2. I don't know how deep we should go into the results and how drivers did because this was an exhibition race and the result doesn't really matter. Scott McLaughlin was untouched in second. Felix Rosenqvist was third after winning the first heat race. It is still early in the season, but after St. Petersburg this was a great way to follow up for Rosenqvist and the Meyer Shank Racing group. It is something to keep an eye on for the remainder of the season.
3. Entering this weekend, Alexander Rossi made known a strategy on his podcast, "Off-Track with Hinch and Rossi," where a driver could lay back in the first ten laps of the main event to save tires before going for it in the second half. A few drivers attempted it. It worked out best for Colton Herta. Herta was eight to 12 seconds off Palou for the entire first half. He went for it and ended up fourth. Once he got in dirty air, it slowed him up and he wasn't blowing through drivers. Still a good drive to fourth, but it wasn't the insane difference in speed some may have thought.
4. Speaking of tires, for all the talk of falloff, the drivers at the end of the 20-lap main event were still running laps in the 102-103 second range. The fastest laps we were seeing all weekend was low 98s and the fastest lap in the main event was 101.6145 seconds. Considering most were still within three seconds of the fastest race lap at the end, the tires didn't drop off a cliff. It sounded like everyone expected the end of the stint to be six or seven seconds off the top pace, but we didn't see that. There was still tire falloff, but not overly extreme.
5. Good day for Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist as they rounded out the top six. Armstrong made it tough on Herta. Herta ultimately had a little more tire. Lundqvist gave Herta some trouble and Lundqvist successful held off Alexander Rossi.
6. Alexander Rossi started saving tires about two laps into the first half of the main event, and Rossi looked quicker than Herta at the start of the second half. However, Rossi and Josef Newgarden ran wide in a battle and neither could get back ahead of Lundqvist and Herta once they slid ahead. It was definitely difficult to pass at Thermal Club even with a tire advantage.
7. Christian Lundgaard somehow overcame a hole being punched into the left side of his car at the start of the first heat race to advance to the final. Lundgaard attempted to save tires but the damage appeared to be too much to overcome. Agustín Canapino rounded out the top ten, as the Argentine driver was a benefactor to the chaos at the start of the first heat race.
8. If you had told Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at the start of the weekend it would have all three cars in the final race, the team likely would have been ecstatic. Unfortunately, Graham Rahal's throttle was sticking in the final race, forcing a retirement, and the team failed to fill Pietro Fittipaldi's car full of fuel for the main event, which led to a disqualification. Not a great day for RLLR, but it could have been worse.
9. Let's tackle heat race one and the accident at the start. It could have been a mixture of an early start, cooler morning, rough surface and push-to-pass activated at the start with cars double-file. Scott Dixon flat ran into the back of Romain Grosjean. It was always going to be a penalty, and it kept Dixon out of the main. Grosjean slid into Rinus VeeKay, who also clipped Lundgaard. Rough way to end a weekend. Grosjean and VeeKay had been respectable all weekend.
That incident also forced Will Power wide and put him in a hole he couldn't drive out of.
10. Nothing really happened in the second heat race. The top four starters finished 1-2-3-4. Pietro Fittipaldi went from sixth to fifth. Tom Blomqvist lost some ground, allowing Alexander Rossi to get into the main race. With ten-lap heat races, not much happen. It was highly unlikely anyone starting tenth or worse was to drive into the top six. You had to start in the top eight to have a chance of making it to the main race unless there was some kind of incident.
11. More can be said about the event itself and there are pluses and minuses..
Plus... IndyCar should explore push-to-pass usage in every road and street course qualifying session. It would add a new wrinkle and would be fascinating to see how it plays out and how drivers use it.
Minus... Last year, one of the concerns with Thermal was if it could safely host an IndyCar race. I don't think those questions have been answered. The track was coming apart. The runoff could use some work, especially the barriers. The most cars we saw racing together at once was 14. That's half the field. I am not sure Thermal is adequate for a full race. Then again, IndyCar still races at Toronto, and have you see that pit lane?
Plus... There was tire degradation, and that would help in a full race. I don't think anyone would want to drive more than 20 laps, and if there was an alternate compound it would mix up strategies even more. That would be fun to watch.
Minus... It was difficult to pass. There was only one tire compound, which didn't help today, but I think even with a second compound it might not have changed much. There are a few promising areas. Turns one and three were tricky. A driver could make a look but had to be pinpoint accurate to make a pass stick. The best passing zone was turn seven. If you got through the esses, turn 14 was possible. Turn 15 was a good area but that tightened up considerable once you got into the corner. The track isn't going to change that much for IndyCar. This is a private track. They are focused on the members.
Plus... I suggested something similar a few years ago, but I liked that the push-to-pass reset in the middle of the main event. I am not saying there should be a hard reset, but I think there should be a minimum use within the first half of the race. I wrote this after the 2021 Barber race. Essentially, a driver must use 40% of the allotted time within the first half of the race otherwise it is lost. Let's say a driver gets 150 seconds at the start of a race. A driver must use at least 60 seconds within the first half of the race or the driver will lose it. There is no point in saving it. It could potentially decrease teams saving fuel as they cannot backload and have over two minutes of push-to-pass in the final stint. I think this should be explored moving forward.
Minus... It was odd there was no pit stop component to this weekend. The reason for the halftime break was no one could make it on 20 laps of fuel. However, considering the tire degradation, wouldn't it have made sense for the main race to be 30 laps and had at least one pit stop? I think that would have been more compelling than what we saw today.
Plus... I did like that Herta and a few drivers did lay back to see how it would work saving tires. It wasn't a guarantee for victory but Herta did end up finishing fourth, which is likely about five positions better than if he went all out from the opening lap.
Minus... The first ten laps did feel redundant because drivers were saving tires. There was no incentive to go for it. IndyCar could have easily added an incentive if it didn't want drivers running ten seconds off the pace. IndyCar could have eliminated the bottom four drivers after the first ten laps and had the top eight in the ten-lap shootout for the grand prize. That would have been an easy way to make the first half of the main event matter.
Plus... I like that the heat races weren't balanced. IndyCar could have done a snake and alternated cars in each heat, but it made it random and the first heat was stacked. That is fine.
Minus... There was no solid name for this race. "Million Dollar Challenge." "Sprint for the Purse." "All-Star Race." I would say if this was an IndyCar "all-star race," three of IndyCar's biggest stars weren't in it. There was no Scott Dixon, Will Power nor Patricio O'Ward. If IndyCar considers this its all-star race, it was a terrible all-star race. It was a straight-up format, top six from each heat made the final race, but IndyCar deprived itself of having its best drivers competing. I don't know if all past champions should have been locked in. I don't know if there should have been a fan vote for one driver to make the main, but let's not dare call this IndyCar's all-star race if three of its most notable drivers aren't competing in the main event.
12. Roger Penske should have coughed up the other half-million to make it a proper million dollar prize for the winner. I don't really care about the payout to the other positions, but Penske should have made sure the winner at least got a million dollars and avoided this being the butt of the joke the entire weekend for fans, writers, team owners and drivers. Penske isn't hurting for money. I don't understand how the other half of the purse wasn't there because the club members weren't going to share the prize. Either way, Penske should have paid the price to avoid egg getting on IndyCar's face.
13. I am going to defend Romain Grosjean here. The safety worker didn't have to grab Grosjean. Grosjean is a grown man. He was walking under his own power. There was no need to grab Grosjean. He wasn't in harm's way. He wasn't in peril. There is no need to be handsy. The safety workers are appreciated and do a great job. That doesn't mean they don't make mistakes. This isn't the first time they have gone overboard with grabbing drivers (see Will Power at Fontana). If a driver gets out of a car, is clearly fine and clearly angry, give the drivers some space.
14. The big question from this weekend is what did IndyCar hope to get out of this event? It was an exhibition race taking place in front of at most 2,000 paying customers and maybe a smattering more Thermal Club members with friends and family. I doubt the "million dollar challenge" aspect is going to draw many more viewers than an average IndyCar race.
So what is success for this event?
If there is anything we have learned over the last 25 years is no single race is going to shift the tides and all of a sudden turn IndyCar into a cultural force with four or five million people tuning in every time an event is taking place. Thermal Club wasn't going to change that.
The answer is success will be if IndyCar gets a new series partner out of this weekend or a team gets a sponsor that sticks around for four or five years. This was a business-to-business weekend hoping to sell the series to the rich. Nothing wrong with that but it might not be evident to the average fan how this weekend was a success. Remember that.
15. And now there are... three weeks off until Long Beach. At least we had Thermal Club to break up the dead time.
