Alexander Rossi benefitted from misfortune of a teammate to get his first victory in over three years. NASCAR has a toothless race control. Indianapolis Raceway Park got back on the national stage, and everyone was happy for a brief moment. Formula E was caught in Formula One's shadow all weekend. Ferrari was caught in its own way all weekend. Spa-Francorchamps had an endurance race. World Superbike made the most of Autodrom Most. Dominique Aegerter was excluded from race two of the World Supersport weekend for faking an injury. A lot happened. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Missed Value
For the second consecutive year, Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosted a planned combination weekend with IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series sharing the IMS road course. IndyCar led the way with a race Saturday at noon before NASCAR's second division closed the day and the Cup race took place on Sunday.
We have come a long way to where IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series are sharing a facility. It is a great value for race fans. In two days, you can see two of the top three series in the United States at the same track, for a reasonable cost, and you can still watch the Formula One race Sunday morning without interference from either. What a great deal!
However, it could be much better and in its current form frankly lives down to what this combination weekend could be.
IndyCar first took to the track at 9:30 a.m. local time on Friday afternoon for a 90-minute session. The next series on track was IndyCar for qualifying two hours later. The first NASCAR session was its Xfinity Series for its practice/qualifying session at 3:00 p.m. and it was done around 4:30 p.m., concluding Friday's activities. That's it. The track was open for seven hours. About four and a half hours had cars on track. No Cup cars saw any action. And it was onto Indianapolis Raceway Park if you wanted to see more.
Saturday opened with IndyCar's 30-minute morning warm-up at 8:15 a.m. The NASCAR Cup Series finally hit the track at 9:30 a.m. for its practice/qualifying before the IndyCar race began around 12:20 p.m. The Xfinity race followed at 3:30 p.m.
Sunday was just the Cup race, start time around 2:30 p.m.
The only time you could see IndyCar and the Cup Series run in consecutive session was on Saturday and you had to get to the track early to see it. Consider IndyCar had a 90-minute practice, it takes about 75 minutes for IndyCar to complete qualifying, warm-up is 30 minutes, and the race takes about two hours, IndyCar is on track for about 315 minutes. Over half of that is complete for a stock car ever takes the track and 61.9% of IndyCar's on-track time is complete for the Cup Series ever makes a lap.
Increased value would be more mixing and mixing on each day. We are at an odd spot where no series wants to be on track more than it must be just to decrease cost. NASCAR teams get about 15 minutes of practice. IndyCar had only one practice session this weekend as it has already run the IMS road course this season. If each series is going to do less the spectators lose out.
But the entire point of this weekend is to have people in their seats and getting to see a NASCAR Cup car on track and 45 minutes later, from that same comfortable seat, IndyCars are on track. Unless you got to IMS early in the morning, you didn't get to see that this weekend, and IndyCar into the Xfinity race doesn't really sell it. The sell is IndyCar and Cup, two of the three biggest series in this country on the same track on the same day.
If we are going to do this and sell it as an American motorsports festival, each series needs to make a concession and make each day worth it. Frankly, there is enough track time for at least another series to join this weekend. Mazda MX-5 Cup makes the most sense because it is the best racing on the planet.
Friday should be dedicated to practice and fun. Start in the afternoon, have MX-5 Cup run practice and a qualifying, have the Xfinity Series practice for 45 minutes followed by a 45-minute IndyCar practice then a 45-minute Cup practice before Xfinity qualifying and close the day with the first MX-5 Cup race.
Saturday could begin with another 45-minute IndyCar session before another 45-minute Cup practice. The second MX-5 Cup race could be right in the middle before IndyCar qualifying then Cup qualifying with the Xfinity race closing the afternoon.
Both the IndyCar race and Cup race should be on Sunday. If IndyCar and Xfinity can go back-to-back, then there is no reason IndyCar and the Cup Series couldn't. IndyCar gets its morning warm-up in at 9:00 a.m. before it goes green a little after noon local time. The race is only going to take two hours. It will be over by 2:00 p.m. and that is more than enough time to clear the track for a 3:30 p.m. Cup start. Most Cup races start at that time anyway.
That is what this weekend should be and it should have more fun in it. There should be a demo lap session at the end of at least Friday if not the end of Saturday where a few drivers from each series swap seats. Have Chase Elliott and Scott Dixon swap seats. Put Danial Suárez in Patricio O'Ward's card and vice versa. Flip Kyle Larson and Josef Newgarden, Ryan Blaney and Will Power, Kyle Busch and Alexander Rossi. Make it something that people will want to see. You aren't going to see these drivers in the other machines every day. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. People would show up just for that.
There should also be one mammoth autograph session with all the drivers from at least Cup and IndyCar. Really make this into an event that rewards all the fans, something they will talking about all year and cannot wait to do again.
This is a start, but this weekend should be bigger than it is. It should be one of the biggest weekends in American motorsports. Think about what happens this weekend! Ten years ago, this was unthinkable. Now it is here and plenty in the NASCAR sphere see this as just another race when it is sharing the weekend with IndyCar. Indianapolis Motor Speedway knows how to put on an event. It can make this one of the most talked about weekends of the year.
Anything less is a disappointment.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Alexander Rossi, but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Hungarian Grand Prix, his eighth victory of the season.
Jack Doohan and Théo Pourchaire split the Formula Two races from the Hungaroring. Caio Collet and Alexander Smolyar split the Formula Three races.
Tyler Reddick won the NASCAR Cup race from Indianapolis, his second victory of the season. A.J. Allmendinger won the Grand National Series race, his third victory of the season. Grant Enfinger won the Truck race from Indianapolis Raceway Park, his first victory since October 2020 at Martinsville.
The #88 AMG - Team AKKodis ASP Mercedes-AMG of Jules Gounon, Daniel Juncadella and Raffaele Marciello won the 24 Hours of Spa.
Jake Dennis and Lucas di Grassi split the London ePrix races.
Shane van Gisbergen swept the three Supercars races from Tailem Bend.
Álvaro Bautista (race one) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (SuperPole race and race two) split the World Superbike races from Most. Lorenzo Baldassarri swept the World Supersport races.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar's final street race of the season from Nashville.
NASCAR's lone visit to Michigan.
IMSA makes its annual trek to Road America.
MotoGP is back from break at the British Grand Prix.
Super GT has a 500-mile race around Fuji.
Rally Finland!
GT America will also be in Nashville.
World Touring Car Cup ends it season at Anneau du Rhin in France after announcing it would cancel all its Asian rounds due to logistics and quarantine restrictions. This is so abrupt that it was forgotten that at Vallelunga last weekend Néstor Girolami and Gilles Magnus split the races.
