February sure does fly by. It is the shortest month, but are two days really that big of a difference? It must be the case. Just like that, a sixth of the year is complete. The good news is, with warmer days approaching in the Northern Hemisphere, more series are about to get underway for the 2023 calendar. We have already had many exciting events this year, but the best has yet to come.
IndyCar Facts You Will Not Believe Are True Entering the 2023 Season
We are less than a week from the IndyCar season opener at St. Petersburg. I don't want to say February is one long build-up to the IndyCar season, but considering it is a six-month offseason, everybody is more than ready when February comes around.
Everyone is ready to race, but there is always something surprising that we learn each season. Even when things go as expected or seem to make sense, there is always something unexpected that we learn. With a few days left before the first race of the IndyCar season, I thought we should look at a few things you may not believe to be the case ahead of the 2023 season, such as...
Scott Dixon has not won a pole position outside Indianapolis since 2016
IndyCar's best driver in the 21st century isn't perfect. For everything Scott Dixon achieves, he does have a few quirks. Dixon has always been a good qualifier, but outside of one or two seasons, he has never been the spectacular qualifier you would think for a driver with such a record as his.
Example, Dixon has won only three pole positions since 2017. That is three pole positions for 97 races, minus five or six where qualifying was rained out. That isn't a remarkable batting average, but get this... all three of those pole positions were for the Indianapolis 500!
He started on pole position for The Greatest Spectacle in Racing in 2017, 2021 and 2022.
Dixon's last pole position outside of Indianapolis was Watkins Glen 2016.
If you think that is incredible, well, I have more for you. Dixon hasn't won a pole position at oval that wasn't Indianapolis since 2014 at Iowa! He also won pole position for the 2015 Indianapolis 500 in that interim.
That 2016 Watkins Glen pole position turned into a victory. When was the last time Dixon won from pole position at an oval? That would be Motegi in 2009! It has been over 13 years since Scott Dixon won from pole position on an oval. It is not easy to win from pole position at any place, except since that Motegi race, Dixon has won five times from pole position. He has won 31 times since Motegi 2009, nine of those on ovals.
What are we likely to see in 2023? Would we really be surprised if Dixon won from pole position at Texas or Gateway or Iowa or finally again at Indianapolis? No, of course not. But maybe we should be.
Speaking of oval races from pole position...
Will Power has not won an oval race from pole position since 2014
Power too!? Apparently!
IndyCar's all-time leader in pole positions, Power shocks no one in qualifying. We expect he will be on pole position at most races. If he wins from pole position, again, no one would shake their head. But Power has not won from pole position on an oval since Milwaukee 2014. We are approaching nine years since that occurred!
Power has won 31 pole positions since that 2014 Milwaukee race. Of those 31 races, Power has won six of them, four at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, one at Road America and one at Mid-Ohio.
It hasn't been for a lack of pole positions on ovals. Ten of his last 31 pole positions were on ovals.
Power isn't the only Penske driver with something peculiar...
Since 2017, Josef Newgarden has only three podium finishes in races where another Team Penske driver wins
Since joining Team Penske in 2017, nobody has won more in IndyCar than Josef Newgarden, and it really isn't close. Newgarden has won 22 times in 97 races. The next closest is Dixon with 13 victories and the only other driver to win more than ten times in that time frame is Power with 12 victories.
But when another Penske driver wins, Newgarden doesn't do well.
Since Newgarden joined Penske, other Penske drivers have combined to win 22 times. In those 22 races, Newgarden has three podium finishes. He was runner-up to Power at Pocono in 2017, runner-up to Simon Pagenaud at Sonoma in 2017 and he was runner-up to Power again in the first Mid-Ohio race in 2020. Two of those were in Newgarden's first season with Penske!
What about Newgarden's 22 victories? Other Team Penske drivers combine for ten podium finishes in races Newgarden has won. Three came in Newgarden's first season with Penske. Pagenaud was third at Barber and Gateway and Power was second at Mid-Ohio. In 2019, Power was third at St. Petersburg when Newgarden won. Power was then second in the second Iowa race in 2020 and then third in the second Gateway race later that season. Power was third at Gateway the following year when Newgarden won. In 2022, Scott McLaughlin was second at Texas when Newgarden passed him on the final corner, Power was third at Iowa and McLaughlin was then third at Gateway.
Newgarden has won half of Penske's races since 2017, but in the other half of those victories, he has only been on the podium three times. That might not be the only startling fact for this past champion...
Only two champions since reunification have not won the Indianapolis 500
Newgarden is one of them. The other is Álex Palou. Every other champion since 2008 has won the Indianapolis 500.
Scott Dixon won the championship and the Indianapolis 500 in 2008. Dario Franchitti was already an Indianapolis 500 winner when he won the 2009 championship, but Franchitti then won the "500" and the championship in 2010, added another championship in 2011 and another "500" in 2012.
Ryan Hunter-Reay was the 2012 champion and then won the Indianapolis 500 in 2014. Will Power won the 2014 championship and then won the 2018 Indianapolis 500. Simon Pagenaud won the title in 2016 and won the Indianapolis 500 in 2019.
Newgarden has yet to win the Indianapolis 500. Neither has Palou, but he was second in 2021, coincidentally the year he won the championship.
The best find a way to win the Indianapolis 500. You would think Newgarden will soon get his moment at Indianapolis, and the same could be true for Palou, but it doesn't always work out that way.
St. Petersburg will be the first race without a Japanese driver entrant since Kentucky 2002
This one may surprise you, but Japanese drivers have been regularly on the IndyCar grid for over 20 years. This should be noted that this takes into consideration what were Indy Racing League/IndyCar Series races. This doesn't take into consideration CART/Champ Car races, nor the 2008 Long Beach race, which was run under Champ Car rules but counted to the unified IndyCar Series championship.
While we have gone over 20 years with Japanese entrants in every race, there was one race that did not have a Japanese starter and that was because Takuma Sato had an accident in qualifying ahead of the 2020 Texas season opener, keeping him from starting the race.
The last race without a Japanese entrant was August 11, 2002 at August. The next race was at Gateway and Hideki Noda was on the grid. Noda would start the final three races of the 2002 season. In 2003, Tora Takagi ran the entire season and Takagi was around for the entire 2004 season, as was Kosuka Matsuura. Matsuura started every race from 2004 through 2007. In the 2007 season finale, Hideki Mutoh made his IndyCar debut and Mutoh would be full-time the next two seasons. In 2010, Takuma Sato entered the series and he was full-time through 2022.
That is how for over 20 years, with a big assist from Honda and Toyota, there was at least one Japanese driver entered for every IRL/IndyCar race. That is 333 consecutive races! For the longest time, Honda wanted a Japanese driver in IndyCar, and Honda hasn't shown the same interest in finding a successor for Sato as it did for Matsuura and Mutoh. Does that tell us anything about how Honda views IndyCar's long-term or does Honda no longer feel the need to have a full-time Japanese participant? Time will tell.
Conor Daly's 500s
Conor Daly may be the only driver in IndyCar in 2023 to run multiple 500-mile races this season. They will not both be IndyCar races, as Daly started the Daytona 500 after an improbable set of circumstances allowed him to qualify for NASCAR's biggest race despite driving the worst car entered.
Daly has now run the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. He became the 62 driver to start both. That is 7.838% of the 791 drivers to start the Indianapolis 500 have started the Daytona 500 at some point in their careers. Not bad. If Daly were to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 this May, he will become the 40th driver to start the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 in the same year.
How many drivers have raced in the Daytona 500 and then won the Indianapolis 500 later that year?
The answer is six drivers have done it and it has happened eight times.
Parnelli Jones (1963)
A.J. Foyt (1964, 1967, 1977)
Mark Donohue (1972)
Gordon Johncock (1973)
Johnny Rutherford (1974)
Tom Sneva (1983)
That would be some list to join, especially for an Indiana-born driver...
The last Indiana-born driver to win an IndyCar race was...
I don't remember how this got on my mind, but when was the last time an Indiana-born driver won an IndyCar race?
You may be thinking, "Ed Carpenter! Obviously."
Well, IndyCar loves to lie to you, or at least fudge the truth, because Carpenter was born in Paris, Illinois. Sure, he may have grown up in Indiana, and associate with being a Hoosier, but he wasn't born there. Who was the last Indiana-born driver to win a race?
It was Mark Dismore at Texas on October 17, 1999. That is over 23 years ago! No driver born in the Hoosier state has won in IndyCar in the 21st century! If Conor Daly does not win this season we will have gone over 24 years between Indiana-born winners.
March Preview
We will go in-depth about the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship season as we get closer to the season opener, but for the third time the Super Sebring weekend will take place over March 17-18. There is one problem, this could be the final Super Sebring.
WEC is looking at other possible venues in the United States and the series has already ruled out adding a second American round. After a few condensed seasons due the pandemic, WEC has expanded back to eight races for the 2023 season. In 2024, a new round in Qatar will open the season. There are still more possible venues WEC is looking at and it is adjusting its approach early in its second decade.
Super Sebring emerged after a few difficult years in the United States for WEC with underwhelming rounds in Austin, which struggled to establish an identity after first running on Saturday during college football season while a stadium was full of 94,000 people across town and forcing WEC to run until midnight and then running on a Sunday afternoon when nobody noticed it was there. Sebring was already a healthy weekend and tacking on WEC added challenges but amplified an already exciting event.
A second pit lane was constructed, campers were moved around, Friday night became WEC's, but after a few compromises, Super Sebring turned into a hit. Losing two years due to the pandemic made the heart grow fonder, but in 2022, it was a wonderful return. Sadly, we don't know if it will last beyond 2023.
While WEC gets to race in front of crowd, running Friday afternoon into evening and night in the middle of Florida isn't the ideal way to open a season, not when you are a world championship broadcasting all around the globe. WEC is never going to become top dog at Sebring. It isn't going to run Saturday for 12 hours. What is WEC to do?
If WEC leaves, Sebring will be fine, but something will be missed. It was a global family reunion for sports car racing, a treat to spectators that could see such a collection of drivers, automobiles and manufactures and about 2,000 miles of racing over two days.
It would be great to see WEC have a successful standalone event in the United States, but that will remain a challenge. As many sports car fans there are in this country, it has to find the right place at the right time for an event to stick. It is possible, but it would be best if WEC and IMSA continued to work together, though it is hard to fathom that will be the case if this is the final Super Sebring.
Other March events of note:
IndyCar season opener from St. Petersburg and that is it.
The first two Formula One races from the Middle East.
MotoGP will open its season.
Supercars opens its season and returns to Newcastle as well.
Formula E makes its first trek to Brazil.
