 15.571. Ilott has arguably turned the most heads among the rookie class. Ilott has the best finish among the rookies, an eighth at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but he has made it to the second round of qualifying three times in five road/street course appearances, and his best starting position was seventh on the IMS road course. He also led five laps during a pit cycle at Texas.
David Malukas has the best starting position for a rookie this season, he was sixth at Belle Isle, the only time a rookie has made the Fast Six in qualifying this season, but a top ten finish has eluded Malukas. He was 11th at Texas and Belle Isle, and he was 12th at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Like Lundgaard, Malukas has five consecutive lead lap finishes.
Kyle Kirkwood was the first rookie to get a top ten finish this season when he finished tenth at Long Beach, but it has been a difficult year for the 2021 Indy Lights champion. He has finished outside the top fifteen in the last five races and in seven of eight races this season. He has rested from three races as well, including from what was going to be a top ten result at Belle Isle. Kirkwood also hurt his hand that weekend in a practice accident. He has started outside the top twenty in five of eight races.
There is always one rookie that ruffles some feathers. In 2022, that is Devlin DeFrancesco. The Canadian has had a few notable incidents this season. DeFrancesco was involved in three separate incidents at Texas, the final of which took out Graham Rahal and Hélio Castroneves after an unadvised dive to the bottom entering turn three. This earned DeFrancesco a six-spot grid penalty for the Long Beach race. At Road America, DeFrancesco ran into the back of Will Power, spinning out the then-championship lead earning him a stop-and-go penalty. DeFrancesco has not finished nor started better than 17th this season.
Tatiana Calderón has made six starts as she splits A.J. Foyt Racing's #11 ROKiT Chevrolet with J.R. Hildebrand, who runs the oval events. Calderon is regularly at the bottom of the timesheet. Her average starting position is 25th, the worst of the drivers to have run majority of the races. However, Calderón does keep the car moving forward and out of trouble. It earned her 16th at Long Beach and 15th in the mixed conditions on the IMS road course, where she led a lap through pit cycle. She has finished every start, but she has been a lap down in five starts and multiple laps down in three of them.
Road to Indy
It will be a busy holiday weekend at Mid-Ohio with six Road to Indy races in support of IndyCar's Honda 200.
The Indy Lights championship enters the second half of its season with Linus Lundqvist on top. Lundqvist's championship lead remains a healthy 82 points but there remains a hearty 378 points left on the table for the final seven races.
Sting Ray Robb's runner-up finish at Road America has him in second in the championship, as Benjamin Pedersen dropped to third after finishing 11th at Road America. Pedersen trails Lundqvist by 97 points. Danial Frost is 100 points off Lundqvist. Matthew Brabham is 101 points back while Christian Rasmussen's maiden Indy Lights victory has the Dane sixth in the championship, 115 points off the lead.
Hunter McElrea has podium finishes in the last two races and he is up to seventh in the championship, 117 points behind Lundqvist. Kyffin Simpson sits in eighth on 169 points, three points ahead of Jacob Abel and seven points ahead of Antonio Serravalle.
Ernie Francis, Jr. continues to look for his first top five finishes of the season. Francis, Jr. has 154 points, eight ahead of Christian Bogle and 12 clear of James Roe, Jr.
Indy Lights will race at 10:30 a.m. ET on Sunday July 3.
Louis Foster was first and 13th at the Indy Pro 2000 races at Road America nearly three weeks ago. Foster remains the championship despite the poor second race result. The Brit has 223 points and a 19-point lead over Reece Gold. Thirty-two points back is Nolan Siegel, who has one top five result in the last four races.
Enaam Ahmed has four consecutive top five results and eight top five results from ten races. Ahmed sits 39 points behind Foster in the championship. Braden Eves scored his first victory of the season in the second Road America race and is 40 points back while Josh Green rounds out the top six, 43 points off the top spot.
Salvador de Alba picked up a pair of podium finishes at Road America and de Alba has 149 points, three points ahead of Jack William Miller, who was second in the second Road America race. Kiko Porto has not finished n the top five in the last four races and the 2021 U.S. F2000 champion has 145 points, one more than Colin Kaminsky, whose best finish is seventh in the last four races after having three podium results in the four races prior to this slump.
Yuven Sundaramoorthy has 128 points, Wyatt Brichacek has 117 points, Jonathan Browne has 114 points and Jordan Missig rounds out the full-time drivers on 111 points.
Both Indy Pro 2000 races will be on Saturday July 2. Race one will be at 11:40 a.m. ET with race two scheduled for 5:55 p.m. ET.
Michael d'Orlando maintained the U.S. F2000 championship lead with his victory in the second Road America race, but his advantage has evaporated to six points over Myles Rowe after Rowe scored a pair of runner-up finishes in Wisconsin. D'Orlando was 14th in the first race of the weekend.
Jace Denmark has five consecutive top five finishes, including a victory in the first Road America race. Denmark's 192 points has him 25 points off d'Orlando in the championship. Billy Frazer is 33 points back in fourth while Jagger Jones has dropped to fifth, 37 points back after finishing 13th and seventh at Road America.
Bijoy Garg is on 159 points while Thomas Nepveu scored his first podium result of the season with a third in the second Road America race. Nepveu is five points behind his DEForce Racing teammate Garg in the championship. Spike Kohlbecker and Christian Weir have 127 points and 123 points respectively.
The first U.S. F2000 race will be at 5:15 p.m. ET on Friday July 1. Race two and three will be on Saturday July 2 at 10:45 a.m. ET and 5:00 p.m. ET respectively.
Fast Facts
This will be the ninth IndyCar race to take place on July 3 and the first since Tony Kanaan won at Kansas in 2005.
Three times did the Grand Prix of Cleveland take place on July 3. Al Unser won on the banks of Lake Erie on that date in 1983, while Mario Andretti won there in 1988 and Sébastien Bourdais won a night race at Cleveland in 2004.
This July 3 will mark the 51st anniversary of Team Penske's first IndyCar victory. Mark Donohue won the inaugural Pocono 500 on that date in 1971.
Team Penske is the all-time leader in IndyCar victories for a team with 227 victories, including the last two races, and five of eight races run in 2022.
Team Penske has won 116 oval races and 111 road/street course races.
Team Penske is tied with Chip Ganassi Racing for most Mid-Ohio victories. Each team has won 11 times at the course.
Will Power has the most IndyCar victories for Team Penske with 39. Hélio Castroneves is second with 30, Rick Mears is third with 29 and Josef Newgarden is fourth with 19. Danny Sullivan and Al Unser, Jr. are tied for fifth with 12 victories.
Mid-Ohio is the first race of summer. Since 2008, the winner of the first race of summer has only won the championship four times in 14 years, but the first winner of summer has won the championship the last two seasons.
The average starting position of a Mid-Ohio winner is 3.4736 with a median of second.
The pole-sitter has won the last three Mid-Ohio races and five of the last seven Mid-Ohio races.
Prior to this seven race stretch, the pole-sitter had won only one of prior nine Mid-Ohio races.
The pole-sitter has won 15 of 38 Mid-Ohio races, but the pole-sitter has never won four consecutive Mid-Ohio races.
The average number of lead changes in a Mid-Ohio race is 4.7105 with a median of five.
Thirteen of the last 16 Mid-Ohio races have had five lead changes or more.
The most lead changes in a Mid-Ohio race is eight on three different occasions (1988, 2007 and 2017).
No driver has ever led every lap of a Mid-Ohio race.
The average number of cautions in a Mid-Ohio race is 1.837 with a median of two. The average number of caution laps is 7.108 with a median of seven.
Only two of the last 16 Mid-Ohio races have had more than two cautions. Five of the last 16 Mid-Ohio races have been caution free.
Predictions
Pit stop issues will not slow down Colton Herta this weekend and he wins his second race of the season. Marcus Ericsson's championship lead will at least be cut in half. Dalton Kellett scores more than seven points. Rinus VeeKay will finish ahead of Conor Daly and finish in the top ten. At least six teams are represented in the top ten. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will have its best driver finish ahead of Meyer Shank Racing's best driver. Scott Dixon will be the top Ganassi qualifier. At least four drivers will lead a lap and at least two drivers will lead at least ten laps. No pair of teammates will make contact. The 12th-place starter will finish in the top five. Sleeper: Felix Rosenqvist.
