IndyCar won't be the only series ending its season this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. The 2017 Pirelli World Challenge season comes to a close and there are two championships to be awarded in the GT classification. Twenty cars are entered for the GT season finale and 21 cars are entered in GTS. This weekend marks the return to competition for Memo Gidley for the first time since his devastating accident in the 24 Hours of Daytona over three and a half years ago. Gidley will be behind the wheel of the #101 Porsche GT3 R for TKO Motorsports.
Sprint GT Championship
Five drivers are alive for the Sprint GT championship.
Patrick Long enters as the championship leader with 157 points. The #58 Wright Motorsports driver has won two sprint races and he has stood on the podium after six of seven sprint races this season with his worst finish being a fifth in the first Mid-Ohio race. Long has yet to win a pole position for a sprint race this season. Long swept the PWC races at Sonoma in 2011 but finished eighth and fourth last year at the track.
Defending PWC GT championship Álvaro Parente trails Long by five points with the driver of the #9 K-PAX Racing McLaren having won four of seven sprint races this season but the Portuguese driver has failed to stand on the podium in the other three sprint races. Last year, Parente finished fourth and second in his first trip to Sonoma. Last year, Parente became the first European GT championship since Andy Pilgrim in 2005. Parente could become the fourth driver to win consecutive GT championship joining Michael Galati, Randy Pobst and Johnny O'Connell.
Forty-four points behind Long is this year's SprintX co-champion Michael Cooper. The #8 Cadillac driver has not won a sprint race this season with his only podium finishes being second in the first Mid-Ohio race and third in the first Road America race. Last year, Cooper finished third in the first Sonoma race but finished a lap down in 21st in the second race.
Cooper's teammate Johnny O'Connell swept the Sonoma weekend last year and this year he enters trailing Long by 49 points. O'Connell has not won a race this season in any PWC competition. He has stood on the podium three times this season after finishing second to Long in the second St. Petersburg race and consecutive third place finishes at Road America and Mid-Ohio.
Daniel Mancinelli is the final driver alive for the Sprint GT Championship but the driver of the #31 TR3 Racing Ferrari needs to score the maximum 52 points this weekend and he would need Long to fail to score points in both races. The Italian has been the surprise this season in PWC. He won pole position for the season opener at St. Petersburg but his best finish this year in a sprint race was fourth on three occasions.
The final two sprint races of the 2017 Pirelli World Championship season will take place at 5:15 p.m. ET on Saturday September 16th and 1:15 p.m. ET on Sunday September 17th.
Overall GT Championship
Three of the Sprint GT Championship contenders are also going for the Overall GT Championship.
Long enters leading the Overall GT Championship. He has 320 points from the 10-race SprintX Championship and the first seven sprint races. On top of Long's two sprint victories, he also won twice in SprintX, including a victory at Circuit of the Americas two weeks ago. He has nine podium finishes from the 17 races.
Parente trails Long once again but this time the Portuguese driver is 28 points behind the American and Long could clinch the title a race early by winning pole position and finishing second. Parente did not win a SprintX race this season but he has had seven total podium finishes this season. Unfortunately, he failed to score points in two SprintX races.
Cooper won the SprintX Championship with co-driver Jordan Taylor on the back of one victory and five podium finishes. He is 32 points behind Long in the Overall GT Championship heading into Sonoma.
GTS Championship
The 2017 Pirelli World Challenge GTS Championship has already been locked up. Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro driver Lawson Aschenbach clinched the title at Circuit of the Americas with finishes of fifth and ninth bringing his points total to 326 points. Aschenbach has only won one of the first 14 GTS races this season but he has been on the podium 11 times with seven runner-up finishes and three third-place finishes. This is Aschenbach's third GTS championship and fifth PWC championship overall. He won the 2006 GT championship and the 2011 TC championship.
The battle will be for second but Panoz's Ian James has a firm grasp on that. The British driver has 253 points and he has won five of the last eight races with seven podium finishes in that time frame. James is 18 points clear of Mantella Autosport KTM driver Martin Barkey. The Canadian driver has yet to stand on the podium this year but he has finished fourth twice and won three pole positions.
The Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche drivers Rodrigo Baptista and Nate Stacy are tied on 219 points. Baptista has won four races this season but he has scored a single point or fewer in four races this year. Stacy on the other hand has only failed to score points once and he has only one other finish outside the top ten. Stacy won last year at Sonoma in the first GTS race. He has finished third on two occasions this season.
A notable addition to the GTS grid this weekend is Alex Lloyd in the #22 Porsche for CRP Racing. Lloyd has two victories at Sonoma from four Indy Lights starts and his 2007 victory at the track clinched him the Indy Lights championship that season. Lloyd's most recent IndyCar top ten finish came at Sonoma when he finished tenth in his only IndyCar start at the track in 2010.
The first race of the GTS weekend will be at 8:15 p.m. ET on Saturday September 16th. The final GTS race of 2017 will be at 4:30 p.m. ET on Sunday September 17th.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
Musings From the Weekend: Is IndyCar Turning Japanese or German?
Márc Marquez won a wet race from Misano with a final lap pass on Danilo Petrucci and Márquez and third-place finisher Andrea Dovizioso are tied on 199 points with five races to go. The Moto2 and Moto3 races saw plenty of riders go down in the wet conditions. There was a wet race from the Nürburgring and the changing conditions cost a few drivers top finishes. NASCAR had an ambulance cause a stir. A future Formula One driver won again in Japan and he could be in Formula One sooner than we thought. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Is IndyCar Turning Japanese?
We have covered the strangeness of IndyCar silly season. Everyone seems to be on the move and yet a lot of things appear to be staying the same.
Andretti Autosport is sticking with Honda after all but the team is not keeping all its drivers. Alexander Rossi is staying put but Takuma Sato exits to return to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. It has become pretty clear Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton will not return to Chip Ganassi Racing. Ed Carpenter Racing has only confirmed Ed Carpenter will be back for 2018. One seat is in question at Dale Coyne Racing and Sébastien Bourdais is not the driver in question. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was chasing Alexander Rossi and it now has to look elsewhere. A.J. Foyt Racing may clean house after cleaning house last year. Team Penske appears to be contracting to three cars with Hélio Castroneves moving to the Acura sports car program.
More drivers appear to be lining up at IndyCar's already busy door. Besides the dozen current drivers who will be free agents this offseason, there are also a handful of Indy Lights drivers who are looking for a chance at the top level of North American open-wheel racing and a few interesting names from other forms of motorsports. Former Sauber F1 driver Felipe Nasr was at Watkins Glen and was putting out his feelers for a future move to IndyCar. Robert Wickens, who just won at the Nürburgring this weekend for Mercedes-Benz in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, is open to a move to IndyCar. Current Porsche LMP1 factory driver Brendon Hartley could be in line with a move to Chip Ganassi Racing. Sage Karam could be making a return to IndyCar and I am sure there are another half-dozen drivers I am forgetting.
The rumor that has me the most intrigued is the potential Hartley to Ganassi deal because I think it could signal a shifting culture in IndyCar that could be very beneficial to the series but could also lead IndyCar down a dangerous path and leave it in worse shape.
According to Racer's Marshall Pruett, Hartley's arrival to IndyCar sounds more like Honda would facilitate it and not a Honda team. Hartley would become a Honda-factory driver and paired with a Honda team, which could be Chip Ganassi Racing or it could be Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. What makes this more intriguing to me is that since Hartley would be a Honda-factory driver, he could be used as an endurance driver for the Acura DPi program, meaning Hartley could potential drive for Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske simultaneously.
Honda has been taking a more hands-on approach when it comes to the drivers within its IndyCar line-up. We know about Sato's relationship with Honda but Rossi's future with Andretti Autosport hung on whether or not the team stayed with Honda. It didn't sound like it was because of personal preference for Rossi but rather a professional tie to the manufacture. Honda even had a hand in facilitating Sébastien Bourdais' move to Dale Coyne Racing before the start of this season.
All these moves have me wondering are we seeing a new culture in IndyCar where the manufactures play more of a role in who is in the cars? It has been a rough ride for Honda in the last couple IndyCar seasons and a few seasons ago Honda had a significantly less experienced and less successful driver line-up. Has all these years of not having the upper to Chevrolet in terms of technical performance and drivers finally led the manufacture to take control and take some of the ease off the teams? It makes sense for teams to have Honda provide a driver, as the driver would be a loanee, with Honda paying him or her. The team wouldn't have to worry about spending out of pocket for a driver and at the same time would not have to rely on a pay driver who might not have the talent to compete at the front.
It appears Honda of North America could be taking a common practice in Japanese motorsports and applying it in North America. It is normal for drivers to sign for a manufacture and race in Super Formula and Super GT. Takuya Izawa has been a Honda driver in Super Formula and Super GT for the last decade and his relationship with the brand led to him getting a shot in the GP2 Series when Honda returned to Formula One with McLaren and McLaren had a tie to ART Grand Prix. Kazuki Nakajima is a part of the Toyota LMP1 program but he also drives for Team TOM'S in Super Formula and Super GT. Nakajima's Toyota LMP1 teammate Kamui Kobayashi also has a ride in Super Formula, driving a Toyota for KCMG.
It would also be similar to what the German manufactures in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. It wasn't long ago when Audi LMP1 drivers such as Tom Kristensen and Frank Biela and Mike Rockenfeller spent time in the DTM when not driving the Audi R8 or Audi R10. Even today, drivers for Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are running multiple series for the manufactures. René Rast, Nico Müller and Jamie Green have each been involved in a handful for Blancpain GT Series races for Audi while Maxime Martin, Tom Blomqvist and Bruno Spengler have done the same for BMW. Lucas Auer has moonlighted for Mercedes-Benz in the ADAC GT Masters this season while Maro Engel has run the Bathurst 12 Hour and Spa 24 Hours for the manufacture.
Depending on what happens with Hartley, we could see all five Honda teams with a driver that Honda helped secure the seat for. While Honda has been helpful, Chevrolet has been hands-off. The one noticeable difference is the three Chevrolet teams have paying seats. Team Penske, Ed Carpenter Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing each have sponsors footing the bill but while they are all paying rides only one Chevrolet team has been responsible for all the of the manufactures' victories this season. At the same time, all of Chevrolet's victories are coming from Team Penske with drivers the manufacture isn't paying anything for. It doesn't seem like Chevrolet should start getting involved but getting involved could add more depth to the Chevrolet IndyCar roster.
There is some cause for concern with Honda's recent approach to IndyCar. While it brings quality drivers to the grid and keeps veterans in the series, it could lead for a harsh reality if or when Honda pulls out of IndyCar. All of a sudden a handful of drivers will be without the manufacture connection and teams will have to start paying drivers or hiring pay drivers. At the same time, if Honda cannot gain the upper hand with this talent, especially next year with the introduction of the universal aero kit, it could be a waste of money while Chevrolet had no influence over who drove a Chevrolet-powered car and saved some pennies along the way.
It will be interesting to see if Honda continues funneling talent to the series and if it works for the manufacture will it force Chevrolet to get more involved in who is on the grid? Chevrolet failed to entice Andretti Autosport to come back and it will be tough to expect any Honda team to switch over without any aid. A Honda team at the bottom of the pecking order could use Chevrolet's desire to have an additional competitive team to get a deal on engines or have the manufacture help pay for a driver or two quality drivers.
I don't think we will see teams stop signing drivers all together. Teams are still going to want specific drivers and are going to want sponsors to cover those costs. The Penskes, Ganassis and Andrettis of the world are going to want to decide who is in their cars. But how much of a shift do we see if IndyCar does not become a more appetizing place for sponsors? Manufacture-supported drivers could become the only way some teams remain on the grid if things don't change. While top names could be joining the series with help from Honda and maybe Chevrolet in the future, IndyCar should still want to increase its exposure to attract more sponsors and have teams be sustainable on their own.
IndyCar could be heading down a dangerous path if Honda and Chevrolet get too involved in where drivers go and then decide to bounce from the series but at the same time manufacture influence could strengthen the grid and keep familiar faces in the series. Only time will tell us if manufacture involvement in the driver market is for the best of the series.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez and Robert Wickens but did you know...
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond. Brad Keselowksi won the Grand National Series race.
Dominique Aegerter won the Moto2 race from Misano. Romano Fenati won the Moto3.
Lucas Auer won the Saturday DTM race from Nürburgring while Wickens won on Sunday.
Pierre Gasly won the Super Formula race from Autopolis, his second consecutive victory.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar season finale from Sonoma.
Pirelli World Challenge sprint season finale from Sonoma.
Formula One heads to the streets of Singapore for the tenth time.
NASCAR begins its Chase at Chicagoland for the final time.
Circuit of the Americas hosts the FIA World Endurance Championship for likely the final time.
World Superbikes return to Algarve after a year away.
Nürburgring is in use for a second consecutive weekend as it hosts the Blancpain Sprint Series season finale.
The Supercars series has its first endurance race of the season at the Sandown 500.
Is IndyCar Turning Japanese?
We have covered the strangeness of IndyCar silly season. Everyone seems to be on the move and yet a lot of things appear to be staying the same.
Andretti Autosport is sticking with Honda after all but the team is not keeping all its drivers. Alexander Rossi is staying put but Takuma Sato exits to return to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. It has become pretty clear Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton will not return to Chip Ganassi Racing. Ed Carpenter Racing has only confirmed Ed Carpenter will be back for 2018. One seat is in question at Dale Coyne Racing and Sébastien Bourdais is not the driver in question. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was chasing Alexander Rossi and it now has to look elsewhere. A.J. Foyt Racing may clean house after cleaning house last year. Team Penske appears to be contracting to three cars with Hélio Castroneves moving to the Acura sports car program.
More drivers appear to be lining up at IndyCar's already busy door. Besides the dozen current drivers who will be free agents this offseason, there are also a handful of Indy Lights drivers who are looking for a chance at the top level of North American open-wheel racing and a few interesting names from other forms of motorsports. Former Sauber F1 driver Felipe Nasr was at Watkins Glen and was putting out his feelers for a future move to IndyCar. Robert Wickens, who just won at the Nürburgring this weekend for Mercedes-Benz in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, is open to a move to IndyCar. Current Porsche LMP1 factory driver Brendon Hartley could be in line with a move to Chip Ganassi Racing. Sage Karam could be making a return to IndyCar and I am sure there are another half-dozen drivers I am forgetting.
The rumor that has me the most intrigued is the potential Hartley to Ganassi deal because I think it could signal a shifting culture in IndyCar that could be very beneficial to the series but could also lead IndyCar down a dangerous path and leave it in worse shape.
According to Racer's Marshall Pruett, Hartley's arrival to IndyCar sounds more like Honda would facilitate it and not a Honda team. Hartley would become a Honda-factory driver and paired with a Honda team, which could be Chip Ganassi Racing or it could be Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. What makes this more intriguing to me is that since Hartley would be a Honda-factory driver, he could be used as an endurance driver for the Acura DPi program, meaning Hartley could potential drive for Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske simultaneously.
Honda has been taking a more hands-on approach when it comes to the drivers within its IndyCar line-up. We know about Sato's relationship with Honda but Rossi's future with Andretti Autosport hung on whether or not the team stayed with Honda. It didn't sound like it was because of personal preference for Rossi but rather a professional tie to the manufacture. Honda even had a hand in facilitating Sébastien Bourdais' move to Dale Coyne Racing before the start of this season.
All these moves have me wondering are we seeing a new culture in IndyCar where the manufactures play more of a role in who is in the cars? It has been a rough ride for Honda in the last couple IndyCar seasons and a few seasons ago Honda had a significantly less experienced and less successful driver line-up. Has all these years of not having the upper to Chevrolet in terms of technical performance and drivers finally led the manufacture to take control and take some of the ease off the teams? It makes sense for teams to have Honda provide a driver, as the driver would be a loanee, with Honda paying him or her. The team wouldn't have to worry about spending out of pocket for a driver and at the same time would not have to rely on a pay driver who might not have the talent to compete at the front.
It appears Honda of North America could be taking a common practice in Japanese motorsports and applying it in North America. It is normal for drivers to sign for a manufacture and race in Super Formula and Super GT. Takuya Izawa has been a Honda driver in Super Formula and Super GT for the last decade and his relationship with the brand led to him getting a shot in the GP2 Series when Honda returned to Formula One with McLaren and McLaren had a tie to ART Grand Prix. Kazuki Nakajima is a part of the Toyota LMP1 program but he also drives for Team TOM'S in Super Formula and Super GT. Nakajima's Toyota LMP1 teammate Kamui Kobayashi also has a ride in Super Formula, driving a Toyota for KCMG.
It would also be similar to what the German manufactures in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. It wasn't long ago when Audi LMP1 drivers such as Tom Kristensen and Frank Biela and Mike Rockenfeller spent time in the DTM when not driving the Audi R8 or Audi R10. Even today, drivers for Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are running multiple series for the manufactures. René Rast, Nico Müller and Jamie Green have each been involved in a handful for Blancpain GT Series races for Audi while Maxime Martin, Tom Blomqvist and Bruno Spengler have done the same for BMW. Lucas Auer has moonlighted for Mercedes-Benz in the ADAC GT Masters this season while Maro Engel has run the Bathurst 12 Hour and Spa 24 Hours for the manufacture.
Depending on what happens with Hartley, we could see all five Honda teams with a driver that Honda helped secure the seat for. While Honda has been helpful, Chevrolet has been hands-off. The one noticeable difference is the three Chevrolet teams have paying seats. Team Penske, Ed Carpenter Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing each have sponsors footing the bill but while they are all paying rides only one Chevrolet team has been responsible for all the of the manufactures' victories this season. At the same time, all of Chevrolet's victories are coming from Team Penske with drivers the manufacture isn't paying anything for. It doesn't seem like Chevrolet should start getting involved but getting involved could add more depth to the Chevrolet IndyCar roster.
There is some cause for concern with Honda's recent approach to IndyCar. While it brings quality drivers to the grid and keeps veterans in the series, it could lead for a harsh reality if or when Honda pulls out of IndyCar. All of a sudden a handful of drivers will be without the manufacture connection and teams will have to start paying drivers or hiring pay drivers. At the same time, if Honda cannot gain the upper hand with this talent, especially next year with the introduction of the universal aero kit, it could be a waste of money while Chevrolet had no influence over who drove a Chevrolet-powered car and saved some pennies along the way.
It will be interesting to see if Honda continues funneling talent to the series and if it works for the manufacture will it force Chevrolet to get more involved in who is on the grid? Chevrolet failed to entice Andretti Autosport to come back and it will be tough to expect any Honda team to switch over without any aid. A Honda team at the bottom of the pecking order could use Chevrolet's desire to have an additional competitive team to get a deal on engines or have the manufacture help pay for a driver or two quality drivers.
I don't think we will see teams stop signing drivers all together. Teams are still going to want specific drivers and are going to want sponsors to cover those costs. The Penskes, Ganassis and Andrettis of the world are going to want to decide who is in their cars. But how much of a shift do we see if IndyCar does not become a more appetizing place for sponsors? Manufacture-supported drivers could become the only way some teams remain on the grid if things don't change. While top names could be joining the series with help from Honda and maybe Chevrolet in the future, IndyCar should still want to increase its exposure to attract more sponsors and have teams be sustainable on their own.
IndyCar could be heading down a dangerous path if Honda and Chevrolet get too involved in where drivers go and then decide to bounce from the series but at the same time manufacture influence could strengthen the grid and keep familiar faces in the series. Only time will tell us if manufacture involvement in the driver market is for the best of the series.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez and Robert Wickens but did you know...
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond. Brad Keselowksi won the Grand National Series race.
Dominique Aegerter won the Moto2 race from Misano. Romano Fenati won the Moto3.
Lucas Auer won the Saturday DTM race from Nürburgring while Wickens won on Sunday.
Pierre Gasly won the Super Formula race from Autopolis, his second consecutive victory.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar season finale from Sonoma.
Pirelli World Challenge sprint season finale from Sonoma.
Formula One heads to the streets of Singapore for the tenth time.
NASCAR begins its Chase at Chicagoland for the final time.
Circuit of the Americas hosts the FIA World Endurance Championship for likely the final time.
World Superbikes return to Algarve after a year away.
Nürburgring is in use for a second consecutive weekend as it hosts the Blancpain Sprint Series season finale.
The Supercars series has its first endurance race of the season at the Sandown 500.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
1000 Words: 2007 IndyCar Series Season Finale
Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of a three-way title fight for the Indy Racing League championship. The title fight marked a pivotal time for IndyCar though most of us didn't know what was going to transpire in the coming offseason.
Dario Franchitti had controlled the championship ever since he won the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500 in May. He closed the first half of the season with a pair of victories, the inaugural Iowa race and at Richmond. He had eight top five finishes from the first nine races and six of those finishes were on the podium. However, the tide turned when the calendar switched over to July. Scott Dixon went on a tear, winning three consecutive races at Watkins Glen, Nashville and Mid-Ohio. However, Franchitti kept finding a spot on the podium. While Dixon clawed his way back into the championship fight, Franchitti was preventing Dixon from taking control of the title race.
The gap between the two drivers was 24 points entering Michigan, a race we went over a month ago. Franchitti leading the most laps in that race prevented Dixon from gaining any ground but the next race at Kentucky saw Dixon take a chunk out of the Scotsman's lead. Franchitti had to make an extended pit stop to replace a damaged front wing after hitting a cone entering the pit lane after going side-by-side into the pit lane with his teammate Danica Patrick, dropping him from contention. Tony Kanaan went on to win the race with Dixon finishing second and A.J. Foyt IV finishing third. Franchitti took the checkered flag but as the last car on the lead lap in eighth and not challenging for seventh but Franchitti had not realized he took the checkered flag. By the time he realized the race was over, he ran over the back of Kosuke Matsuura and flipped. Both drivers walked away and Franchitti's lead was down to eight points.
Sonoma appeared to be a chance for Franchitti to extend his championship lead. He led 57 of the first 63 laps. It appeared he would cycle back to the lead during the final pit cycle but a collision with teammate Marco Andretti at the top of the hill in turn two after the American's pit stop put Andretti in the tires and caused significant damage to Franchitti's front wing with Dixon set to be second for the restart. He was a sitting duck and Dixon took the lead with eight laps to go before another caution. Fortunately for Franchitti, he had his teammate Kanaan run block and keep the Scotsman in third. Dixon won the race and took a three-points lead in the championship over Franchitti.
The penultimate round at Belle Isle saw Franchitti once again running better of the two title contenders and he took the lead just before the first caution. However, a flurry cautions shook up the field and Franchitti found himself behind Dixon as the race came to a close. Kanaan led Buddy Rice, who was stretching fuel, Dixon and Franchitti. The frequency of cautions caused the race to become a timed race. Dixon was itching to get by Rice and pick up a few more points on Franchitti. On the penultimate lap, Dixon made a move on Rice in the penultimate corner and slight contact put him into the tire barrier while Dixon spun exiting the corner and momentum caused him to back into Franchitti. However, Franchitti was able to be re-fired and take the checkered flag and Dixon was out of his car. Franchitti would finish ahead Dixon and Rice would be classified ahead of Dixon. Add the bonus points for most laps led and Franchitti had a seven-point lead entering the season finale at Chicagoland over Dixon and Kanaan was mathematically still alive for the championship, 39 points behind his teammate.
Franchitti started on pole position but the Team Penske cars of Sam Hornish, Jr. and Hélio Castroneves went by early and Dan Wheldon and Dixon would be up to third and fourth within 20 laps. One point separated Franchitti and Dixon at that point in the race. Marco Andretti had an accident in turn four bring out the first caution on lap 34. Dixon jumped to second on that round of pit stops while Franchitti remained in fifth. Dixon took the championship lead, seven points over Franchitti.
The race had a really good pace. After the first caution the next 93 laps were run under green flag conditions. Most of the race saw the Team Penske cars leading Dixon, Wheldon and Franchitti in lockstep. It is quite noticeable how processional these races were by the time the IRL reached 2007. This wasn't pack racing at all. Everyone was spaced out. The top five were gone from the rest of the field. They were covered by less than a second but sixth on back were nowhere to been seen well before the halfway point of the race.
Vitor Meira had an accident during the third round of pit stops with 63 laps to go. The Team Penske drivers had already stopped as had Wheldon while Dixon was on the pit lane as the caution was thrown. Franchitti had stayed out and was the leader until he made his pit stop. Dixon had exited the pit lane before Franchitti passed him meaning he remained on the lead lap and inherited the lead when Franchitti came in. The lengthy yellow put drivers into position to try and stretch it on fuel if they decided to top off for fuel. Both Dixon and Franchitti topped off with 52 laps to go and both drivers remained first and second respectively.
Within ten laps after the restart Hornish, Jr. retook the lead while Franchitti lost positions to Danica Patrick, Wheldon and Castroneves. Franchitti would get back by Patrick but was still fifth while Dixon ran second and held a seven-point championship lead. With 17 laps to go Hornish, Jr. made a pit stop, handing the lead to Dixon while Franchitti moved up to third after he passed Castroneves later that lap but Dixon took a 12-points advantage over Franchitti.
Franchitti was concerned that he was not going to be able to make it with out another caution while Dixon was trying to conserve fuel while in the lead before he let Wheldon by and settled into second position but cutting his championship advantage to two points as Franchitti ran in third. Wheldon ran out of fuel entering turn one with seven laps to go and later that lap Patrick spun entering pit lane causing a caution with six laps to go. The events of those ten laps left Dixon and Franchitti as the only two cars on the lead lap when the race restarted with two laps to go.
Dixon held the lead while Franchitti ran on the high line for the majority of the penultimate lap. On the final lap, Franchitti settled behind Dixon on the back straightaway and caught a draft into turn three only to have Dixon run out of fuel and forced Franchitti to make a quick move to the outside to take the lead and win the race and the championship. Dixon coasted to second.
It is interesting to see how the last ten years have gone. I don't think anyone thought after that race that Franchitti would go on to win two more Indianapolis 500s and three more championship. After that race it seemed the consensus was Franchitti was on his way to the Acura sports car program with then-Andretti Green Racing and then came the surprise NASCAR deal with Ganassi. Of course, the NASCAR stint didn't go as planned and by the end of 2008 he and Dixon would be teammates.
Ten years later, Scott Dixon heads to another IndyCar season finale sitting second in the championship by a handful of points. He has since added another three championships and another 30 victories, including an Indianapolis 500 and a half-dozen fuel mileage races that went his way. He will go down as one of the all-time greats in IndyCar history and he could have the second-most IndyCar championship in a week in a half (depending on how you look at the history books and if you consider Rick Mears a six-time champion because he won the Indianapolis 500 two years when it was the only round of the USAC Gold Crown Championship).
Sam Hornish, Jr. would also be heading to NASCAR after the 2007 season and he has not raced in IndyCar since. I am not sure anyone expected Hornish, Jr. to stay in NASCAR for as long as he has. I don't think Hornish, Jr. gets enough credit for how respectable of a NASCAR driver he has become. It took sometime but he did become a competitive driver and he had a championship slip out of his hands in the then-Nationwide Series. He has gone on to win five races in NASCAR's second division and he has become somewhat of a super one-off driver. It is kind of a shame that he moved on completely from IndyCar and hasn't come back to do the Indianapolis 500 as a regular one-off. Hornish, Jr. left before reunification. I wish we got to see him compete against this current quality of a grid.
That Chicagoland race was the debut for Hideki Mutoh, who would finish eighth. His IndyCar career was respectable but not overwhelming successful. I doubt Mutoh thought that day at Chicagoland ten years later he would be teammates with Jenson Button. While this race would be the debut for Mutoh and the farewell for Hornish, Jr., it would also be a farewell to P.J. Chesson, who drove for Roth Racing in this race.
The 2007 season finale had 22 cars; pretty similar to the grid size we will see at Sonoma this season. It is hard to argue that the quality of the grid hasn't gotten better. Gone are Marty Roth and Milka Duno. We don't have any drivers we scratch our heads over. Everyone has had success and has raced well in a junior series. There isn't a driver on the grid that you can pencil in as being the slowest and be a second off the second-slowest car on the timesheet. IndyCar has come a long way, even if it doesn't feel like it. Reunification helped.
While not being the greatest oval race ever, even at an average Chicagoland race there is a clear difference in feelings and nerves when ending a season on an oval to a road course. At an oval, there is more of a chance of the deck being shuffled up or a car coming from the back and at the start of the race a driver could be looking good only to have a pit cycle or two see them slide down the running order and find themselves losing the championship. At a road course, the variance isn't there. Cars don't jump from the back to the front as often and most of the time it only happens when a caution comes during the middle of a pit cycle to shuffle everything up.
This was the last season where Team Penske didn't have a driver in championship contention entering the season finale. That is a pretty good record but when you consider in the last ten seasons that team has only won two championships, it makes you scratch your head.
On second viewing of this race, it wasn't as good as I remembered it. Before watching it I had thought it was one of the more underrated race in IndyCar history, a hidden gem because of the split. The racing itself wasn't that great and I think at the time the championship battle and the fact that the two drivers going for the championship were running first and second with two laps to go and were the only cars on the lead lap is what made me believe it was a great race. Don't get me wrong, the climax couldn't have been scripted any better and for those final 50 laps my heart was firmly placed in my throat and even second time watching I felt my heart rate go up but when you consider what happened on the race track, it is hard to say anything happened. The top five ran away from the field and remained pretty much in that order. There might have been great racing going on from sixth to last but ABC didn't show any of it. If that was the case, it felt like the director at that time really mailed it in and decided just to stay on the front five.
There is something I miss about those days even though they were segmented, spec and sub-optimal. If you didn't pick a side, the split was kind of fun. You got to enjoy 31 American open-wheel races in a year. That is never going to happen again but this is where you take quality over quantity. They might not be our favorite days in IndyCar history but this is all we have to look back on and for some this is what they grew up with and they didn't know about the politics and loved it because it is all they had. It might not have been pretty but it was fun nonetheless.
Dario Franchitti had controlled the championship ever since he won the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500 in May. He closed the first half of the season with a pair of victories, the inaugural Iowa race and at Richmond. He had eight top five finishes from the first nine races and six of those finishes were on the podium. However, the tide turned when the calendar switched over to July. Scott Dixon went on a tear, winning three consecutive races at Watkins Glen, Nashville and Mid-Ohio. However, Franchitti kept finding a spot on the podium. While Dixon clawed his way back into the championship fight, Franchitti was preventing Dixon from taking control of the title race.
The gap between the two drivers was 24 points entering Michigan, a race we went over a month ago. Franchitti leading the most laps in that race prevented Dixon from gaining any ground but the next race at Kentucky saw Dixon take a chunk out of the Scotsman's lead. Franchitti had to make an extended pit stop to replace a damaged front wing after hitting a cone entering the pit lane after going side-by-side into the pit lane with his teammate Danica Patrick, dropping him from contention. Tony Kanaan went on to win the race with Dixon finishing second and A.J. Foyt IV finishing third. Franchitti took the checkered flag but as the last car on the lead lap in eighth and not challenging for seventh but Franchitti had not realized he took the checkered flag. By the time he realized the race was over, he ran over the back of Kosuke Matsuura and flipped. Both drivers walked away and Franchitti's lead was down to eight points.
Sonoma appeared to be a chance for Franchitti to extend his championship lead. He led 57 of the first 63 laps. It appeared he would cycle back to the lead during the final pit cycle but a collision with teammate Marco Andretti at the top of the hill in turn two after the American's pit stop put Andretti in the tires and caused significant damage to Franchitti's front wing with Dixon set to be second for the restart. He was a sitting duck and Dixon took the lead with eight laps to go before another caution. Fortunately for Franchitti, he had his teammate Kanaan run block and keep the Scotsman in third. Dixon won the race and took a three-points lead in the championship over Franchitti.
The penultimate round at Belle Isle saw Franchitti once again running better of the two title contenders and he took the lead just before the first caution. However, a flurry cautions shook up the field and Franchitti found himself behind Dixon as the race came to a close. Kanaan led Buddy Rice, who was stretching fuel, Dixon and Franchitti. The frequency of cautions caused the race to become a timed race. Dixon was itching to get by Rice and pick up a few more points on Franchitti. On the penultimate lap, Dixon made a move on Rice in the penultimate corner and slight contact put him into the tire barrier while Dixon spun exiting the corner and momentum caused him to back into Franchitti. However, Franchitti was able to be re-fired and take the checkered flag and Dixon was out of his car. Franchitti would finish ahead Dixon and Rice would be classified ahead of Dixon. Add the bonus points for most laps led and Franchitti had a seven-point lead entering the season finale at Chicagoland over Dixon and Kanaan was mathematically still alive for the championship, 39 points behind his teammate.
Franchitti started on pole position but the Team Penske cars of Sam Hornish, Jr. and Hélio Castroneves went by early and Dan Wheldon and Dixon would be up to third and fourth within 20 laps. One point separated Franchitti and Dixon at that point in the race. Marco Andretti had an accident in turn four bring out the first caution on lap 34. Dixon jumped to second on that round of pit stops while Franchitti remained in fifth. Dixon took the championship lead, seven points over Franchitti.
The race had a really good pace. After the first caution the next 93 laps were run under green flag conditions. Most of the race saw the Team Penske cars leading Dixon, Wheldon and Franchitti in lockstep. It is quite noticeable how processional these races were by the time the IRL reached 2007. This wasn't pack racing at all. Everyone was spaced out. The top five were gone from the rest of the field. They were covered by less than a second but sixth on back were nowhere to been seen well before the halfway point of the race.
Vitor Meira had an accident during the third round of pit stops with 63 laps to go. The Team Penske drivers had already stopped as had Wheldon while Dixon was on the pit lane as the caution was thrown. Franchitti had stayed out and was the leader until he made his pit stop. Dixon had exited the pit lane before Franchitti passed him meaning he remained on the lead lap and inherited the lead when Franchitti came in. The lengthy yellow put drivers into position to try and stretch it on fuel if they decided to top off for fuel. Both Dixon and Franchitti topped off with 52 laps to go and both drivers remained first and second respectively.
Within ten laps after the restart Hornish, Jr. retook the lead while Franchitti lost positions to Danica Patrick, Wheldon and Castroneves. Franchitti would get back by Patrick but was still fifth while Dixon ran second and held a seven-point championship lead. With 17 laps to go Hornish, Jr. made a pit stop, handing the lead to Dixon while Franchitti moved up to third after he passed Castroneves later that lap but Dixon took a 12-points advantage over Franchitti.
Franchitti was concerned that he was not going to be able to make it with out another caution while Dixon was trying to conserve fuel while in the lead before he let Wheldon by and settled into second position but cutting his championship advantage to two points as Franchitti ran in third. Wheldon ran out of fuel entering turn one with seven laps to go and later that lap Patrick spun entering pit lane causing a caution with six laps to go. The events of those ten laps left Dixon and Franchitti as the only two cars on the lead lap when the race restarted with two laps to go.
Dixon held the lead while Franchitti ran on the high line for the majority of the penultimate lap. On the final lap, Franchitti settled behind Dixon on the back straightaway and caught a draft into turn three only to have Dixon run out of fuel and forced Franchitti to make a quick move to the outside to take the lead and win the race and the championship. Dixon coasted to second.
It is interesting to see how the last ten years have gone. I don't think anyone thought after that race that Franchitti would go on to win two more Indianapolis 500s and three more championship. After that race it seemed the consensus was Franchitti was on his way to the Acura sports car program with then-Andretti Green Racing and then came the surprise NASCAR deal with Ganassi. Of course, the NASCAR stint didn't go as planned and by the end of 2008 he and Dixon would be teammates.
Ten years later, Scott Dixon heads to another IndyCar season finale sitting second in the championship by a handful of points. He has since added another three championships and another 30 victories, including an Indianapolis 500 and a half-dozen fuel mileage races that went his way. He will go down as one of the all-time greats in IndyCar history and he could have the second-most IndyCar championship in a week in a half (depending on how you look at the history books and if you consider Rick Mears a six-time champion because he won the Indianapolis 500 two years when it was the only round of the USAC Gold Crown Championship).
Sam Hornish, Jr. would also be heading to NASCAR after the 2007 season and he has not raced in IndyCar since. I am not sure anyone expected Hornish, Jr. to stay in NASCAR for as long as he has. I don't think Hornish, Jr. gets enough credit for how respectable of a NASCAR driver he has become. It took sometime but he did become a competitive driver and he had a championship slip out of his hands in the then-Nationwide Series. He has gone on to win five races in NASCAR's second division and he has become somewhat of a super one-off driver. It is kind of a shame that he moved on completely from IndyCar and hasn't come back to do the Indianapolis 500 as a regular one-off. Hornish, Jr. left before reunification. I wish we got to see him compete against this current quality of a grid.
That Chicagoland race was the debut for Hideki Mutoh, who would finish eighth. His IndyCar career was respectable but not overwhelming successful. I doubt Mutoh thought that day at Chicagoland ten years later he would be teammates with Jenson Button. While this race would be the debut for Mutoh and the farewell for Hornish, Jr., it would also be a farewell to P.J. Chesson, who drove for Roth Racing in this race.
The 2007 season finale had 22 cars; pretty similar to the grid size we will see at Sonoma this season. It is hard to argue that the quality of the grid hasn't gotten better. Gone are Marty Roth and Milka Duno. We don't have any drivers we scratch our heads over. Everyone has had success and has raced well in a junior series. There isn't a driver on the grid that you can pencil in as being the slowest and be a second off the second-slowest car on the timesheet. IndyCar has come a long way, even if it doesn't feel like it. Reunification helped.
While not being the greatest oval race ever, even at an average Chicagoland race there is a clear difference in feelings and nerves when ending a season on an oval to a road course. At an oval, there is more of a chance of the deck being shuffled up or a car coming from the back and at the start of the race a driver could be looking good only to have a pit cycle or two see them slide down the running order and find themselves losing the championship. At a road course, the variance isn't there. Cars don't jump from the back to the front as often and most of the time it only happens when a caution comes during the middle of a pit cycle to shuffle everything up.
This was the last season where Team Penske didn't have a driver in championship contention entering the season finale. That is a pretty good record but when you consider in the last ten seasons that team has only won two championships, it makes you scratch your head.
On second viewing of this race, it wasn't as good as I remembered it. Before watching it I had thought it was one of the more underrated race in IndyCar history, a hidden gem because of the split. The racing itself wasn't that great and I think at the time the championship battle and the fact that the two drivers going for the championship were running first and second with two laps to go and were the only cars on the lead lap is what made me believe it was a great race. Don't get me wrong, the climax couldn't have been scripted any better and for those final 50 laps my heart was firmly placed in my throat and even second time watching I felt my heart rate go up but when you consider what happened on the race track, it is hard to say anything happened. The top five ran away from the field and remained pretty much in that order. There might have been great racing going on from sixth to last but ABC didn't show any of it. If that was the case, it felt like the director at that time really mailed it in and decided just to stay on the front five.
Monday, September 4, 2017
Musings From the Weekend: Farewell Aero Kits
The IndyCar championship comes down to a six-horse race in Sonoma. The penultimate round of the IndyCar season avoided rain. Formula One qualifying did not avoid rain and it took four hours for history to be made at Monza. Unfortunately, a race had to be cancelled in the process. The good news is two Italians won in front of the tifosi. The Pirelli World Challenge SprintX championship came to a close. The FIA WEC announced serious series changes before its round in Mexico City. NASCAR fans lost their minds over an incident in the Truck series that most will get over by lunch today. Daniel Suárez might have lost his Subway sponsorship over handing out Dunkin' Donuts almost two months ago. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Farewell Aero Kits
With one IndyCar race to go we have one race remaining in the aero kit-era of IndyCar. When it is all said and done 49 races will have taken place during the aero kit-era. Only two kit manufactures ever stepped up to the plate. The Chevrolet-backed Pratt & Miller kit and the Honda-backed Wirth Research kit and the Chevrolet came out on top. It will either be 33 victories for Chevrolet or 34. The Honda kit won just over a dozen times and will end with either 15 or 16 victories.
The origins of aero kits were to provide difference in cars while still being the same chassis for all teams. It is hard to believe it has been over SEVEN years since a summer afternoon when the hardly memorable ICONIC committee unveiled what the future of IndyCar would look like. I still can't fathom why IndyCar, when five chassis manufactures were beating at the door to come in, chose one instead of allowing all to play. Instead of having Lola and Swift and the DeltaWing and BAT Engineering compete with Dallara, the series loved the one it was with enough that it decided to maintain its monogamous relationship with its chassis manufacturer.
Despite sticking with Dallara, the hope was a plethora of manufactures, from the automotive industry and beyond, would enter IndyCar.
ICONIC committee spokesman, former Jaguar Racing team principal Tony Purnell left us with the only memorable line from that unveiling of what would become the DW12 chassis. Sadly, reality has never lived up to the hopes. "Come on Ford, GM, Lotus, Ferrari. Come on Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Electric. Come on you engineers working in your garage and small shops."
We got GM and Lotus and Lotus was gone after year one, before the aero kits introduction. Ford and Ferrari were never interested. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Electric probably have no clue they were challenged.
Aero kits were put off in year one of the DW12-era to save teams money. And again in year two to save teams money. And again in year three to save teams money. The teams had spent enough buying new cars for 2012 that any extra spending was trying to be avoided and then three seasons of eye-opening racing and passing on ovals that had not been seen since the Hanford Device-era of CART made many wonder why go to the aero kits at all? IndyCar had found the solution after a rough handful of years with the IR03/05/07 chassis where Tony Cotman had to issue a rule to prevent drivers from defending the inside line into corners at road and street course.
However, the manufactures had already started developing the aero kits and with that money spent aero kits were going to happen at some point. By 2015, enough was enough and IndyCar voyaged into another unknown. There was some excitement and trepidation; those two emotions are joined at the hip. Someone was going to come out on top. The hope was the difference between the two manufactures wouldn't be that great. It became clear quickly Chevrolet had gotten it right by a significant margin over Honda.
Chevrolet won every pole position in 2015 and it won eight of the first ten races that season. The races it didn't win were rain-shortened races at NOLA Motorsports Park and Belle Isle. Honda came back strong at the end of that season with Graham Rahal and Ryan Hunter-Reay each taking a pair of victories but it ended 10-6 in favor of Chevrolet. Chevrolet drivers took four of the top five in the championship.
Tens of millions of dollars were spent developing these kits between the two manufactures. It ended up costing more than most thought it would. Many were tired of the aero kit before the 2015 season was over but there was no turning back for 2016. The original DW12 aero kit was already obsolete. We were stuck with the kits for another season. Once again, Chevrolet had the clear upper hand, winning the first five races all but confirmed no change for year two. But Honda was able to take the fight back to Chevrolet at Indianapolis and had advantage with the low downforce kit. We all know how the rest of the story plays out: Honda wins at Indianapolis and Texas, should have won at Pocono and 2016 ends with Chevrolet winning all but two races.
This year started with an encouraging sign. Honda won the first two races. It kept its low downforce kit advantage and took the upper hand on street circuits. Through eight races, with Honda leading Chevrolet with five victories to three, I even questioned whether the universal aero kit was necessary. I thought the freeze in aero kit development and subsequent engine developments by both manufactures had left the series at a state of equilibrium between the two manufactures. Since then, Chevrolet won six of the seven races prior to Watkins Glen and for the sixth consecutive season Chevrolet will have won more races than Honda.
I am the only one on the boat who enjoyed the aero kit-era. I loved the engineering struggle. I loved that one got it right and the other got it wrong. That is motorsports. I don't see it as a waste. Many thought and probably still do think the money used on aero kits should have been used on promotion of the series. The money never originally existed. It is not like Chevrolet and Honda each had $30 million to burn and decided to develop aero kits. The manufactures started developing aero kits and the project ended up costing $30 million. That was the cost to be competitive. Had aero kits never happened Chevrolet and Honda weren't going to pour $60 million into marketing the series. Hell, they wouldn't have poured in $6 million.
Think about aero kits in the same light as if you decided to re-design your own bathroom. You might have a budget but all of a sudden you need to different fixtures because the original ones you bought didn't fit the cabinet doors you bought or you need to get an extra case of tiles for the shower because a few were chipped or broken. You can't decide not to buy those things. You are going to want doorknobs on your cabinets. Those are things essential to a bathroom and you are going to have to spend on even if it means going over on the original budget. Aero kits were no different.
It wasn't perfect. What led to the downfall of aero kits, besides cost, was the manufacture ties to aero kits. Teams were stuck. You had to run what the manufactures provided. There was no independent option out for teams to choose and maybe IndyCar dropped the ball and should have regulated it so aero kit manufactures were independent from the engine manufactures and you could have seen two different aero kits on the Chevrolets and Hondas to mix up the grid.
It wasn't as bad as it seemed. Nothing changed in IndyCar. Chevrolet was the best manufacture in the first three years of the DW12-era and it was the best manufacture in the three years of the aero kit-era. IndyCar has still be an open series where any driver and team can win on any day. Take into consideration the number of different winners per season and number of different teams that won per season:
2012: Eight different drivers from five teams.
2013: Ten different drivers from seven teams.
2014: 11 different drivers from seven teams.
2015: Nine different drivers from seven teams.
2016: Eight different drivers from six teams.
2017: Ten different drivers from six teams and with one race remaining.
Take this year as the best example. Many thought Honda was going to get smoked this year and within the first seven races we had seven different winners, four of those winners were Hondas and those four winners came from four different teams and on top of all that the final Honda team to win this season was Chip Ganassi Racing.
Maybe the aero kit-era was something IndyCar had to go through. Consider what IndyCar will be debuting next year. Would the universal aero kit that drivers, teams and fans are excited about for 2018 exist if everyone had decided that aero kits should never see the light of day and everyone would stick with the original Dallara aero kit indefinitely? Probably not. Everyone would have probably reached a place of compliancy with the original Dallara aero kit and figured to stick with it because it wasn't broken. Consider that the ICONIC committee announcement was made on July 14, 2010. Next July 14th think about what will be on track, whether it be at Iowa or Toronto or somewhere else and ask yourself, would you be looking at that car if it hadn't been for what took place in the eight years prior? The answer is no.
There is a part of Tony Purnell's words from 2010 that stick with me and I wish came true and I wish could still come true. I really hoped aero kits would allow some guy or girl to take an idea, throw it at the wall, build it in a garage and take it to the race track and try something different. I think that was a lost opportunity of the last three years and it will continue to be a lost opportunity as long as the universal aero kit is around. I wish the door could be open for someone with a dream, a flicker of an idea to put something on a car at the Indianapolis 500 that has never been seen before and built in a barn and put up a time in qualifying that leaves the jaws of Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi on the floor. Or at least has a respectable showing and qualifies in the top half of the grid.
Aero kits weren't all that bad but I think we all wish it could have been more.
Champions From the Weekend
Kyle Kasier won the Indy Lights championship by taking the green flag at Watkins Glen. He finished seventh and Aaron Telitz won the season finale.
Victor Franzoni won the Pro Mazda championship by sweeping the doubleheader at Watkins Glen.
Oliver Askew won the U.S. F2000 championship by finishing second at Watkins Glen to Rinus VeeKay in the finale.
The #8 Cadillac of Michael Cooper and Jordan Taylor Pirelli World Challenge SprintX championship at Circuit of the Americas with finishes of fourth, sixth and a retirement after one lap across the three races.
Lawson Aschenbach clinched the Pirelli World Challenge GTS Championship with two races to go after finishes of fifth and ninth from Circuit of the Americas.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Alexander Rossi, the Road to Indy and some of what happened from Austin but did you know...
Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix after he broke the record for pole positions in Formula One history when he picked up his 69th pole position.
Antonio Fuoco won the Formula Two feature race from Monza after Luca Ghiotto was handed a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. Ghiotto would win the sprint race on Sunday. George Russell won the only GP3 Series race this weekend after the race on Saturday was cancelled due to rain.
The #2 Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber won the 6 Hours of Mexico City, the team's third consecutive victory. The #31 Vaillante Rebellion Oreca-Gibson of Bruno Senna, Nicolas Prost and Julien Canal won in LMP2. The #95 Aston Martin of Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim won in GTE-Pro. The #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche of Christian Ried, Marvin Dienst and Matteo Cairoli won in GTE-Am, the team's second consecutive victory.
Denny Hamlin won the Southern 500 and the Grand National Series race from Darlington. Austin Cindric won the Truck race from Mosport after spinning Kaz Grala on the final lap.
The #58 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Patrick Long and Jörg Bergmeister won the make-up Pirelli World Challenge SprintX race held at Circuit of the Americas in place of the cancelled Mosport race. The #31 TR3 Racing Ferrari of Daniel Mancinelli and Niccolò Shirò won the Saturday SprintX race. The #2 CRP Racing Mercedes of Ryan Dalziel and Daniel Morad won the season finale of the SprintX season on Sunday.
Ian James and Rodrigo Baptiste split the Pirelli World Challenge GTS races from Austin.
Norbert Michelisz and Aurélien Panis split the TCR International races at Buriram.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR sets its Chase drivers once and for all at Richmond.
MotoGP returns to Italy with an Italian leading the championship at Misano.
DTM continues its slow death at the Nürburgring.
Super Formula will be at Autopolis.
Farewell Aero Kits
With one IndyCar race to go we have one race remaining in the aero kit-era of IndyCar. When it is all said and done 49 races will have taken place during the aero kit-era. Only two kit manufactures ever stepped up to the plate. The Chevrolet-backed Pratt & Miller kit and the Honda-backed Wirth Research kit and the Chevrolet came out on top. It will either be 33 victories for Chevrolet or 34. The Honda kit won just over a dozen times and will end with either 15 or 16 victories.
The origins of aero kits were to provide difference in cars while still being the same chassis for all teams. It is hard to believe it has been over SEVEN years since a summer afternoon when the hardly memorable ICONIC committee unveiled what the future of IndyCar would look like. I still can't fathom why IndyCar, when five chassis manufactures were beating at the door to come in, chose one instead of allowing all to play. Instead of having Lola and Swift and the DeltaWing and BAT Engineering compete with Dallara, the series loved the one it was with enough that it decided to maintain its monogamous relationship with its chassis manufacturer.
Despite sticking with Dallara, the hope was a plethora of manufactures, from the automotive industry and beyond, would enter IndyCar.
ICONIC committee spokesman, former Jaguar Racing team principal Tony Purnell left us with the only memorable line from that unveiling of what would become the DW12 chassis. Sadly, reality has never lived up to the hopes. "Come on Ford, GM, Lotus, Ferrari. Come on Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Electric. Come on you engineers working in your garage and small shops."
We got GM and Lotus and Lotus was gone after year one, before the aero kits introduction. Ford and Ferrari were never interested. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Electric probably have no clue they were challenged.
Aero kits were put off in year one of the DW12-era to save teams money. And again in year two to save teams money. And again in year three to save teams money. The teams had spent enough buying new cars for 2012 that any extra spending was trying to be avoided and then three seasons of eye-opening racing and passing on ovals that had not been seen since the Hanford Device-era of CART made many wonder why go to the aero kits at all? IndyCar had found the solution after a rough handful of years with the IR03/05/07 chassis where Tony Cotman had to issue a rule to prevent drivers from defending the inside line into corners at road and street course.
However, the manufactures had already started developing the aero kits and with that money spent aero kits were going to happen at some point. By 2015, enough was enough and IndyCar voyaged into another unknown. There was some excitement and trepidation; those two emotions are joined at the hip. Someone was going to come out on top. The hope was the difference between the two manufactures wouldn't be that great. It became clear quickly Chevrolet had gotten it right by a significant margin over Honda.
Chevrolet won every pole position in 2015 and it won eight of the first ten races that season. The races it didn't win were rain-shortened races at NOLA Motorsports Park and Belle Isle. Honda came back strong at the end of that season with Graham Rahal and Ryan Hunter-Reay each taking a pair of victories but it ended 10-6 in favor of Chevrolet. Chevrolet drivers took four of the top five in the championship.
Tens of millions of dollars were spent developing these kits between the two manufactures. It ended up costing more than most thought it would. Many were tired of the aero kit before the 2015 season was over but there was no turning back for 2016. The original DW12 aero kit was already obsolete. We were stuck with the kits for another season. Once again, Chevrolet had the clear upper hand, winning the first five races all but confirmed no change for year two. But Honda was able to take the fight back to Chevrolet at Indianapolis and had advantage with the low downforce kit. We all know how the rest of the story plays out: Honda wins at Indianapolis and Texas, should have won at Pocono and 2016 ends with Chevrolet winning all but two races.
This year started with an encouraging sign. Honda won the first two races. It kept its low downforce kit advantage and took the upper hand on street circuits. Through eight races, with Honda leading Chevrolet with five victories to three, I even questioned whether the universal aero kit was necessary. I thought the freeze in aero kit development and subsequent engine developments by both manufactures had left the series at a state of equilibrium between the two manufactures. Since then, Chevrolet won six of the seven races prior to Watkins Glen and for the sixth consecutive season Chevrolet will have won more races than Honda.
I am the only one on the boat who enjoyed the aero kit-era. I loved the engineering struggle. I loved that one got it right and the other got it wrong. That is motorsports. I don't see it as a waste. Many thought and probably still do think the money used on aero kits should have been used on promotion of the series. The money never originally existed. It is not like Chevrolet and Honda each had $30 million to burn and decided to develop aero kits. The manufactures started developing aero kits and the project ended up costing $30 million. That was the cost to be competitive. Had aero kits never happened Chevrolet and Honda weren't going to pour $60 million into marketing the series. Hell, they wouldn't have poured in $6 million.
Think about aero kits in the same light as if you decided to re-design your own bathroom. You might have a budget but all of a sudden you need to different fixtures because the original ones you bought didn't fit the cabinet doors you bought or you need to get an extra case of tiles for the shower because a few were chipped or broken. You can't decide not to buy those things. You are going to want doorknobs on your cabinets. Those are things essential to a bathroom and you are going to have to spend on even if it means going over on the original budget. Aero kits were no different.
It wasn't perfect. What led to the downfall of aero kits, besides cost, was the manufacture ties to aero kits. Teams were stuck. You had to run what the manufactures provided. There was no independent option out for teams to choose and maybe IndyCar dropped the ball and should have regulated it so aero kit manufactures were independent from the engine manufactures and you could have seen two different aero kits on the Chevrolets and Hondas to mix up the grid.
It wasn't as bad as it seemed. Nothing changed in IndyCar. Chevrolet was the best manufacture in the first three years of the DW12-era and it was the best manufacture in the three years of the aero kit-era. IndyCar has still be an open series where any driver and team can win on any day. Take into consideration the number of different winners per season and number of different teams that won per season:
2012: Eight different drivers from five teams.
2013: Ten different drivers from seven teams.
2014: 11 different drivers from seven teams.
2015: Nine different drivers from seven teams.
2016: Eight different drivers from six teams.
2017: Ten different drivers from six teams and with one race remaining.
Take this year as the best example. Many thought Honda was going to get smoked this year and within the first seven races we had seven different winners, four of those winners were Hondas and those four winners came from four different teams and on top of all that the final Honda team to win this season was Chip Ganassi Racing.
Maybe the aero kit-era was something IndyCar had to go through. Consider what IndyCar will be debuting next year. Would the universal aero kit that drivers, teams and fans are excited about for 2018 exist if everyone had decided that aero kits should never see the light of day and everyone would stick with the original Dallara aero kit indefinitely? Probably not. Everyone would have probably reached a place of compliancy with the original Dallara aero kit and figured to stick with it because it wasn't broken. Consider that the ICONIC committee announcement was made on July 14, 2010. Next July 14th think about what will be on track, whether it be at Iowa or Toronto or somewhere else and ask yourself, would you be looking at that car if it hadn't been for what took place in the eight years prior? The answer is no.
There is a part of Tony Purnell's words from 2010 that stick with me and I wish came true and I wish could still come true. I really hoped aero kits would allow some guy or girl to take an idea, throw it at the wall, build it in a garage and take it to the race track and try something different. I think that was a lost opportunity of the last three years and it will continue to be a lost opportunity as long as the universal aero kit is around. I wish the door could be open for someone with a dream, a flicker of an idea to put something on a car at the Indianapolis 500 that has never been seen before and built in a barn and put up a time in qualifying that leaves the jaws of Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi on the floor. Or at least has a respectable showing and qualifies in the top half of the grid.
Aero kits weren't all that bad but I think we all wish it could have been more.
Champions From the Weekend
Kyle Kasier won the Indy Lights championship by taking the green flag at Watkins Glen. He finished seventh and Aaron Telitz won the season finale.
Victor Franzoni won the Pro Mazda championship by sweeping the doubleheader at Watkins Glen.
Oliver Askew won the U.S. F2000 championship by finishing second at Watkins Glen to Rinus VeeKay in the finale.
The #8 Cadillac of Michael Cooper and Jordan Taylor Pirelli World Challenge SprintX championship at Circuit of the Americas with finishes of fourth, sixth and a retirement after one lap across the three races.
Lawson Aschenbach clinched the Pirelli World Challenge GTS Championship with two races to go after finishes of fifth and ninth from Circuit of the Americas.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Alexander Rossi, the Road to Indy and some of what happened from Austin but did you know...
Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix after he broke the record for pole positions in Formula One history when he picked up his 69th pole position.
Antonio Fuoco won the Formula Two feature race from Monza after Luca Ghiotto was handed a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. Ghiotto would win the sprint race on Sunday. George Russell won the only GP3 Series race this weekend after the race on Saturday was cancelled due to rain.
The #2 Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber won the 6 Hours of Mexico City, the team's third consecutive victory. The #31 Vaillante Rebellion Oreca-Gibson of Bruno Senna, Nicolas Prost and Julien Canal won in LMP2. The #95 Aston Martin of Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim won in GTE-Pro. The #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche of Christian Ried, Marvin Dienst and Matteo Cairoli won in GTE-Am, the team's second consecutive victory.
Denny Hamlin won the Southern 500 and the Grand National Series race from Darlington. Austin Cindric won the Truck race from Mosport after spinning Kaz Grala on the final lap.
The #58 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Patrick Long and Jörg Bergmeister won the make-up Pirelli World Challenge SprintX race held at Circuit of the Americas in place of the cancelled Mosport race. The #31 TR3 Racing Ferrari of Daniel Mancinelli and Niccolò Shirò won the Saturday SprintX race. The #2 CRP Racing Mercedes of Ryan Dalziel and Daniel Morad won the season finale of the SprintX season on Sunday.
Ian James and Rodrigo Baptiste split the Pirelli World Challenge GTS races from Austin.
Norbert Michelisz and Aurélien Panis split the TCR International races at Buriram.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR sets its Chase drivers once and for all at Richmond.
MotoGP returns to Italy with an Italian leading the championship at Misano.
DTM continues its slow death at the Nürburgring.
Super Formula will be at Autopolis.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
First Impressions: Watkins Glen 2017
1. Alexander Rossi gets a well-deserved victory on a day that was probably a lot more hair-raising than he wanted it to be. This wasn't the typical race where the pole-sitter walked away. Nineteen of 21 cars stopped after lap one to switch off the wet tires. Rossi kept the lead but a wiggle on a wet spot gave the lead to Hélio Castroneves on lap two. He would run down the Brazilian but a faulty fuel probe on the second stop forced him to stop early for his third stop. He was faster than everyone but was close to making it on fuel. He made it to the final fuel window and then a caution came out (more on that in a moment). Scott Dixon was on his heels but Rossi beat the New Zealander. Rossi signed a new two-year deal with Andretti Autosport. This isn't a bad start to that new deal.
2. Scott Dixon finished second and thanks to Team Penske stupidity, Dixon is three points behind Josef Newgarden for the championship lead. He was solid but he did get shuffled back early in the race. He drove a smart race and he got a top finish. Dixon is bound to win this championship.
3. Normally I go down the results in order and write about each driver but I need to get to Team Penske, who handed Scott Dixon the championship. Josef Newgarden was in the top ten and could have finished in the top five. On the final round of pit stops he exited the pit lane and Will Power stood on the gas to beat Newgarden out. Newgarden had a lock up, slid into the pit lane wall and was then hit from behind by Sébastien Bourdais, who had nowhere to go. Newgarden finished two laps down in 18th.
Everyone respects Team Penske for letting its drivers race but this was a case where the team should have set Power aside and said he is running block for three drivers today, especially Newgarden. Newgarden was going to lose ground to Dixon today but there is a big difference between leading Dixon by 23 points or 25 points and leading Dixon by three.
Power trailed Newgarden by 83 points entering today. He had a shot at the title but it was a long shot and the Team Penske way has traded a comfortable lead for Newgarden over Dixon and three cars eligible for the title for four cars championship eligible and basically nothing separating Dixon from a championship. Power finished sixth and he trails Newgarden by 68 points. It wasn't worth it. He should have sacrificed his title hopes to help his teammate.
Does Team Penske realize whom it is racing for the championship? This is Scott Dixon. He doesn't put a wheel wrong. Team Penske gave Scott Dixon an inch and Dixon is going to take the championship. Has Team Penske not learned anything over the last 15 years? Team Penske has a history of choking away championship and 2017 appears to be set up for another year of Team Penske finding a way to lose the title.
4. Ryan Hunter-Reay deserves a lot of praise for a third place finish. He got to the front and was quicker than every car that qualified ahead of him other than Rossi and Dixon. At one point, it appeared Hunter-Reay might have had a shot to win this race when he had a five-second lead after Rossi had to make his premature pit stop. He has come on strong in second half of the season and Sonoma has been a good track for him.
5. Another side bar, Honda finished 1-2-3 and we all thought this would be a Team Penske dominated race. We know nothing.
6. Hélio Castroneves kept his nose clean, he made up spots when everyone switched to dry tires and he led but he really didn't have the speed in a dry set up. But once again he finds a way to bring the car home in one piece and at the front. He trails Newgarden by 22 points and he will have a shot at a title in what could be his final race of full-time IndyCar competition.
7. Graham Rahal had another solid day. He trails Newgarden by 94 points so even if 25 cars entered, Rahal does would not have a shot at the championship because Newgarden owns the tiebreaker. It has been a solid year for Rahal and last year he was the best Honda at Sonoma.
8. We covered Will Power. He finished sixth.
9. Charlie Kimball was all over the place today. He ran off in turn one, in the bus stop chicane, he had another incident with Conor Daly and he still finished seventh. The man might be a bowling ball but he is making it hard for no one to hire him with results like that.
10. Max Chilton came home in eighth after stopping under the first caution and going off strategy. He might be a lame-duck driver at Chip Ganassi Racing but he got a solid result.
11. Simon Pagenaud really didn't have it today but he finished ninth, trails Newgarden by 34 points, so he is still solidly in it and he has a chance to complete every lap run in 2017. He could become the second driver in IndyCar history to complete every lap in a season. Most years, Pagenaud's season would have him leading the championship entering the final race. In the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season, he is fourth.
12. Carlos Muñoz finished tenth, his third consecutive top ten finish, and his teammate Conor Daly was challenging him and he finished 11th. I know this season didn't start well for A.J. Foyt Racing but the drivers have come on strong since the summer break and both these drivers should return for 2018.
13. Spencer Pigot finished 12th and J.R. Hildebrand finished 15th after both benefitted from pitting under the first caution but lost it on the second stint. They stopped about five laps early on their second fuel stint and they went from podium and top five contention to outside the top ten. This day didn't start well for Ed Carpenter Racing but it was looking to turn something magical in the team's 100th race. Unfortunately, they came back to earth just before the halfway point.
14. Ed Jones finished 13th ahead of fellow rookie Jack Harvey. Jones wasn't mentioned at all in this race and Harvey was one of those who stopped under the first caution and was all of a sudden in the top five. Harvey didn't have it today but it was a respectable road course debut for him.
15. Rest of the field: Marco Andretti was running in the top ten in most of this one and then had a problem in the final ten laps that dropped him to 16th. Sébastien Bourdais deserved better than 17th. He had nowhere to go as Newgarden slid into his path. Takuma Sato had a wastegate issue and was off the pace. He finished four laps down in 19th. Tony Kanaan did the same thing Newgarden did only 20 seconds after Newgarden did it except Kanaan hit the wall worse than Newgarden and he retired. James Hinchcliffe had a gearbox issue end his race after five laps.
16. Somehow, this race avoided the rain. It started wet but it was dry after lap one and I am sure everyone would have started on dry tires had the stewards not issued a wet start.
17. We get a week off and then we have the season finale at Sonoma. Where did this season go? It is 4:00 p.m. and the race is over. Plenty of time to start cooking dinner and eat at a decent hour. Thanks IndyCar.
2. Scott Dixon finished second and thanks to Team Penske stupidity, Dixon is three points behind Josef Newgarden for the championship lead. He was solid but he did get shuffled back early in the race. He drove a smart race and he got a top finish. Dixon is bound to win this championship.
3. Normally I go down the results in order and write about each driver but I need to get to Team Penske, who handed Scott Dixon the championship. Josef Newgarden was in the top ten and could have finished in the top five. On the final round of pit stops he exited the pit lane and Will Power stood on the gas to beat Newgarden out. Newgarden had a lock up, slid into the pit lane wall and was then hit from behind by Sébastien Bourdais, who had nowhere to go. Newgarden finished two laps down in 18th.
Everyone respects Team Penske for letting its drivers race but this was a case where the team should have set Power aside and said he is running block for three drivers today, especially Newgarden. Newgarden was going to lose ground to Dixon today but there is a big difference between leading Dixon by 23 points or 25 points and leading Dixon by three.
Power trailed Newgarden by 83 points entering today. He had a shot at the title but it was a long shot and the Team Penske way has traded a comfortable lead for Newgarden over Dixon and three cars eligible for the title for four cars championship eligible and basically nothing separating Dixon from a championship. Power finished sixth and he trails Newgarden by 68 points. It wasn't worth it. He should have sacrificed his title hopes to help his teammate.
Does Team Penske realize whom it is racing for the championship? This is Scott Dixon. He doesn't put a wheel wrong. Team Penske gave Scott Dixon an inch and Dixon is going to take the championship. Has Team Penske not learned anything over the last 15 years? Team Penske has a history of choking away championship and 2017 appears to be set up for another year of Team Penske finding a way to lose the title.
4. Ryan Hunter-Reay deserves a lot of praise for a third place finish. He got to the front and was quicker than every car that qualified ahead of him other than Rossi and Dixon. At one point, it appeared Hunter-Reay might have had a shot to win this race when he had a five-second lead after Rossi had to make his premature pit stop. He has come on strong in second half of the season and Sonoma has been a good track for him.
5. Another side bar, Honda finished 1-2-3 and we all thought this would be a Team Penske dominated race. We know nothing.
6. Hélio Castroneves kept his nose clean, he made up spots when everyone switched to dry tires and he led but he really didn't have the speed in a dry set up. But once again he finds a way to bring the car home in one piece and at the front. He trails Newgarden by 22 points and he will have a shot at a title in what could be his final race of full-time IndyCar competition.
7. Graham Rahal had another solid day. He trails Newgarden by 94 points so even if 25 cars entered, Rahal does would not have a shot at the championship because Newgarden owns the tiebreaker. It has been a solid year for Rahal and last year he was the best Honda at Sonoma.
8. We covered Will Power. He finished sixth.
9. Charlie Kimball was all over the place today. He ran off in turn one, in the bus stop chicane, he had another incident with Conor Daly and he still finished seventh. The man might be a bowling ball but he is making it hard for no one to hire him with results like that.
10. Max Chilton came home in eighth after stopping under the first caution and going off strategy. He might be a lame-duck driver at Chip Ganassi Racing but he got a solid result.
11. Simon Pagenaud really didn't have it today but he finished ninth, trails Newgarden by 34 points, so he is still solidly in it and he has a chance to complete every lap run in 2017. He could become the second driver in IndyCar history to complete every lap in a season. Most years, Pagenaud's season would have him leading the championship entering the final race. In the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season, he is fourth.
12. Carlos Muñoz finished tenth, his third consecutive top ten finish, and his teammate Conor Daly was challenging him and he finished 11th. I know this season didn't start well for A.J. Foyt Racing but the drivers have come on strong since the summer break and both these drivers should return for 2018.
13. Spencer Pigot finished 12th and J.R. Hildebrand finished 15th after both benefitted from pitting under the first caution but lost it on the second stint. They stopped about five laps early on their second fuel stint and they went from podium and top five contention to outside the top ten. This day didn't start well for Ed Carpenter Racing but it was looking to turn something magical in the team's 100th race. Unfortunately, they came back to earth just before the halfway point.
14. Ed Jones finished 13th ahead of fellow rookie Jack Harvey. Jones wasn't mentioned at all in this race and Harvey was one of those who stopped under the first caution and was all of a sudden in the top five. Harvey didn't have it today but it was a respectable road course debut for him.
15. Rest of the field: Marco Andretti was running in the top ten in most of this one and then had a problem in the final ten laps that dropped him to 16th. Sébastien Bourdais deserved better than 17th. He had nowhere to go as Newgarden slid into his path. Takuma Sato had a wastegate issue and was off the pace. He finished four laps down in 19th. Tony Kanaan did the same thing Newgarden did only 20 seconds after Newgarden did it except Kanaan hit the wall worse than Newgarden and he retired. James Hinchcliffe had a gearbox issue end his race after five laps.
16. Somehow, this race avoided the rain. It started wet but it was dry after lap one and I am sure everyone would have started on dry tires had the stewards not issued a wet start.
17. We get a week off and then we have the season finale at Sonoma. Where did this season go? It is 4:00 p.m. and the race is over. Plenty of time to start cooking dinner and eat at a decent hour. Thanks IndyCar.
Morning Warm-Up: Watkins Glen 2017
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| Can Alexander Rossi turn his first career pole position into his second career victory? |
Josef Newgarden missed out on the front row by one-ten thousandth of a second. Despite starting third, this is the first time this season Newgarden has been the top Team Penske qualifier. Newgarden leads Dixon by 31 points in the championship entering today's race. This is the first permanent road course race not to feature a Penske car on the front row since the 2014 Mid-Ohio race. Takuma Sato makes it two Andretti Autosport cars and three Hondas in the top four. A car starting on one of the first two rows has every IndyCar race at Watkins Glen. Sato won from fourth on the grid in this year's Indianapolis 500. Charlie Kimball qualified fifth in his first Firestone Fast Six appearance of the season. Kimball's only career victory came from fifth on the grid at Mid-Ohio in 2013 and Kimball has finished in the top ten all four times he has started fifth. Hélio Castroneves joins Kimball on row three. Castroneves has six consecutive top ten finishes. This will be the 23rd time Castroneves has started sixth in his career. Castroneves has been running at the finish in every race he has started sixth and he has finished on the lead lap in 20 of 22 starts from sixth.
Ryan Hunter-Reay missed on the Fast Six by 0.0032 seconds and he will start seventh. This is Hunter-Reay's best start at Watkins Glen since he won from third in the 2008 race. Will Power joins Hunter-Reay on row four. This is the second time this season Hunter-Reay and Power have shared a row this season. They both started on row six for the first Belle Isle race with Power starting a position ahead of the American. Both drivers are coming off of retirements at Gateway after accidents in turn two. Former Newman/Haas Racing teammates Sébastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal round out the top ten. Bourdais is coming off leading five laps and finishing tenth in his IndyCar return last week. Bourdais won from ninth in the second race of the 2015 Belle Isle doubleheader. This is Rahal's best career starting position at Watkins Glen.
Carlos Muñoz made it to the second round of qualifying for the first time since the season opener at St. Petersburg and like that race Muñoz will start 11th. Next to Muñoz will be Simon Pagenaud. Pagenaud has only advanced to the Fast Six session three times out of a possible eight. Last year, Pagenaud made the Fast Six session eight out of nine times and the lone race he didn't advance to the final round of qualifying was Watkins Glen. Spencer Pigot and Conor Daly make an all-American row seven. This was the fourth time this season Pigot has been the first car to fail to advance from a round one qualifying group. He was the seventh fastest in his first round group at St. Petersburg, Road America and Toronto. Daly missed out advance to the second round of qualifying by 0.067 seconds to his teammate Muñoz.
Ed Jones starts 15th with James Hinchcliffe to his outside in 16th. This is Jones' third consecutive road/street course race starting from 15th position. Jones has failed to finish better than or equal to his starting position in the last five races. After sitting seventh in the championship after the first Belle Isle race, Jones has fallen to 14th. Hinchcliffe had advanced to the second round of qualifying on every occasion prior to Watkins Glen. Hinchcliffe has not finished in the top ten when starting outside the top ten in his last six starts outside the top ten, including four this season. Tony Kanaan will start 17th, his third time starting 17th in the last four race and his worst career starting position at Watkins Glen. Jack Harvey makes his IndyCar road course debut from 18th on the grid. Harvey becomes the third former Schmidt Peterson Indy Lights driver to race for the team in IndyCar this season. Hinchcliffe drive for SPM in Indy Lights in 2009 and Jay Howard, who ran this year's Indianapolis 500 for SPM, won the 2006 Indy Lights title driving for the team.
Max Chilton will roll off from 19th on the grid, his worst starting position since 20th at Long Beach in April. Chilton is trying to avoid retiring from three consecutive races for the first time in his IndyCar career. Marco Andretti rounds out the top twenty. This is Andretti's second consecutive race and third race in the last six in which he has started 20th. Entering this season, Andretti had only started 20th twice prior in his career and both came at Toronto in 2011 and 2014. J.R. Hildebrand starts shotgun on the field. He started 21st for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May and finished 14th that day. Like Chilton, Hildebrand has retired from the last two races.
NBCSN's coverage of the IndyCar Grand Prix at the Glen begins at 1:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 1:40 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 60 laps. Rain is likely at some point during this race.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Track Walk: Watkins Glen 2017
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| The final east coast stop for IndyCar in 2017 is Watkins Glen |
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday September 3rd. Green flag will be at 1:40 p.m. ET.
TV Channel: NBCSN.
Announcers: Leigh Diffey is back and Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy join him in the booth. Kevin Lee, Jon Beekhuis, Katie Hargitt, Anders Krohn and Robin Miller are working the pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice- 10:15 a.m. ET (45-minute session).
Second Practice- 3:05 p.m. ET (45-minute session).
Saturday:
Third Practice- 10:30 a.m. ET (45-minute session).
Qualifying- 3:00 p.m. ET (NBCSN will have tape-delayed coverage at 7:00 p.m. ET).
Sunday:
Warm-Up- 9:00 a.m. ET (30-miunte session).
Race- 1:40 p.m. ET (60 laps)
And Then There Were Eight
Mathematically, eight drivers remain alive for the Astor Cup.
Josef Newgarden has won three of the last four races and he has stood on one of the first two steps of the podium in five of the last six races. His worst finish since the start of summer was sixth at Iowa. Newgarden has led a lap in eight consecutive races and he has led 305 of the last 623 laps, 48.95% of the laps run in the last four races. Last year, Newgarden went from 12th to second at Watkins Glen by a timely pit stop before the caution for Mikhail Aleshin's spin and by stretching fuel mileage on the final stint. Newgarden has yet to be the top qualifying Penske driver this season despite starting on one of the first two rows six times this season.
Scott Dixon heads to Watkins Glen trailing Newgarden 31 points but Dixon has won four times in seven Watkins Glen starts. Dixon has stood on the podium on five occasions at Watkins Glen and he has six top ten finishes with his worst finish being 11th. Dixon has completed all 415 laps run at Watkins Glen since its return to the IndyCar schedule in 2005. Dixon has started on one of the first two rows six times with his worst starting position being seventh at Watkins Glen. He has led 118 laps at the track while the rest of the drivers on the IndyCar entry list have led a combined 136 laps.
Hélio Castroneves remained third in the championship after Gateway but he has fallen to 42 points behind his teammate. Castroneves has six consecutive top ten finishes and he is tied with Dixon for most top ten finishes this season at 14 top ten finishes. He finished third at last year's Watkins Glen race and he has three consecutive top ten finishes at Watkins Glen after only one top ten finish in his first four Watkins Glen starts. While he finished third at Watkins Glen last year and he finished third at Road America in June, Castroneves has not won on a natural-terrain road course since Barber in 2010.
Simon Pagenaud is coming off a tough second place finish at Gateway and he trails Newgarden by 43 points. Pagenaud has 12 top five finishes this season, three more than Newgarden who has the second-most top five finishes this season. Pagenaud has completed all 2,186 laps contested this season but he has dropped to fourth in the championship after being tied for second after the Indianapolis 500. Going back to last season, Pagenaud has completed 18 consecutive races, including last year at Watkins Glen, where he started and finished seventh.
Will Power's lap five accident at Gateway has dropped him to 83 points back of Newgarden and he is currently on the bubble of being eliminated from championship contention. Should 21 cars enter Sonoma, a driver will need to be within 86 points of the championship leader to have a shot at the title. If 22 cars enter, a driver will need to be within 88 points. While Power won the 2010 race at Watkins Glen, he finished 15th and 20th in his other two starts at the track. Power has finished outside the top fifteen in seven races this season, the most since he had eight finishes outside the top fifteen in 2013.
Graham Rahal is the first driver below the cut line for championship contention heading to Sonoma. The Ohioan trails Tennessean Newgarden by 111 points after Rahal's 12th place finish at Gateway, ending a streak of eight consecutive top ten finishes for Rahal. Rahal has completed every lap in the last 11 races. Rahal has not had much success at Watkins Glen. He finished eighth in his first start at the track but finished 13th and 21st in his last two starts and his three qualifying results there have been 18th, 15th and 20th.
Alexander Rossi has moved up to seventh in the championship on 422 points as he has another stretch of four consecutive top ten finishes, this one includes two podium finishes. He will need a victory and Newgarden to finish outside the top fifteen to stay alive for the championship. Rossi started 15th and finished eighth at Watkins Glen last year. Rossi has finished in the top ten in three of the four natural-terrain road course race this season and he was running in the top ten at Road America before front wing damage cost him a solid finish.
Takuma Sato is mathematically alive for the championship but his title hopes will vanish if Newgarden takes the green flag. If Sato were to win and score a maximum of 54 points and Newgarden finished last and scored the minimum of nine points, he would still trail him by 92 points. Sato could still be alive for the title at Sonoma even if trailing Newgarden by 92 points but he would need at least 25 cars to start the season finale. Since the start of the summer, Sato has finished outside the top fifteen four times with finishes of fifth at Mid-Ohio and 13th at Pocono being the exceptions.
Top Ten Battle
Forty-three points cover ninth to 13th in the championship and the battle to be on the first page of the championship table will likely be between these five drivers over the final two rounds.
Tony Kanaan sits in ninth on 365 points and the Brazilian is currently going through a contentious time at Chip Ganassi Racing. While he finished fifth at Pocono, Kanaan has finished outside the top fifteen in four of the last six races. His best finish on a road/street course this season was seventh at Barber and his only other top ten finish on a road/street course was tenth in the second Belle Isle race. He has not made it out of the first round of qualifying since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and his only Fast Six appearance this season was at St. Petersburg. Kanaan has started in the top ten in six of his seven Watkins Glen starts and he has completed 413 of a possible 415 laps at the track.
James Hinchcliffe trails Kanaan by 14 points and the Canadian is coming off an eighth place finish at Gateway, his best oval finish of the season. Hinchcliffe's best finish on a natural-terrain road course this season was sixth at Barber but he did pick up a victory, three podium finishes and four top ten finishes from the five street course races this season. Hinchcliffe was in contention for a podium finish last year at Watkins Glen before he ran out of fuel on the final lap and stopped prior to the final corner. He was classified with an 18th-place finish.
Fourteen points behind Hinchcliffe is Ryan Hunter-Reay. While he retired from Gateway after hitting the wall while in the top ten, Hunter-Reay has been on a good run of form. He had four consecutive top ten finishes prior to Gateway, which was led off with a third place finish at Iowa, and he has gone from 15th to 11th in the championship since Road America. Hunter-Reay won at Watkins Glen in 2008, his first start at the track and he started third that day. In his three Watkins Glen starts since that victory he has started 16th twice and he started 19th last year. His finishes in those three races were 21st, seventh and 14th.
Max Chilton is a point behind Hunter-Reay in 12th. The British driver has finished outside the top ten in four of the last five races and he is coming off the back of two consecutive retirements, something that had only happened once prior in his career when he retired from both Belle Isle races last season. Three of Chilton's five top ten finishes this season have come on road/street course race with two of those being on natural-terrain road courses. Chilton's only top five finish this year remains his fourth in the Indianapolis 500. He finished tenth at Watkins Glen last year after starting sixth.
Like Chilton, Marco Andretti has finished outside the top ten in four of the last five races but Andretti has completed all but two laps in that five race stretch, both coming at Iowa and Andretti has finished 11th consecutive races since he was caught up in the turn one lap one accident at Phoenix. Also like Chilton, Andretti best finish this season is fourth and it came at Toronto for the American. Andretti has 322 points from the first 15 races. He had three consecutive fifth place finishes at Watkins Glen from 2007 to 2009. Andretti has completed 300 consecutive laps at Watkins Glen.
Harvey's Return
Jack Harvey returns for his second career IndyCar start and his road course debut as the British driver will be in the #7 Honda for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Harvey made his debut in the Indianapolis 500 just over three months ago in collaboration with Andretti Autosport and Michael Shank Racing.
Harvey ran two seasons with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in Indy Lights. He finished second in the Indy Lights championship both years. He lost the 2014 title on tiebreaker to Gabby Chaves. Both drivers had won four races but Chaves had five runner-up finishes while Harvey only had finished runner-up once. In 2015, Harvey won the Freedom 100 and the first race of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis weekend and he had six runner-up finishes but he failed to finish on the podium in the final six races and lost the championship by 27 points to Spencer Pigot.
Prior to Harvey's move to the United States, he drove in the GP3 Series in 2013 with Carlin and he finished fifth in the championship behind Daniil Kvyat, teammates Facu Regalia and Conor Daly and Tio Ellinas. Harvey's two victories that season came at Silverstone and Monza. He won the 2012 British Formula Three championship over the likes of Jazeman Jaafar, Félix Serrallés, Alex Lynn, Harry Tincknell, Carlos Sainz, Jr. and Pipo Derani.
Harvey has never competed at Watkins Glen.
Bourdais' Best Shot Back
Sébastien Bourdais made his IndyCar return last Saturday night at Gateway Motorsports Park and the Frenchman was able to complete all 248 laps and he finished tenth. While Honda was expected to struggle at the 1.25-mile oval, the manufacture has shown better on road courses this season than the short ovals but the high downforce expected for Watkins Glen will favor the Chevrolets.
Bourdais finished in the top ten in three of his four road/street course starts this season with the lone exception being the Grand Prix of Indianapolis because his engine went sour after three laps. He did qualify sixth for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the second-best Honda on the grid.
Last year was Bourdais' first IndyCar start at Watkins Glen. He started third and he finished fifth. He did make three starts at Watkins Glen in Grand-Am competition. He finished third in the 2012 6 Hours of the Glen and he finished second in a two-hour race held on the short course during the NASCAR weekend later that season; both races were with Starworks. He finished eighth in the 2013 6 Hours of the Glen with 8 Star Motorsports.
Prior to Bourdais' injury, Dale Coyne Racing had five top ten finishes from the first five races, including double top ten finishes for the team in the first two races. During Bourdais' absence, the team scored three top ten finishes in nine races. Ed Jones and Esteban Gutiérrez each advanced to the second round of road/street course qualifying once during Bourdais' absence. Bourdais made it out of the first round of qualifying in three of his four road/street course starts but the one race he didn't advance from round one was St. Petersburg and he won that race from 21st on grid.
Last year, Dale Coyne Racing had the best finishing Honda at Watkins Glen with Conor Daly finishing fourth and the team had a double top ten finish with RC Enerson finishing ninth.
Fast Facts
This will be the 17th IndyCar race on September 3rd and first since 2000 when Paul Tracy won at Vancouver.
Watkins Glen is the site of A.J. Foyt Racing's most recent podium finish on a natural-terrain road course. Darren Manning finished second to Ryan Hunter-Reay in the 2008 Watkins Glen race.
Carlos Muñoz has finished tenth and ninth in the last two races. The last Foyt driver to finish three consecutive races in the top ten was Takuma Sato, who finished in the top ten in the final two races in 2015, at Pocono and Sonoma, and at the 2016 season opener at St. Petersburg.
J.R. Hildebrand won at Watkins Glen in Indy Lights in 2009. Hildebrand is the only driver entered for this race to have won at Watkins Glen in Indy Lights.
Spencer Pigot has finished outside the top ten in his last four starts. The longest stretch without a top ten finish in Pigot's career is five races, the first five races of his career.
Charlie Kimball finished sixth at Watkins Glen last year and he finished in the top ten in the final three races last year.
The driver who has led the most laps has won 11 of the first 15 races this season. The previous most races won in a season by the driver who led the most laps in the DW12-era were ten in 2013.
Six of ten Watkins Glen races have been won by the driver who led the most laps including the last three races.
Honda has won five of ten Watkins Glen races. Last year's victory by Dixon was the first for Chevrolet at the track.
Dixon set the track record last year in the third round of qualifying with a time of 82.5259 seconds (147.008 MPH).
Dixon also set the record for widest margin of victory at Watkins Glen with a 16.5308-second gap over Josef Newgarden.
The average and median starting position for a Watkins Glen winner is 2.5.
All ten Watkins Glen races have been won from one of the first two rows.
The pole-sitter has won the last two Watkins Glen races.
Scott Dixon won from fourth at Watkins Glen in 2005 and 2006; the furthest back a Watkins Glen winner has started.
The average number of lead changes at Watkins Glen is 5.444 with a median of five.
Last year's race matched the record for most lead changes at Watkins Glen with eight lead changes.
The fewest number of lead changes at Watkins Glen is four.
The average number of cautions at Watkins Glen is 3.555 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 10.333 with a median of seven.
Possible Milestones:
Scott Dixon and Hélio Castroneves are both one top five finish away from 140 top five finishes in their careers and breaking a tie with Michael Andretti for fifth all-time in top five finishes.
Simon Pagenaud needs to lead 36 laps to reach the 900 laps led milestone.
Takuma Sato needs to lead 22 laps to reach the 500 laps led milestone.
Alexander Rossi needs to lead ten laps to reach the 100 laps led milestone.
Predictions
Chevrolet domination and more specifically the Team Penske domination continues. It will be another race with the top four in qualifying being swept by Team Penske. Simon Pagenaud wins the race. Will Power finishes second. Josef Newgarden comes home in the top five. At least two Hondas make the Fast Six and those two Hondas come from two different teams. The margin of victory will be less than five seconds. Jack Harvey is the top rookie finisher. Sleeper: Spencer Pigot.
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