2019 NASCAR Predictions

We have made it to the final days of December and once again we close out the year with predictions for the approaching New Year. We start with NASCAR and 2019 sees Joey Logano enter as the defending champion, a handful of drivers going to new places, some veterans leaving the series, the schedule is mostly unchanged and a new rules package that is a big shift for the series.

1. We will have at least eight different race winners in the first 16 races
Last year was a bit of an anomaly for NASCAR. Martin Truex, Jr., Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick dominated the first two-thirds of the season and the dominance of those three was something the Cup series had not seen in 40 years. Last year, there were only six different winners through the first 16 races.

With the new rules package, I do not see three drivers winning that many races combined. I think it will be a bit tougher to dominate races but in some instances I think races where Truex, Busch or Harvick came from behind to win will not happen.

History suggests we will see more winners in 2019 and that 2018 was an outlier. In 2017, there were 11 race winners in the first 16 races. The year before that, there were ten different winners and in 2014 and 2015 there had been ten different winners in the first 16 races. The 2013 season had 11 different winners in the first 16 races. The 2011 and 2012 seasons had 12 different winners.

The 2010 season was the last time there were fewer than eight winners in the first 16 races and that was when there were seven winners and that is the only season of the ten prior to 2018 not to have fewer than eight winners in the first 16 races. The 2009 season had ten winners and 2008 had nine winners in the first 16 races.

I think things return to usual in 2019. I think we will see a typical NASCAR season where seven or eight drivers split the first ten or 11 races and we will not see one driver let alone multiple drivers win three consecutive races like we did with Harvick and Busch in 2018.

2. Aric Almirola and Austin Dillon each finish at least five championship positions worse than they did in 2018
Almirola had a career year and finished fifth in the championship while Dillon finished 13th.

The current system heavily favored Almirola, who finished ahead of Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch, and heavily weighted the results of the final ten races over the entire 36-race season. On points scored, Almirola was only 12th best, behind the likes of those three drivers as well as Kyle Larson, Clint Bowyer, Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin. Dillon was 17th best on points scored behind 2018 teammate Ryan Newman, who was eliminated from championship contention after 16 races.

Obviously, for Dillon to finish five positions worse he would have to not make the Chase and I think that will be the case. I think he had a few breaks for his two victories that got him a spot into the final ten races and from there you are guaranteed a top 16 championship finish. I am not sure Dillon or Richard Childress Racing is that good.

Dillon was 19th on points after Indianapolis this year, behind the likes of Paul Menard and Ricky Stenhourse, Jr. I am not sure that fortunate break will get him a race victory for the third consecutive year.

As for Almirola, he could win a race or two in 2019 but he could still end up finishing tenth in the championship, especially if he does not make the semifinal round. I think Elliott will be better and the same is true for Larson. I think it will be difficult of Almirola to string together the results he did at the end of the same while banking on other top drivers to hit the late-October rut that shake up the championship standings and take a good driver and make it appear they were better in the championship than they were.

3. Kyle Larson wins at least four races
Larson led 782 laps in 2018 and did not win a race.

Here is a list of the most laps led by a winless driver over the last few seasons:

2017: 560 (Chase Elliott)
2016: 358 (Chase Elliott)
2015: 115 (Kyle Larson)
2014: 529 (Matt Kenseth)
2013: 448 (Kurt Busch)
2012: 434 (Martin Truex, Jr.)
2011: 351 (Greg Biffle)
2010: 919 (Jeff Gordon)
2009: 551 (Greg Biffle)
2008: 604 (Matt Kenseth)
2007: 433 (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.)
2006: 292 (Mark Martin)
2005: 383 (Elliott Sadler)
2004: 692 (Kasey Kahne)

Only Jeff Gordon in 2010 led more laps than Larson did in 2018 and not score a victory in the Chase-era of NASCAR. Before Gordon, the last driver to lead more than 700 laps in a season and not win a race was Mark Martin in 1996, who led 702 laps. The last driver to lead more than 782 laps and not win a race in a season was Harry Gant in 1981, who led 1,169 laps!

In NASCAR's modern-era (since 1972), Larson had the third most laps led in a winless season. He had plenty of races that he was in control of and it just didn't go his way. The man had 12 top five finishes, fifth most in 2018, and 19 top ten finishes, eighth most in 2018.

In the spring Bristol race, he led 200 laps and Kyle Busch beat him late with the final lead change occurring with six laps to go. He led 101 laps in the spring Kansas race and cautions late kept Harvick in it and then contact with Ryan Blaney blunted any charge Larson could make. He made a late charge at Chicago and passed Kyle Busch on the final lap only to have Busch knock him out of the way.

Larson started on pole position for the Bristol night race but, incredibly, after leading the first 13 laps (ten of which were under caution), he led four more laps over the entire night but he still finished second.

Larson's biggest blow was Darlington. He led 284 laps and lost the race to Brad Keselowski on pit road. He led the most laps at Charlotte in September and he ran well at Homestead, leading 45 laps, before a flat tire deflated his victory hopes.

I think Larson will get a few short track victories and I think he will have a handle on the new aero package quickly.

To gauge how Larson does, keep in mind that Gant won twice in 1982 and Gordon won three times in 2011 and in 1997, Martin won four races and they finished fourth, eighth and third in the championship respectively.

4. Jimmie Johnson wins multiple races
We know the story. We know Johnson did not with a race in 2018, he is in the middle of the longest drought in his career, he and Chad Knaus have split and Kevin Mendeering will be Johnson's crew chief in 2019. We know it was the worst year of Johnson's career and it feels like the team is transitioning leadership to Chase Elliott but Johnson isn't going to fade away that easily.

The only race he was close to winning was Charlotte in September, the race he not only tossed away but the championship shot he tossed away. All he had to do was hold his position and he would have advanced to the next round but his bonkers move and shortsightedness cost him more than a victory.

The team has to turn it around and I think it will. Plus, I think the new package will be simple for him. I don't think Johnson will be chasing many races. Will he be the Johnson of 2006-2011? Probably not. Those days might be beyond us but I cannot see the slide continuing.

He had his first winless season. He had his fewest top five finishes in a season, matched his fewest top ten finishes in a season, had his fewest laps led in a season, his fewest lead lap finishes in a season and he had his worst championship finish but at 43 years old I do not think he has completely lost it like we have seen with other great drivers. Plus, Hendrick Motorsports is still a solid team. It hasn't lost a step.

I think we see Johnson right the ship and then we have to hear the Johnson resurgence story all year and get tired of it.

5. Martin Truex, Jr. has at least four victories
For a champion, Truex has had his fair share of career rebirths. He never fit in at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing during a troubled time when he entered while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was having his unceremonious exit from his father's old team and the team lost all its identity. He went to Michael Waltrip Racing, wins a few races and then loses his ride because of actions of other team members, most notable Michael Waltrip and Clint Bowyer.

At that point he went to Furniture Row Racing and he went from possible championship contender at MWR to lost at FRR but the team worked it out and in five years at the team Truex was one of the best drivers in NASCAR during for four of them.

Now he has to start over again at Joe Gibbs Racing and while the move seems like it will only lead to more success on paper, JGR was a rival team and one that butted heads with Truex, crew chief Cole Pearn and FRR for a few seasons. There was some bad blood between the two teams and they are outsiders coming into a highly competitive operation.

It could be a rough season where Truex and Pearn find they do not fit in and it all comes apart. However, there is the alternative that those two will continue to click and their shared journey, the highs and the lows, will keep them from suffering from adversity. Those two have been through it all at FRR, from championships and race victories to the off-track hardships of illness and death and then the team shutting its doors.

I think Truex will be fine and I think he will quickly establish himself as the number two in the team behind Kyle Busch. He will give Busch a run for his money and I think the races Truex wins are the ones where he and Pearn have something but the other JGR cars will have difficult replicating. Busch will still be great and both drivers will likely be in the semifinal round.

6. At least three races that were below 50% good in Jeff Gluck's good race poll in 2018 increase in the good category by at least 25%
I like Jeff Gluck and his Twitter "Good Race Poll" is a fascinating and unscientific look into the mind of NASCAR fans.

It has its flaws and it is a simple thing. I would love to see him introduce in-race polls after each stage to gauge what fans think of a race and how the mood changes when it is all said and done.

Good is very subjective and human emotions are very temperamental. Sometimes we do not use logic when assessing what we just saw and whether it was good or bad. If you are a Chase Elliott fan and he wrecks after 20 laps, you may say a race is bad regardless of what happened after Elliott's retirement. If you pull for Joey Logano and he wins a race, you may say the race was good even if there was no passing during the race.

Because of the fluid nature of race fans and races themselves I think we will see some races see spikes up from 2017.

Ten championship races and the Clash were below 50% in 2018 and here are a few races that I think are front-runners to make big moves in 2019:

Both Talladega races: The spring race was at 49% good and the autumn race was at 41% good. Meanwhile, the two Daytona races were at 84% and 76%. In 2017, the Talladega races were 88% and 80%. They are plate races. One of these are bound to get back to above 74%.

Kentucky: It was the worst race in 2018 at 23%. When you look at how few "bad" races there were in 2018, this one should easily pick up ground. Even if it only picks up 25%, it would still be a "bad" race at 48-52. This race only has to be marginally better and with the new aero packages we don't know how the 1.5-mile ovals will be but if it increases the number of lead change it will likely increase the percentage of people who will say the race is good.

Sonoma: Truex ran away with this race in 2018 and it was after a bit of strategy. Truex's dominance led to the race only earning 47% good. The one thing on Sonoma's side is the change to the larger configuration. I think that alone is a 20% bump. Fans are too damn nostalgic. They are returning to a configuration that NASCAR used when most people probably wished there would be no road course races but don't let that stop those hypocrites say that this is the right thing for NASCAR.

The larger configuration brings in the turn seven hairpin and I think there will be plenty of bumping there. If there is a late race restart there will be an accident there between cars at the front.

The other thing on Sonoma's side: Road course races rate well. Watkins Glen and the Charlotte roval race were 94% good and 93% good in 2018, second and third. In 2017, Sonoma was 78% good and Watkins Glen was 68% good.

The other races that were below 50% in 2018 were the spring Pocono race (49%), the Clash (48%), Fontana (41%), the Coca-Cola 600 (38%), the August Michigan race (38%), the March Las Vegas race (35%) and the autumn Texas race (27%).

In 2017, seven races were below 50% good. One of those was the autumn Loudon race, which was discontinued from the schedule but of the six races that continued, only Kentucky went down in the good category, losing four-percent. The other five races all had double-figure gains, three of which had over 25% gains:

All-Star: +66%
Chicago: +62%
Pocono 2: +26%
Atlanta: +12%
Michigan 1: +11%

Yes, there will be races that go up and there will be races that go down but I think we will not see the same races being labeled as bad in 2019.

7. Neither points-paying Daytona Cup race has a last lap pass for the victory
What are the odds of it happening once after it happened twice in 2018? It is kind of like Team Penske's dominance in the autumn Talladega race. It was bound to end. There is bound to be a year when both Daytona races do not see a last lap pass.

If you go back to 2017, three of the last four Daytona races have had a last lap pass but each has been a bit different. In the 2017 Daytona 500 it was cars running out of fuel. In 2018, Austin Dillon spun Aric Almirola and Erik Jones made a clean pass on Martin Truex, Jr. and if you go back to 2016, Denny Hamlin led the final lap after Matt Kenseth led the 40 laps before that. Even Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.'s win in July 2017 came after he led only the final two laps. In the last three years, the most laps led after the final lead change was Brad Keselowski's 17 in July 2016.

I think we will see less chaos at Daytona than we have in the previous few seasons.

8. At least five championship-eligible drivers in NASCAR's second division have multiple victories
We did something like this for 2018 and it didn't work out but this prediction takes into consideration all the races.

We saw in 2018 how competitive the races were in NASCAR's second division when the Cup guys were not eligible to race in them and the final seven races were arguably the best of the season.

Christopher Bell won seven races in 2018 and he is going to be fine in 2019. Bell is going to win five or six races and likely win the championship. Justin Allgaier won five races and he might not do that again but he will win two or three. Tyler Reddick won the bookends of the season and won the championship and he did improve over the end of the season. Those were the only three championship-eligible drivers to win multiple times in 2018.

Ross Chastain will be full-time with Chip Ganassi Racing and all he did in the three starts he got in 2018 was lead the most laps at Darlington before Kevin Harvick ran him into wall, won at Las Vegas and finish second at Richmond. Two of those races were without Cup drivers but I think he will win a few races.

John Hunter Nemechek will be full-time at GMS Racing and he won with Chip Ganassi Racing as a part-time driver. Nemechek finished 13th in the championship despite competing in only 18 of 33 races and that is crazy when you realize he was the best driver not to make the Chase. GMS Racing is a good team. It might be slightly behind Ganassi but Nemechek is in a good position for results in 2019.

Chase Briscoe won the Charlotte roval race and he did not run a full season in 2018 but he will in 2019 and team with Cole Custer at Stewart-Haas Racing. Custer looked good on 1.5-mile ovals and a third year in the second division really is enough to become a regular contender.

Austin Cindric did not win in 2018 but he was in the fight at all the road course races and it isn't crazy to think he could win two road courses in 2019. What will be in Cindric's favor is he will be full-time in the #22 Ford for Team Penske and will not be split between three different cars in 2018.

Outside of those returnees, Noah Gragson moves up from the Truck Series and joins JR Motorsports. Justin Haley is moving up to Kaulig Racing after an impressive 2018 in Trucks. Plus, we cannot rule out a part-time driver getting a few wins. Will there be a Ryan Preece in 2019? Could a road course ringer come in and win a few races? Those are both possibilities

I think the talent is there that a few drivers will get victories and with cars no longer eligible to score owners' points if they run a Cup driver there is no longer an incentive to have a Cup guy in a race. I think more drivers are going to get opportunities and I think championship-eligible drivers will win more races where Cup guys are allowed to compete than they did in 2018.

9. Jeffrey Earnhardt gets at least one top ten finish in NASCAR's second division
Believe it or not, this guy is going to get a ride with Joe Gibbs Racing in NASCAR's second division for nine races in 2019, including the season opener at Daytona.

The third-generation driver has not had a great NASCAR career. There is no sugarcoating it. He has been awful. In 75 Cup starts, his average finish is 33.1 with his career-best being 11th in this past July Daytona race but that is the only top 20 finish in his Cup career. He has three lead lap finishes. Besides that July Daytona race he finished on the lead lap in the autumn Talladega race in 2016 and at the Charlotte roval race last year.

In 66 starts in NASCAR's second division, his average finish is 25.4 with his best finish being 12th in the Bristol night race in 2014 and at Talladega in 2015. In this series he has only 12 lead lap finishes.

There is nothing to suggest that Jeffrey Earnhardt is going to finish in the top ten with Joe Gibbs Racing. There is no Ross Chastain level of outperforming his equipment to make us think Earnhardt just needs a shot in decent equipment. There is none of that.

Why do I think he will get one top ten finish?

Because he has nine opportunities with Joe Gibbs Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing puts out good cars. When Bill Elliott ran the #23 Chevrolet GMS Racing at Road America, I felt that car was good enough that if you put a bad driver or one who had not raced in over five or six years behind the wheel it would finish 25th if the driver keeps it straight and out of harms way and Elliott ran around 25th for most of that one.

In this case, I think Gibbs produces cars good enough that if you put a bad driver behind the wheel that if that driver keeps it running it will finish 15th. In that case, all Earnhardt has to do is make up five positions and maybe there is a race where he has something and can pick up three spots on his own and on that same day two or three drivers have accidents or mechanical failures help elevate him a few more positions and into the top ten.

What else is in Jeffrey Earnhardt's favor?

Some pretty mediocre drivers scored top ten finishes with Joe Gibbs Racing. Coy Gibbs had two top ten finishes in 34 starts in 2003 and ironically those top ten finishes came in consecutive races at Texas and Talladega. Remember Brad Coleman? He had ten top ten finishes in 31 starts with JGR.

Kelly Bires had an eighth place finish at Chicagoland in one of his two starts with the team. His average finish in the second division was 23.3. Justin Boston made two starts with the team in 2014 and finished ninth and 12th. Ross Kenseth started second and finished sixth in his only start with Gibbs. Dakota Armstrong made one start with Gibbs at Iowa in 2016 and he started third and finished fifth. And then you have Brian Scott! Scott had 18 top ten finishes in 67 starts with the team.

If Earnhardt goes to Iowa when there are no Cup drivers with Gibbs, he may just finish ninth.

10. Kyle Busch Motorsports more than doubles its victory total in the Truck Series from 2018
The silent surprise of 2018 might be that Kyle Busch Motorsports won only three races in the Truck Series. Kyle Busch won in two of this five starts and he had two runner-up finishes. One of those runner-up finishes was to Noah Gragson at Kansas, Gragson's only victory.

That was it. The team won three times. I think Busch alone could win five races. Todd Gilliland and Harrison Burton will be full-time for the team. Gilliland almost won at Texas in November but not before he ran out of fuel on the final lap. Burton ran very well as a part-timer with three top five finishes and six top ten finishes from eight starts.

I think if Busch wins at least two, which seems low, Gilliland and Burton will each get two victories and that will be six and I think the team could easily get more than six. It would be not be surprising if one of Gilliland or Burton wins four races, the other wins two or three races and then Kyle Busch wins twice. And you cannot rule out someone running for KBM in a cameo getting a victory.

11. Let's make it seven different winners in seven Eldora races
I doubt Austin Dillon, Darrell Wallace, Jr. or Kyle Larson run it. Christopher Bell may be busy but he could be that KBM cameo driver who gets a victory. Matt Crafton isn't great on dirt and I don't think he does it again. Chase Briscoe will have a full-time ride in the Grand National Series to worry about but maybe his boss Tony Stewart makes sure he has a chance to defend his crowd.

Grant Enfinger nearly beat Briscoe to the lead. Johnny Sauter has yet to win this race and it would surprise no one if he did win it in 2019. USAC midget champion Logan Seavey led 53 laps at Eldora in 2018 driving for KBM and he won at DuQuoin in ARCA. I think he will be back. Stewart Friesen is a dirt guy.

I think we are looking at a scenario where the only previous winner in the race will be Crafton and we could have 31 of 32 drivers looking for their first Eldora victory. If that is the case, I am taking the field.

12. There is at least one announcement of a track reconfiguration/switch to a roval before Labor Day
Schedule changes are coming to NASCAR in 2020 but I am still skeptical over how much will really change. I do not think we are going to see big upheaval and new tracks galore to the Cup series. I don't think Iowa and Road America and Mid-Ohio and Circuit of the Americas and the Nashville Fairgrounds and Rockingham joining the schedule. I think we would be lucky to see one of those tracks.

International Speedway Corporation and Speedway Management, Inc. have too much power to just let races go.

But after seeing the boost from the roval, Sonoma went back to the larger configuration. With Sonoma doing that I think we are on the verge of Watkins Glen announcing it is running the boot. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Watkins Glen made that change before the race in 2019.

I think another track will be looking at switching a race to a roval configuration and I think Pocono and Kansas are two places that would do it in a form of self-preservation to keep two races at each track but have the races be entirely different from one another and justify not having a race taken away and moved to a short track or another road course.

The other thing that seems to vogue is track reconfigurations. Could we see a track do something radical? Could we see a track shrink? A 1.5-mile oval go down to 3/4-mile short-track or maybe even a 1/2-mile oval? With tracks pulling out seats, wouldn't it look better to have a 1/2-mile with 50,000 seats than a 1.5-mile oval?

A track cutting off a mile is a bit of a stretch but I think we will see a track announce a change in hopes of causing a wave of momentum in its favor.

One set of predictions down and there are four more to go. The next set comes out Friday.

2018 For the Love of Indy Awards

We have reached the end of the year and once again we go over the best of everything from 2018. There were plenty of highlights and low points during the year. Great drivers continued to add to their legacy and others stood up and added their name amongst the greats. There were some tough pills to swallow and inspirational moments that gave you a new perspective on life.

It was a great year and now we look back and recognize the sport we love so dearly.

Racer of the Year
Description: Given to the best racer over the course of 2018.
And the Nominees are:
Lewis Hamilton
Scott Dixon
Naoki Yamamoto
Jean-Éric Vergne
Jonathan Rea
Kyle Kirkwood

And the winner is... Scott Dixon
This was due. Scott Dixon's 2018 season at a glance: His fifth IndyCar championship, three more victories to leave him on 44 victories, third all-time behind A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. He had nine podium finishes, became the fourth driver to reach the century mark in that category and he finished the year third all-time on 105 behind Andretti and Foyt. His 13 top five finishes elevated him to second all-time on 154 and he is behind only Andretti.

On top of all of Dixon's IndyCar escapades in 2018, he won in the GT Le Mans class in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, his third victory in the event after winning overall twice.

Dixon has been a habitual winner for the last 15 years. He has never gone more than five seasons without a championship. He is at the top of the mountain when it comes to IndyCar. He wins in cameo appearances in sports cars.

Dixon is a treasure of the 21st century. He might not run the frantic and diverse schedule of the legends from the 1960s and 1970s but he is not a one-trick pony. I am sure he has come across a car that has been tough to handle but if that is the case it doesn't take long for him to get it under control. The man has won in everything and this year he did it again with victories in an IndyCar and a Ford GT.

He rarely puts a wheel wrong. He had his mistakes this year. He ran into the back of Takuma Sato at St. Petersburg but he still recovered from that and the subsequent penalty to finish ninth. He had 15 top ten finishes from 17 races and was running at the finish of every race. He completed 2,364 of 2,368 laps; Iowa was the only race he finished off the lead lap and Alexander Rossi was the only one to complete more laps.

The man has a standard few should be able to live up to and yet every time Scott Dixon gets behind the wheel of a race car all qualms are squelched. He has enough fuel to make it to the end, he is going to pass ten cars from 14th on the grid, he will get out of any situation in a better position than he started.

Very few drivers can live up to Scott Dixon's level of expectations and Dixon does it every time.

On the other nominees:
Lewis Hamilton also won his fifth championship this year and he did it again with 11 victories, 11 pole positions, 17 podium finishes and a single-season record of 408 points. The man is tied with Juan Manuel Fangio for second most championship all time and he is 18 victories behind Michael Schumacher's record of 91 victories. The man is in similar shoes to Scott Dixon.

Naoki Yamamoto had a great year and did something only three other drivers had done before. He won the Super Formula championship and the Super GT GT500 championship in the same season. It is an incredible feat to be successful in both single-seaters and a vehicle with fenders in the same year. Yamamoto won three races in Super Formula and came from behind in the finale to win the championship from Nick Cassidy and he and Jenson Button won once in Super GT but they had four podium finishes on their way to that championship.

Jean-Éric Vergne had success in pretty much every car he stepped in. He won the Formula E championship with four victories and he won three times in five European Le Mans Series starts. In Formula E, Vergne scored in every race and held off Lucas di Grassi for the title.

Jonathan Rea continues to break records in World Superbike and 2018 was another year where Rea continued his dominance. He won 17 races, including 11 consecutive to end the season, and he surpassed Carl Fogarty for most victories in series history. On top of that, his 17 victories matched the single-season record for victories, which Doug Polen set in 1991 and Rea matched last year as well. Rea won his fourth consecutive championship and tied Fogarty's record for most championship. I bet he will have another record in 2019.

We do not often bring drivers in developments series into the discussion because it is a lower level and there are more races and grid size can vary from very small to very large but Kyle Kirkwood deserves a bit of recognition. He won 28 of 32 races he entered this season across U.S. F2000, F3 Americas and the IMSA Michelin Encore at Sebring in an LMP3 car. In U.S. F2000, he won 12 of 14 races, including 11 consecutive to end the season. His other two finishes were fifth ands second. In F3 Americas, albeit it with grids no larger than a half-dozen, he won 15 of 17 races and his other finishes were second and fourth. He won the IMSA Michelin Encore with Roman De Angelis. He has a long way to go but that was not a bad year for a 20-year-old.

Ironically, I just noticed this is the third consecutive year a New Zealander has won Racer of the Year and it has been a different New Zealander each year. How about that?

Past Winners
2012: Kyle Larson

2013: Marc Márquez
2014: Marc Márquez
2015: Nick Tandy
2016: Shane van Gisbergen
2017: Brendon Hartley

Race of the Year
Description: Best Race of 2018.
And the Nominees are:
Overton's 400
The second Hockenheim race from the spring DTM weekend
Petit Le Mans
Thailand Grand Prix
Azerbaijan Grand Prix

And the winner is... Petit Le Mans
It is a ten-hour race and despite the length there was plenty of green flag racing and all three classes were undecided heading into the final laps. On top of all that many teams were stretching it on fuel.

While many teams fought for a race victory, there were championships to be decided. None of the classes were wrapped up entering the finale and championship leads changed hands over the course of the day. The Prototype championship was between the #31 Cadillac of Felipe Nasr and Eric Curran and the #54 Oreca of Colin Braun and Jon Bennett. At points it seemed the #54 Oreca was going to do enough to take a surprising championship away from a DPi entry. Braun and Bennett had to gamble and it didn't work out. They finished a spot ahead of Nasr and Curran but three points behind the Brazilian and American in the championship.

Corvette had the most comfortable lead of the three classes entering Petit Le Mans but the #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio García had an off and went behind the wheel. The race was no longer for the victory but getting the car back on track and getting it to the finish. The Corvette crew got the job done in what was a bit more of a nervy night than expected.

GT Daytona was where the fight was always at the top with the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow taking on the #86 Acura of Katherine Legge for the title. These two teams were at the front and it seemed Legge was going to have to win the race as Sellers and Snow were on their game. None of the three and none of their, Álvaro Parente and Trent Hindman for Legge and Corey Lewis for Sellers and Snow, put a wheel wrong and Legge may have finished second but with Sellers and Snow in third the Lamborghini drivers took the title.

Championship aside, the fight for the overall race victory proved to be one for the ages. The #5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac of Filipe Albuquerque and the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Renger van der Zande went toe-to-toe with the #5 Cadillac stretching the fuel while van der Zande was flying through to the front. Albuquerque led by a second and a half at the start of the final lap but heading into turn ten the car started to cough and van der Zande went pass to take the victory for him, Jordan Taylor and Ryan Hunter-Reay while the #5 Cadillac fell to fourth with the two Mazdas getting pass in the final corner.

It was a ten-hour race that never let up. There was not a dull moment for the entire event and the finish did not disappoint.

On the other nominees:
I will cover the Chicagoland NASCAR Cup race in a moment but it was the best NASCAR race of the year from start to finish. It was a consistent race. It was not marred by cautions and the race flowed. There were drivers coming and going, plenty of passing and a great finish.

The DTM has a bit of a reputation to overcome and sometimes it is a boring series with too many team orders within the manufactures but the second race of the season saw a great three-way battle between BMW's Timo Glock, Audi's Mike Rockenfeller and Mercedes-Benz's Gary Paffett. Glock and Paffett dueled early and traded the lead. Rockenfeller got in this battle late but Glock was clear enough to win the race and curse in joy over the radio about the sensational race.

MotoGP made its debut in Thailand at the circuit in Buriram and the unknown produced a race that was a great battle from start to finish. Marc Márquez led early but Valentino Rossi took his turn in the lead and Andrea Dovizioso moved up to second. Rossi would slip back and Dovizioso inherited the lead. The Italian led for most of the race but Márquez remained on his rear tire and Maverick Viñales found himself in the fight. The three riders were tight in the closing laps but it became Dovizioso vs. Márquez when the final lap started. Márquez had a history of failed final lap passes on Dovizioso but in Thailand he made it stick and held on for the victory with 0.270 seconds covering the top three.

While not a popular location, Azerbaijan has had some good Formula One races and this year was no different. Sebastian Vettel led from the start until his pit stop on lap 31. Valtteri Bottas took the lead and nine laps later a collision between Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen bringing out the safety car and being Bottas' saving grace as he was able to make his pit stop and remain in the lead. The safety car gave Vettel a shot at Bottas but he locked up his tires and fell down to fourth. It seemed to be Bottas' race until he suffered a puncture with three laps to go. Lewis Hamilton went by to the lead, Kimi Räikkönen took second and Sergio Pérez overtook Vettel for third. Hamilton won the race and took the championship lead.

Past Winners
2012: Indianapolis 500
2013: British motorcycle Grand Prix
2014: Bathurst 1000
2015: Australian motorcycle Grand Prix
2016: Spanish Grand Prix
2017: All the races at the World Superbike/World Supersport weekend at Phillip Island

Achievement of the Year
Description: Best success by a driver, team, manufacture, etc.
And the Nominees are:
Johan Kristoffersson winning 11 of 12 World Rallycross races this season on his way to the championship
Robert Wickens for winning IndyCar Rookie of the Year despite missing three races
Will Power's qualifying record of four pole positions, nine front row starts and an average starting position of 2.6875.
Christopher Bell's seven victories as a rookie in NASCAR's second division
Colin Braun and Jon Bennett finishing second in the Prototype championship with an Oreca

And the winner is... Robert Wickens for winning IndyCar Rookie of the Year despite missing three races.
Robert Wickens entered the 2018 season as a bit of a dark horse. He was the forgotten Canadian talent in the sense that the driver once winning in the Atlantic Championship, who then won in GP3, Formula Two and Formula Renault 3.5 unfortunately never made it to Formula One and spent the better part of his 20s in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, a series that mostly goes unnoticed in North America.

While remembered as a promising talent a decade ago, expectations were muted for a driver who had not raced single-seaters for seven years. Any concerns about his competitiveness were dashed in the first race weekend. He took pole position at St. Petersburg, led the most laps of the race and it were not for contact with Alexander Rossi he might have won on debut or at least finished second.

St. Petersburg was not a fluke. He led laps at Phoenix; he qualified well again at Long Beach and was competing for a race victory in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis with Will Power.

Almost every place was new to him and yet it never took him long to get his bearing and get to the front. He led in his first time at Texas and may have won if it were not for contact with Ed Carpenter, who was a lap down. He was challenging for the victory at Iowa. He had podium finishes at Toronto and Mid-Ohio. Everything seemed to be pointing to the Canadian getting his first victory before the season was out and he was on the cusp of a championship fight if he could get the results he needed in the final few races before Sonoma.

Unfortunately, we know Wickens' rookie season was marred at Pocono when an accident ended his season on the spot and has led to a lengthy recovery from a spinal cord injury. Despite his absence, Wickens had enough of a gap to win Rookie of the Year despite not running the final three races. On top of that, he finished tied with his teammate James Hinchcliffe for tenth in the championship with Hinchcliffe holding the tiebreaker because of his Iowa victory.

There is no doubt that had Wickens been in the final three races not only would he clinch Rookie of the Year at least a race if not two races early but he would have fought for fifth in the final championship standings. He ended the season with four podium finishes, only Dixon, Rossi, Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay had more. He led 187 laps, only Josef Newgarden, Rossi, Power and Dioxn led more. In year one, Wickens found himself fighting with IndyCar's best and not trying to make his way out of the middle of the pack.

Wickens took a jump in 2018, leaving the confines of Mercedes-Benz's DTM program, one he had found quite a bit of success in to return to open-wheel racing and North America, a discipline and a place his career had taken him away from. He returned and it never felt like he had left. There was no learning curve to overcome. He never seemed out of his element even at the ovals, which where completely new to him. His immediate ascension to the top of IndyCar won him many supporters and in year one he became one of the series' most beloved drivers.

On the other nominees:
I don't not talk about rallycross that often and it isn't my cup of tea but when you win 11 of 12 rounds in any series and are going against other respected drivers and at the level of talent of Mattias Ekström, Sébastien Loeb, Petter Solberg and others it deserved to be recognized. Johan Kristoffersson had a great season and he has had success in touring cars as well to his rallycross to success. He had a great year.

Will Power is a surefire bet when it comes to qualifying. His worst starting position was seventh in 2018. Yes, he missed the Fast Six at Sonoma but he is frequently in the top six and when he is in the Fast Six you can almost pencil him in for the front row. It is rare for him to go out in a qualifying session and only look like he is going to start fourth or fifth. It is front row or bust and that has transitioned to the ovals as well. If he can keep it up in qualifying a second championship will come in a matter of time.

Christopher Bell was the one great driver in NASCAR's second division last year and he might not have won a championship but he was the best driver. No rookie had ever won that many races in NASCAR second division and a fair amount of great drivers have passed through that series. He will be in the Cup series soon and it would come as no surprise to anyone if he was winning early when takes that step up as well.

Like Bell, Colin Braun and Jon Bennett did not win a championship but nobody expected any LMP2 team, let alone CORE Autosport to challenge for the championship. These two were consistent and took advantage of the opportunities that were laid out before them. They used strategy to make sure Braun was in the car late and more times than not Braun was the best driver down the stretch. They fell short of a championship but proved many people wrong.

Past Winners
2012: DeltaWing
2013: Sebastian Vettel for winning nine consecutive races on his way to a fourth consecutive title
2014: Marc Márquez: Setting the record for most wins in a premier class season.
2015: Justin Wilson Memorial Family Auction
2016: Jimmie Johnson for his seventh NASCAR Cup championship
2017: Jonathan Rea: For becoming the first rider to win three consecutive World Superbike championships.

Moment of the Year
Description: The Most Memorable Moment in the World of Racing during the 2018 season.
And the Nominees are:
Sebastian Vettel going off from the lead at Hockenheim
The first corner of the Belgian Grand Prix
Robert Wickens' accident at Pocono
Sophia Flörsch's accident at Macau
Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson battle at Chicagoland

And the winner is... Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson battle at Chicagoland
This was the best race of the NASCAR season and I do not mean it was the best finish therefore it was the best race. It was the best race from start to finish. It was an active race with a lot of passing; many different leaders and you could not go away because something was always happening.

It was a race where the low line and the high line were equal and it was just a matter of what you could get the most out of. This race saw Kyle Busch lead but Kyle Larson chip away from the high line and with the benefit of lapped traffic he got to Busch's bumper and it became a three-lap fight for the victory.

The race ended with the shouting Dale Earnhardt, Jr., as Kyle Larson attempted to pass Busch in turns one and two only for both to bump into the wall and bang into each other. Larson had the lead entering turn three but Busch got a clean shot at the rear of Larson's Chevrolet. Busch went up the track and brushed the wall again while Larson was sideways and trying to keep his car from completely going around.

Busch made it to the line first, Larson kept the car from going around and finished second and it kicked off the summer with a glorious race and a finish that matched it.

It wasn't a dirty move from either driver. It was hard racing and not the carelessness we see in NASCAR finishes at times. After the race, Busch and Larson shook hands and laughed about the hard fought battle on the final lap. Both drivers raced each other hard and physical and both had respect for each other.

On the other nominees:
The German Grand Prix may go down as the turning point of the 2018 Formula One season for years to come. Vettel entered as the championship leader and was starting on pole position with Hamilton down in 14th. It was a chance for him to tightened his grasp with the summer break looming. He was not challenged and the only thing that beat was a bit of moisture in the stadium section. He was off, Hamilton's charge to the front was given a boost, he would take a historic victory and reclaim the championship lead, which he never surrendered.

The first corner of the Belgian Grand Prix justified the introduction of the halo. Fernando Alonso's McLaren surfed over the Sauber of Charles Leclerc and after multiple replays it was clear had the halo not been there the floor of Alonso's car would have made contact with Leclerc's helmet. We don't know how severe the contact would have been or if Leclerc would have been injured but it did show that the halo can prevent those occurrences. We didn't have to worry about Leclerc's well being. He was able to drive back to the garage, get out of the car and go home and be ready for the Italian Grand Prix the next week. A lot of critics found themselves changing their tune.

I wrote about this before but the accidents that Wickens and Flörsch will leave a lasting imprint on all who follow motorsports. They will be hard to forget and can haunt us in the future. They will be flashbacks when things go wrong down the road. Sometimes the moments we remember are not always good. Sometimes the moment is a bad memory, a nightmare if you will. While these two accidents sucked and leave two promising drivers sidelined with no return date in sight, they are still here. They are alive. They have the ability to make a comeback and we are all rooting for their returns.

Past Winners
2012: Alex Zanardi
2013: 24 Hours of Le Mans
2014: Post-race at the Charlotte and Texas Chase races.
2015: Matt Kenseth vs. Joey Logano
2016: Toyota Slows at Le Mans
2017: Fernando Alonso announcing his Indianapolis 500 ride

Pass of the Year
Description: Best pass of 2018.
And the Nominees are:
Sébastien Bourdais on Scott Dixon and back marker Matheus Leist at Long Beach.
Stephen Simpson from third to first pass Jordan Taylor and Juan Pablo Montoya in the 6 Hours of the Glen.
Alexander Rossi from ninth to sixth and pass two lapped cars on the outside in turns one and two of the lap 146 restart in the Indianapolis 500.
Alexander Rossi from fifth to third on the outside in turns one and two of the lap 154 restart in the Indianapolis 500.
Lewis Hamilton's triple overtake on Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon and Nico Hülkenberg in turn one at Bahrain.
Daniel Ricciardo's pass on Valtteri Bottas for first in turn six.

And the winner is... Alexander Rossi for all his passes in the Indianapolis 500!
The ninth-to-sixth move was spectacular but on the following restart, Rossi went from looking up the inside of Hunter-Reay into turn one only to back off and then floor it on the outside and get pass Hunter-Reay, get to the outside of Simon Pagenaud and then complete that move on the outside of turn two.

The first set of passes was incredible. It was video game-esque level of picking drivers off. They fell behind Rossi as if they were standing still and the first move, included a pass on the lapped car of Spencer Pigot on the short chute where it appears Rossi didn't have an extra tenth of an inch on either side. A fraction in either direction and the two cars would have touched or Rossi would have been in the wall.

The passes were precise at 210 MPH in an unpopular line during unfavorable track conditions. It was slick. Cars were stepping out on best drivers all race because of the conditions and the aero package that reduced downforce on the front.

Rossi did what many thought would not be possible at Indianapolis this year but he worked his way from 32nd to fourth after 500 miles. It was a spectacularly thrilling run, one that gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. It was such a beautiful display of driving that it makes me want to cry.

On the other nominees:
Technically, Sébastien Bourdais' pass was deemed illegal because he crossed the blend line and he had to give the position back to Scott Dixon but forget the rules for a second, it was a superb move. He passed Dixon and carried his momentum to get by the lapped car of Leist. Some drivers would have overcooked it and ended up in the barrier and others would not have been as precise and made contact with Leist. Bourdais was smooth and if it weren't for a questionable rule this might have taken the top spot.

Watkins Glen is not a wide racetrack and it is especially narrow exiting the esses. Juan Pablo Montoya and Jordan Taylor were going at it in a hairy part of the racetrack and flying in out of nowhere was Stephen Simpson He went up the inside and Taylor could not slow him. Montoya likely had no clue he was there until Simpson emerged ahead entering the bus stop. Simpson went for it and it got him the victory.

Lewis Hamilton had a much faster car than Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon and Nico Hülkenberg but during the time of a pit cycle and cars on different strategies and going different paces it can lead to congested situations and this was one of them. Hamilton could be patient but run the risk of losing too much time. He was aggressive up the inside of the tight turn one at Bahrain. We have seen plenty of collisions there and with three cars around him it very well could have ended in tears but Hamilton made it stick.

One race later, Daniel Ricciardo found himself on the right tire strategy in China and he was passing drivers with ease. First it was Hamilton, then Vettel and with a dozen laps to go it seemed like Ricciardo's race to lose. Bottas would have to work hard to keep the Australian behind him but Ricciardo didn't mess around. He didn't wait until the turn 14 at the end of the longest straightaway. He saw his opportunity up the inside of turn six. Bottas tried to squeeze out the Australian but Ricciardo snuck pass and he was gone from there, taking an easy victory.

Past Winners
2012: Simon Pagenaud at Baltimore
2013: Robert Wickens at Nürburgring and Peter Dempsey in the Freedom 100
2014: Ryan Blaney on Germán Quiroga
2015: Laurens Vanthoor from 4th to 2nd on the outside in the Bathurst 12 Hour
2016: Scott McLaughlin on Mark Winterbottom at Surfers Paradise
2017: Renger van der Zande: From second to first on Dane Cameron at Laguna Seca

The Eric Idle Award
Description: "When You're Chewing on Life's Gristle, Don't Grumble, Give a Whistle, And This'll Help Things Turn Out For The Best, and...  Always Look On The Bright Side of Life."
And the Nominees are:
Sebastian Vettel: For Germany but also for not being able to keep up with Lewis Hamilton in possibly a superior car.
Daniel Suárez: For losing his Cup ride at Joe Gibbs Racing after two seasons in Cup and winning the championship in NASCAR's second division.
Valtteri Bottas: For being a consummate number two driver and not even getting one victory after his untimely tire puncture at the start of the final lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Brett Moffitt: For winning the NASCAR Truck championship and losing his ride before Christmas due to lack of funding.
Jamie Green: Going from third in the championship with 173 points and three victories to 18th on 27 points and scoring one top five finish.

And the winner is... Brett Moffitt: For winning the NASCAR Truck Series championship and losing his ride before Christmas due to lack of funding.
Brett Moffitt overcame the lack of funding with Hattori Racing Enterprises to win the NASCAR Truck Series championship this year. It was a popular story for a somewhat forgotten driver that had won the NASCAR Cup Series rookie of the year just three years ago.

The team beat the established and well-funded GMS Racing with previous champion Johnny Sauter and the flashy Justin Haley, the behemoth that is Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Truck series with Noah Gragson and the Truck series stalwart ThorSport Racing.

Moffitt had lost a ride the year before when Red Horse Racing closed after five races due to lack of funding. In the same situation in 2018, Moffitt won six races and had 13 top five finishes. At a few points during the season it seemed like the team was on the verge of closing and yet it always found a way to the racetrack and found a way to be at the sharp end of the grid.

The season ended with a championship but in the weeks after the glorious night the harsh reality of business came in and Hattori Racing Enterprises had to part with Moffitt because it needs driver that can help with the funding issue. Moffitt's title defense will have to come from somewhere else if he stays in the series.

Moffitt will land somewhere and he is not the first driver to win the championship and lose the ride due to funding but it is rare in NASCAR, especially in the national touring divisions and it just shows the difficulties these teams have to make ends meet. However, it is becoming increasingly common in NASCAR and we will have to wait and see if NASCAR does anything to decrease the spending and decrease teams having to rely on drivers to bring funding.

On the other nominees:
Vettel has come up a few times here and for the first half of the season he was trading blows with Hamilton and it seemed like he was going to have a legitimate shot at the title. Then Germany happened and he never recovered. He won the Belgian Grand Prix but that was it. Vettel would not finish ahead of Hamilton against until Mexico, where fourth place was enough for Hamilton to clinch the championship. He was there but yet he wasn't close.

Furniture Row Racing closing its doors was a terrible thing but it created a difficult game of musical chairs with five drivers and four seats at Joe Gibbs Racing. The extra driver entering the equation was Martin Truex, Jr. and Toyota was not going to let one of its champions get away. With Truex safe, Kyle Busch not getting the boot and Denny Hamlin having had a decade of success with Gibbs, it left the decision between Daniel Suárez and Erik Jones. Jones won a race in 2018. Suárez had yet to win in his two years in Cup. He was the one sent to the curb.

Valtteri Bottas could not get a break in 2018. Azerbaijan slipped through his fingers. He was beat straight up in China. He qualified on pole position and was apart of Mercedes-Benz's double retirement in Austria. When Vettel went off in Germany, it became Hamilton's race. He led from the start in Russia but team orders made it Hamilton's race again. He ended the season with four consecutive fifth place finishes. That day when Mercedes-Benz could make sure Bottas got his warm day in the sun never came. He has to look to 2019 with the wind in his face.

Jamie Green had a peculiar fall in the DTM championship. He was a title contender last year and this year he was dead last! Green didn't forget to drive and the DTM has this tendency. If you are not at the top at the start of the season you are likely never going to end up there. Green didn't get the results early and Audi focused on other drivers. He should turn it around and it would not surprise me if Green was up for a different award next year.

Past Winners
2012: Ben Spies
2013: Sam Hornish, Jr.
2014: Alexander Rossi
2015: McLaren
2016: Toyota
2017: Nick Heidfeld

Comeback of the Year
Description: The Best Comeback in the 2018 season.
And the Nominees are:
Lewis Hamilton: Winning the German Grand Prix form 14th on the grid and retaking the championship lead after trailing by eight points.
Scott Dixon: From first lap accident at the Grand Prix of Portland and trailing Alexander Rossi in the championship by 42 points to a fifth place finish and exiting Portland with a 29-point lead.
Force India: From administration and losing all its points prior to the Belgian Grand Prix to seventh on 52 points.
Lucas Mahias: Having a flat tire at Algarve only to have a timely red flag allow him the opportunity to win the ride back on a flat before the five-minute clock expired and having his disqualification from that race overturned to get the victory.
Billy Monger: Returning to racing after losing his legs and finishing sixth in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship with four podium finishes and a pole position at Donington Park.

And the winner is... Billy Monger: Returning to racing after losing his legs and finishing sixth in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship with four podium finishes and a pole position at Donington Park.
The man lost his legs and came back! Enough said. He won this back in April just by showing up for the first race. He extended his margin of victory in this category with each race and the results that followed. Monger finished third in the first race of the season and he scored fastest lap in the next race. He retired from one of 22 races. He had 15 top ten finishes.

Monger may not have won a race but one year after a horrific accident he was back in a race car, a step up from the F4 British Championship he was in the year before, and he was competitive. He is an inspiration and he is not done yet.

Next year, Monger is hoping to be in the FIA Formula Three Championship, two steps below Formula One. I do not know if he will make it to Formula One but the 19-year-old is not done racing and he will be around for a long time. His career may take him to the United States or Japan. It may take him to sports cars. He may make a living in touring cars but he is not going away. I can't wait to see where the future takes him.

On the other nominees:
Hamilton had never won a Formula One race from outside the top six positions and after starting 14th in Germany it appears his season was on the cusp of an uphill battle. Hamilton had a few sensational drives from further back on grid. In 2014, he went from 20th to third at Hockenheim and in the next race that season in Hungary he went from 22nd to third. In 2016, Hamilton started 21st and finished third in Belgium. He had some close calls but it never worked out. On a Sunday in Germany, the stars aligned under a rainy sky for Hamilton. He won from 14th and became the 14th driver to win from 14th or worse in a Formula One race.

It appeared the IndyCar championship was going to take a massive swing at Portland when Dixon was caught in the middle of torn up race cars but he drove away, the only one unscathed and he was still on the lead lap. He was far back and fighting just to claw some points out of Rossi's lead and then he had a pit lane speeding penalty. It seemed the championship lead was going to be Rossi's heading to Sonoma but a caution fell that shuffled the field, Dixon ended up ahead and the championship lead was his again. Not only was it his but he ended up extending it. It was a remarkable day.

For a while it was worrisome about Force India. The team was starting to flounder. It appeared Formula One was not only going to lose a team midseason but a competitive team as well. The good news was that the team entered administration and new investors pumped new life into the team. The bad news is the team had to forfeit 59 points and sixth in the constructors' championship. With nine races to go, Force India didn't make it all back but it finished seventh and was only ten points behind McLaren. What could have been disastrous turned out not to be so bad for this team.

Lucas Mahias was gone in this race and he was keeping himself in the championship fight. He lost the tire and it was a cruel bit of fate to happen so late in the race but an accident in another part of the circuit moments later drew out a red flag and it gave Mahias a second wind. The man rode in on a rim, had a few more falls along the way and somehow made it back. Yes, he would be disqualified but an appeal was successful and all of Mahias' frantic work was not for nothing.

Past Winners
2013: Michael Shank Racing at the 24 Hours of Daytona
2014: Juan Pablo Montoya to IndyCar
2015: Kyle Busch
2016: Max Verstappen from 15th to 3rd in the final 18 laps in the wet in the Brazilian Grand Prix
2017: Kelvin van der Linde: From third to first after a botched pit stop in the final 20 minutes in the 24 Hours Nürburgring

Most Improved
Description: Racer, Team or Manufacture Who Improved The Most from 2017 to 2018.
And the Nominees are:
Suzuki MotoGP: From 100 points, no podium finishes and no riders in the top ten to 233 points, nine podium finishes, Álex Rins finishing fifth in the championship and Andrea Iannone finishing tenth in the championship.
Jaguar Racing: From tenth on 27 points to sixth on 119 points in Formula E.
Gary Paffett: From tenth with one podium finish to DTM champion with three victories and ten podium finishes.
Joey Logano: From 17th with one victory to NASCAR Cup champion with three victories.
Kevin Magnussen: From 14th on 19 points to ninth with 56 points and 11 finishes in the points.

And the winner is... Gary Paffett
Paffett may have had a big jump from 2017 to 2018 but his 2018 season was a big jump over the previous five seasons.

Paffett may have more than doubled his points from 2017 to 2018 but his championship was also his first top five championship finish since he finished second in 2012. Prior to his victory in the season opener at Hockenheim, Paffett had not won since Lausitz in 2013. In 2014, he was 22nd in the championship on five points, ahead of only Vitaly Petrov, who did not score a point that season.

His three championship finishes from 2015 to 2017 were ninth, eleventh and tenth. He found something but was still off from where he was in the 2000s and off what it took to be a champion.

The 2018 season was a big turnaround. Not only did he win three races but he was on the podium in half of the races and there was no margin for error. Defending champion René Rast made a late surge, winning the final six races of the season but Paffett was able to hold off Rast by four points for the title.

On the other nominees:
Suzuki made a big stride in 2018 and if it wasn't for the conditions in Valencia it might have ended the season with a victory for Álex Rins. Suzuki was coming off of a rough year after Maverick Viñales left but 2018 was a step back in the right direction and it feels like the team is set up nicely for 2019.

Jaguar Racing made a big move up in Formula E and leaped ahead of a fair amount of teams that have been there since day one. Mitch Evans appears to be a forgotten talent, one of many drivers that Formula One has missed in the last five years and he might be the one to take Jaguar to the top of Formula E.

Joey Logano won last year at Richmond, had that race encumbered and he was not the same in 2017. He missed out on the NASCAR playoffs and was kind of forgotten. He won the spring Talladega race and made the playoffs. He ran well all year and when it came to the final ten races, Logano got the job done. He won at Martinsville and then won at Homestead to take the title.

Fourteenth to ninth does not sound all that impressive but when you consider Haas had never had a driver finish better than 13th in the championship and Magnussen had soured some people in recent years. However, this year Magnussen's 56 points is a career-high for him in a single season, he cracked the top ten and he finished five positions and 19 points ahead of his teammate Romain Grosjean, who has been with the team since day one. Magnussen took a step forward in 2018 and it was a long time coming.

Past Winners
2012: Esteban Guerrieri
2013: Marco Andretti
2014: Chaz Mostert
2015: Graham Rahal
2016: Simon Pagenaud
2017: DJR Team Penske

That is a wrap. We are at the end of the year and with a Formula E season opener behind us we can head into the holiday period and relax for a bit. We get a few days off around Christmas and spend the days in cold weather reflecting about the past and wondering about the future. The New Year and new seasons will be here shortly. It slowly gets going in January, picks up speed in February and come March it starts to feel familiar again and the year will flash before our eyes. It will be December again. The time will disappear and we will wonder where it went. We will think about the races we saw and feel like yesterday but were nine months ago. It will be sad but it will make us happy. The period will repeat.

Predictions will be here in the coming days. There will be the annual Christmas list and then it will be 2019. I thank all of you who read this. Thank you for taking the time.

First Impressions: 2018-19 Formula E Season Opener

I am doing something a bit different. Normally we have First Impressions within an hour or 90 minutes of the end of an IndyCar race but because of the nature of the Formula E season opener I think we need to look at what the first race of this new generation in Formula E.

1. First thoughts: It was a good race. It was a livelier race compared to previous Formula E events. For four seasons we had constant conservation. It didn't matter if it was the first car or second car, everyone was concerned with making it to the end of the race and rarely was anyone pushing it.

This race felt like everyone was on it from the start. The pack spread out. You had comers and goers. There was plenty of side-by-side racing. I think this was a check in the right box.

2. António Félix da Costa took the victory from pole position; the first Formula E victory for BMW and Andretti Autosport but it came after a bit of controversy. The Techeetah of Jean-Éric Vergne passed da Costa halfway through the race and he was the faster car but then Vergne, his teammate André Lotterer, da Costa's teammate Alexander Sims and a few other drivers were given drive-through penalties for "technical infringements," which ended up using too much power.

Dario Franchitti on the broadcast explained that using too much power could occur when a car spins the wheels over bumps on track. And that sucks. I don't want a race to be determined that way. There should be no "using too much power." You know when using too much power should be noticed? When a car has parked on track because its battery is dead. There is no point in having any of these cars have energy at the end.

Who cares if cars run out with a lap to go or two laps to go? That is the beauty of racing. We should want drivers pushing it and if they run out of power then great! It is a race. Drivers should be regulated on power use during the race. They have a battery and if they run it dry than so be it.

3. Vergne may have deserved the victory but da Costa held his own. Sims had a poor qualifying sessions, the penalty didn't help and he got another penalty for a second technical infringement. Jérôme d'Ambrosio was competitive and at the front for most of this one, as was Sébastien Buemi but Buemi was not moving forward. He had the pace to stay with the leaders but not challenge for position.

If there is a bit of good news for Vergne it is the way the race is now he could serve a penalty, come out in fourth and finish second. He did benefit from a safety car but the penalty was not a deathblow like I think it would have been in previous season. Lotterer still finished fifth in this one despite his penalty. It could have been a better day but it wasn't a day where Techeetah got nothing from this race despite being two of the three best cars.

4. Quickly through the rest of the field: Mitch Evans had an impressive day in fourth. Oliver Rowland made a good charge to seventh. I think both Audi Sport Abt cars were sent to the rear, two of six cars sent to the back, and Daniel Abt was eighth with Lucas di Grassi in ninth. Not a great start for those two but better than last year. Nelson Piquet, Jr. got the final point.

Both Virgin cars were sent to the read and neither Sam Bird nor Robin Frijns could get into the points and they finished 11th and 12th respectively.

José María López was running in the top six when he had a mechanical failure. He looked competitive but his Dragon Racing teammate Maximilian Günther was nowhere to be seen in this one. The same goes for both NIO cars of Oliver Turvey and Tom Dillmann. Dillmann qualified second in a wet session but was sent to the rear after he ran too many laps in qualifying, once again why is that a rule?

Felipe Massa looked good in his debut but he only finished 14th and his Venturi teammate Edoardo Mortara kept getting into the barriers.

HWA did not have a great debut. Stoffel Vandoorne qualified fifth in the wet but the race was in the dry and he sunk to the rear while Gary Paffett was off pace for most of this one.

Felix Rosenqvist's Formula E career ends with a thud: A poor qualifying session and a retirement after a handful of laps.

5. Attack mode seems to be a dud. First, I don't like that it is mandatory. Second, there was one activation zone and it seemed way too small and way too far off line. You really could tell when someone was on it or when someone drove through it. I am sure it is going to be tweaked but for something the series heavily pushed leading up to the season opener it helped with a few passes but I am not sure it lived up to the hype.

6. Now that teams do no have to do a car swap, how many cars are teams bringing to the track? Does each entry have a backup car or are teams bringing one spare? That was the first thing I thought of when I saw Edoardo Mortara got into the barriers during practice.

It also came to mind during the break between qualifying and the race. Under the old system, teams in theory could use one car to practice, let it charge and use the other car for qualifying and then let that car charge for the race. I understood the gaps between sessions but with one car, how does that work. The gap between practice and qualifying was not that great. Are teams still using two different cars and then before the race have to decide on one car for the event?

These are the things that should have been explained beforehand. Forget attack mode and having the Saudi government pay for Wayne Rooney to come to the race (you think Wayne Rooney paid for the trip himself? Come on man. It was purely for optics). We need to know the basics and this is a Formula E problem.

7. Formula E still does a terrible job communicating basic details and that is what a fan base, people who actually invest into the series want. The series has so much downtime and it needs a Jon Beekhuis who can explain the tech stuff and the regulations of a race.

The series is too focused on being a millennial distraction with social media crap. It doesn't really care if you know how the series works and that is a bit infuriating.

The same goes with having an easy place where to find the weekend schedule. Is it that hard to have a basic grid with session and start time for all practices, qualifying and the race? The series is more worried about promoting the concerts over the three days than the on-track activities and maybe that is the series marketing strategy.

Maybe Formula E realized how few people actually care about motorsports and the dwindling audience and instead of promote concerts, promote David Guetta, The Black Eyed Peas (minus Fergie, at least I think minus Fergie, I don't think she has performed with The Black Eyed Peas in five years) and... Enrique Iglesias? (Really?) Sell the concerts and the have a race. The race is the warm-up act but a warm-up with a podium ceremony and confetti cannons.

However, it just continues to show how Formula E alienates actual motorsports fans, the audience they should have had a shoe in from the start. Many people are not going to the race and couldn't care less about who is performing an after a race but will have the time to put aside to watch practice or qualifying if they knew when it was going to be on.

It is something really simple that the series still cannot grasp.

8. U.S. broadcast specific issue: The broadcast starts five minutes before the start of the race. Just enough time to cover the grid but that's it. You have no clue what the track looked like, whether the first turn was a right or a left, no explanation of how attack mode works even though the broadcasters are mentioning it and it is not good.

Fox Sports is doing the bare minimum, which is fine; they have all the right in the world to give that amount of effort. They did bring Steve Matchett in to throw to break and reintroduce the broadcast. It is always good to have more Steve Matchett in our lives but there was nothing pertinent on before the race. There could have been a half-hour pre-race show at 6:30 a.m. Although, my guide said the broadcast wasn't beginning until 7:30 a.m. ET but with everything else saying 7:00 a.m. I figured I roll the dice and see who was right and it turns out it came on at 7:00 a.m. The broadcast was still only an hour and ended at 8:00 a.m., which sucks because you got no post-race. You have no connection to any of the drivers and you heard zero emotion from da Costa or Vergne after his penalty. The broadcast ended and plenty of questions remained unanswered.

The U.S. broadcast has room for massive improvements. I do not expect them to come. It is Fox and I bet Formula E is on page 125 of 126 in terms of importance.

On the bright side, this broadcast was better than ESPN's coverage of the Australian Grand Prix this year. So it wasn't worst broadcast of the year.

9. I am not sure if we are going to do this after every race but I think it is important to check in on the series a few time during this season to see how races are going, how attack mode is doing and to see if where we are at.

This Month in Motorsports Headlines: December 2018 Part One

We are dong something a bit different this month. Because of a busy Christmas period and plenty of predictions to look at later this month, we are going to look at headlines for the first half of December now and early in the New Year, we will have a part two that looks at headlines from the second half of the month.

Once again, this is just for fun. In case you are new, this is my gut reaction to headlines without reading the article. Of course, the gripes I have may be answered in the article.

Interview: Why NASCAR's Rookie of the Year still isn't satisfied
Because William Byron won Rookie of the Year and that doesn't mean crap in NASCAR, really any sport to be honest. Daniel Suárez lost his ride after two years. Suárez didn't win Rookie of the Year but he was respectable and he was kicked to the curb. Brett Moffitt won the 2015 Cup Series Rookie of the Year and he went backward. He won the Truck title this year but he still went backward.

Here is a list of other Rookie of the Year winners: Ricky Craven, Johnny Benson, Mike Skinner, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Conway, Stephan Leicht, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

Only six of the last 30 Rookie of the Year winners have won a championship.

Byron knows he hasn't done jack yet and he is miles off of where he needs to be.

Dovizioso hails best winter tests of Ducati career
Are championships won in November and December test sessions? What does this even mean?

Is it related to pace or does it come to the other things? Have there been tests where you were quicker but the coffee wasn't warm enough? Did you get more sleep each night and wake up feeling fresher than other years?

I am happy that Dovizioso is happy heading into the winter but will the best winter tests matter come summer?

Hamilton suffers small crash during Superbike test
So... these drivers have a problem with running an IndyCar on an oval and their teams wouldn't dare let them do it but jumping on a superbike is not a problem at all?

There is nothing wrong with feeling more comfortable on a superbike than driving an IndyCar on an oval but there is a bit of hypocrisy. You can still get hurt and seriously hurt on a superbike. How many riders have we seen get thrown from a bike and the injury derailed an entire season?

And Mercedes allowed this to happen? At least in another car, Hamilton would have something around him. When you crash on a motorcycle your body is going to make contact with something and Hamilton isn't Marc Márquez who trains his body to take a beating.

Hamilton is free to do whatever he wants but he and no one who things him testing a superbike isn't a big deal shouldn't come out and start decrying IndyCar for being too dangerous.

FIA: Aeroscreen only 10% as effective in Leclerc's Spa crash
I like how it was only last year the aeroscreen was in the catbird seat until Sebastian Vettel tested it for one out lap at Silverstone in FP1, complained, had Ferrari be the only team to vote against it while every other team voted for the aeroscreen over the halo and now we are picking out the flaws of the aeroscreen.

Guess what? If the aeroscreen had been chosen, don't you think modifications and improvements would have been made before hand? Don't you think more testing would have been done and they would have strengthened it?

The halo is here and it isn't going anywhere. IndyCar is the only series pursuing the aeroscreen but couldn't a hybrid work? In the case of the Leclerc accident with Fernando Alonso, why couldn't the next generation of the aeroscreen include the upper bar of the halo as a solid top with the aeroscreen surrounding the front of the drivers head and the middle bar could be removed?

The aeroscreen may have had its flaws but let's point out that they could have been corrected instead of saying it was garbage and would have not been able to protect Leclerc.

Button: "Diverse" Yamamoto worthy of F1 race seat
Yes and so is Scott Dixon, Lucas di Grassi, Alexander Rossi, Will Power, Sébastien Buemi, Felix Rosenqvist, Sam Bird, Filipe Albuquerque, Neel Jani, Jean-Éric Vergne, António Félix da Costa, Robin Frijns and Mitch Evans so Naoki Yamamoto is going to have to get in line.

What is in Yamamoto's favor is his nationality and he drives for Honda so if any driver can get shoehorned into Formula One it is him. Japan is a tough place to race. Both Super Formula and Super GT are high level series and we are seeing more Formula One teams direct their development drivers to Super Formula if they have proven to have Formula Two down pat or as an alternate to Formula Two. Honda right now is supplying the two Red Bull teams so it will be a bit tougher for Yamamoto because he has a dozen Red Bull drivers to contest with but if Honda expanded to a third team or started a factory team then the door would open for him and I would be interested in seeing how he does.

If Honda can't get Yamamoto into Formula One, there is always IndyCar.

Jacques Villeneuve says that Valtteri Bottas is not a lock to finish 2019 in Mercedes F1 seat
Oh good, Jacques Villeneuve chimed in. Who calls him? Who? Why? Why doesn't anyone call him? Is he calling people? How much free time does Jacques Villeneuve have on his hands that he can comment about every other story when it comes to Formula One? How is he not television with the amount of comments he makes?

He might be right but it is all about batting average and I feel like he is wrong more than he is right.

Max Verstappen sad he never got to 'race' with F1 great Fernando Alonso
This was a douchebag of a comment. Verstappen knew what he was saying. He knew it would be a burn. It was uncalled for. We get it. Alonso was in inferior equipment for three seasons. He was not close to his best but this was a potshot from Verstappen. He comes off like a punk more every day.

Has Johnson shown America's next F1 star could come from NASCAR?
No!

Is anyone going to use common sense and a critical lens when it comes to this ride swap?

First, it was a ride swap. Two, it was a five-year-old car. Three, his times were way off what were competitive five years ago. Four, we have no idea what kind of set up or tires were on the car.

Let's not think that just because Jimmie Johnson did a day in a Formula One car and didn't bin the car or break a gearbox means he or anyone else from NASCAR could just move over to Formula One. There is so much more he would have to learn. His braking points will be much later than he ever experienced and he would have to fight muscle memory of how he drives a Cup car now on a road course meanwhile he would be competing against drivers who are already accustomed to driving it that deep into a corner since the days of Formula Three.

Besides the difference of the car, the cultural differences is just as big of a hurdle and I do not mean life in the United States versus life with a European team. If Johnson or anyone from NASCAR was going to make a switch it would require a few seasons of junior formula racing and cost them millions of dollars. Do you really think Joey Logano is going to spend a year in Formula Three or Brad Keselowski? Kyle Busch isn't going to spend two years in Formula Two.

These drivers aren't going to sacrifice two or three years in junior series to make just as much running for a decent Formula One team that they already make in NASCAR. And none of them are going to move to Formula One and get the $20 million salary that Fernando Alonso got at McLaren and they definitely would be nowhere near Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel money. Running for Sergio Pérez money or Nico Hülkenberg money isn't worth it and it will keep them in NASCAR.

Mears: Johnson can make IndyCar switch "if the fire is lit"
Sure but it kind of falls into the same boat as Formula One. The difference is it wouldn't likely cost Johnson a small fortune to get to IndyCar. Johnson has enough connections that he could likely pull together a full IndyCar season without costing himself a penny but unless he has a change of heart and stops dismissing running ovals then it isn't going to happen.

Autosport Awards: Leclerc is Rookie of the Year
I got a bone to pick here.

Are people always going to vote down ticket for Formula One when it comes to the Autosport Awards? Will anyone look at it critically and actually do some research?

The International Racing Driver Award has gone to a Formula One driver 25 consecutive years and even worse it has been the World Drivers' Championship 11 consecutive years. The International Racing Driver Award has gone to a driver that has run predominantly Formula One for 35 of the 37 years. The Racing Car of the Year has been a Formula One car 15 consecutive years and a Formula One car has won the award 33 of 37 years.

In the 19 years Rookie of the Year has been awarded, a Formula One driver has won it 13 times and Charles Leclerc won it this year, one year after winning it for his Formula Two campaign.

For starters, I don't think you should be up for rookie of the year if you are in a development series. Most of the drivers you are against are also rookies or in their second year in that series. You aren't taking on experienced drivers who have been in that series for years.

Secondly, how the hell is what Leclerc done more impressive than Robert Wickens?

I am going to fight for Robert Wickens on this one.

First off, George Russell and Lando Norris are disqualified because of Formula Two. The other two nominees were Pierre Gasly, which is fine, and André Lotterer in Formula E, which is also fine, but Wickens has them beat.

Take into consideration that Wickens went from touring cars to single-seaters after being out of open-wheel cars for seven years and he moved to a series that was on another continent, with racetrack most of which he had never raced on and he had to run ovals, something he had never done before. Despite all those constraints, he won pole on debut, nearly won on debut, he finished second on his oval debut, he had four podium finishes, seven top five finishes and ten top ten finishes from 14 starts. He was sixth in the championship when he got hurt and he finished 11th, tied for tenth only to lose it on tiebreaker and he was still IndyCar Rookie of the Year.

Wickens had an average starting position of 6.4, behind only Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay. His average finish was 8.9, behind only Scott Dixon, Rossi, Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay. He led the fifth most laps.

Leclerc had a good year and he was driving for Sauber. He scored 39 points on his own after Sauber as a team scored zero points, 36 points, two points and five points in the previous four seasons. His 39 points were the most scored by a Sauber driver since Nico Hülkenberg scored 51 points in 2013. He scored points in ten of 21 races with his best finish being sixth at Azerbaijan.

Leclerc did well but at no point did anyone think Leclerc had what it took to win a race and Wickens had that for pretty much every race from day one. Part of the reason we didn't feel that way for Leclerc is he was driving for Sauber but he was trained for Formula One. He has been on the ladder for quite sometime. He had been to most of the tracks. He had Ferrari backing, simulator opportunities and he had driven in eight Friday free practice sessions over the previous two years.

Wickens did a ride swap during the preseason in 2017 at Sebring, he ran on Friday at Road America last year when Mikhail Aleshin was struggling to get into the country due to visa issues and then he had 2018 preseason testing. That's it. He rolled the dice. He left a Mercedes-Benz factory drive in the DTM to run IndyCar and completely shed his comfort zone and from day one he was trading punches with the big boys and he did not flinch.

We know fans can be somewhat critical. Hell, somehow A.J. Allmendinger won Rookie of the Year in 2004 when he was in Champ Car. I don't know who he was up against but he won it. The year before that, Dan Wheldon won in the IRL but I have a feeling the British bias helped him in that one. At the same time, Tiago Monteiro, Jules Bianchi and Pascal Wehrlein all won Rookie of the Year. Monteiro finished third in the 2005 United States Grand Prix when all the Michelin teams withdrew and he scored one point with an eighth-place finish at Belgium. Bianchi did not score any points the year he won the award and while Bianchi was a great talent and was unfortunately killed in an accident before he got a proper shot in a proper car, we need to be more critical than saying someone scoring no points is the best rookie. The same goes with Wehrlein, who scored one point the year he won.

I feel like more should be done when it comes to these type of awards. One, I don't think they should be up to a fan poll. That may come off as unpopular but we have seen enough times that they don't do enough research. Two, if we are going to have fans vote, each nominee should have a thorough write up as to why he, she or the car is being nominated and the achievements of the season should be put into context.

Same goes for all the awards. The International Racing Driver Award can go to Scott Dixon or Jean-Éric Vergne or Sébastien Buemi. Racing Car of the Year can be something other than a Formula One car. The DW12 could have won. The Toyota TS050 Hybrid could have won. It could be given to a GT3 car or a Daytona Prototype international.

I think Autosport should do more when it looks at the results and sees how one-sided they have been for nearly four decades.

That was just one half of the month. What will the second have in store?

2018-19 Formula E Season Preview

We have made it to December and we have less than two weeks until Christmas but while most motorsports series are in the middle of the offseason, we have one championship about to start. Formula E is back for its fifth season and this year will see many changes to the championship. New cars, new race format, new locations, new drivers and a new team on the grid and all of it will be covered.

What is Different?
This will be the first season in Formula E history without a car change during a race. With the introduction of the Gen2 car, drivers will no longer have to make a pit stop and swap cars during the race to make it to the checkered flag. All cars will now have enough power to make it to the end of the race.

The introduction of the Gen2 car will also see an increase in power from 200kW to 250 kW.

With the lost of the car swap comes a new race format.

Races will now be 45 minutes in length plus one lap. Previous races have been to a scheduled number of laps.

This year will see the introduction of the attack mode feature in Formula E. There will be designated areas on the racetrack, off the racing line, that drivers will have to drive through in order to receive additional power on a subsequent lap. Attack mode will see the cars get a boost of 25kW.

Schedule
This season's schedule starts at a new venue in a new country: Saudi Arabia. The 2018-19 season opener will be held on the streets of Riyadh on December 15th.

After one month off, Marrakesh will host the second round of the season on January 12th. It is the third consecutive season Marrakesh has hosted Formula E. The series returns to Santiago, Chile on January 26th but it will be a new circuit, different from last year's debut in the city. Mexico City will be back for the fourth consecutive season and the race will be held on February 16th. After two consecutive seasons being the season opener, Hong Kong will be the fifth round of the season on March 10th.

Thirteen days after Hong Kong, Formula E will run in Sanya, China. The first European round of the season will be in Roma on April 13th. Two weeks after Rome, Paris hosts Formula E. Monaco is back on the schedule and will run on May 11th with Berlin on May 25th.

After one year in Zürich, Formula E will move to Bern, Switzerland and the city will host the penultimate round of the season on June 22nd. Brooklyn will host the season finale for the second consecutive season and for the third consecutive year this will be a doubleheader. The two races will be held on July 13th and July 14th.

Teams:
Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team
Lucas di Grassi: #11 Audi e-Tron FE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Di Grassi finished second in the Formula E championship with two victories and seven consecutive top-two finishes to close the season
What to expect in 2018-19: It is Lucas di Grassi. Multiple victories, plenty of podium finishes and another title fight. Last season saw a rough start for di Grassi and the Audi Sport Abt team. I do not think they will start as far behind the eight ball as they did last season.

Daniel Abt: #66 Audi e-Tron FE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Abt won twice and had two more podium finishes on his way to a fifth place finish in the championship, a career-best result for the German.
What to expect in 2018-19: Abt is coming off a career year but I do not think he will outscore his teammate and while he has a car that will be capable of winning races I think the grid is tougher and the top step of the podium might not be a destination for Abt this season.

Teams Notes: Audi Sport Abt has won ten races over four Formula E seasons.

The team has won multiple races in every season but the first season of Formula E.

Abt and di Grassi are two of six drivers to start all 45 races in Formula E history.

Di Grassi is the all-time leader in podium finishes with 27.

DS Techeetah
Jean-Éric Vergne: #25 DS E-Tense FE 19
What did he do in 2017-18: Vergne was the champion with four victories, six podium finishes and he scored points in all 12 races. On the side, Vergne raced and won races in the European Le Mans Series and FIA World Endurance Championship in LMP2 class.
What to expect in 2018-19: Vergne is going to put up a strong title defense. He was quick in testing. He is coming off the best year of his career across the board. He is going to win a few races, he is going to pick up points regularly.

André Lotterer: #36 DS E-Tense FE 19
What did he do in 2017-18: Lotterer finished eight in the championship after two podium finishes and  he closed out the season with six consecutive points finishes. Lotterer joined Rebellion Racing in the LMP1 class in the WEC and he finished fourth at Le Mans while finishing second at Silverstone and third at Fuji.
What to expect in 2018-19: I think Lotterer will improve this season and he could be the biggest hurdle to Vergne's title defense. It could be a case where one Techeetah car is taking points from the other. I think he could win a race.

Teams Notes: Vergne has 11 podium finishes from 24 races with Teechetah.

In each of Teechetah's two seasons both drivers have had multiple podium finishes in a season.

Vergne and Lotterer's 1-2 finish last year at Santiago was the first 1-2 finish for a team in Formula E history.

Envision Virgin Racing
Sam Bird: #2 Audi e-Tron FE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Bird won three races and had six podium finishes and he scored points from 11 of 12 races only to finish one point behind di Grassi in the championship. He has also driven for AF Corse in the WEC.
What to expect in 2018-19: Bird has been one of the most consistent drivers in Formula E's short history with championship finishes of fifth, fourth, fourth and third. Not only is he consistent but he is improving year-to-year. He has won every year he has been in the series and he is third all-time in victories with seven, only one behind di Grassi. I expect Bird to continue to be in the top five and win at least one race. I think Virgin is lacking that last bit necessary to take the fight for the championships but they will have the Audi powertrain and that sets the team up for success.

Robin Frijns: #4 Audi e-Tron FE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Frijns returns to Formula E after spending 2018 driving in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, Blancpain GT Endurance and Sprint series, Intercontinental GT Challenge, IMSA and Stock Car Brasil. His only victory was at the Bathurst 12 Hour. He scored 84 points and finished 13th in the DTM championship with his best finishes being second at Misano and Hockenheim.
What to expect in 2018-19: Frijns was good in his first stint with Andretti Autosport with a podium finishes and 12 points finishes from 22 races but in the first era of Formula E, Andretti Autosport was not a team at the sharp end of the grid and Frijns got the most out of what he was given. I expect an improvement from his previous stint and I think he will beat his career-best championship finish of 12th but it is hard to pinpoint where he will fall. In four seasons, Bird has had five different teammates at Virgin Racing and the best championship finish for those teammates is ninth. I feel like Frijns might end up there.

Teams Notes: Bird is responsible for all five of Virgin Racing's victories.

Bird is responsible for 15 of Virgin Racing's 18 podium finishes.

Bird has been the top finisher for Virgin Racing in 29 of 45 races.

Virgin Racing has not had a pole position since Berlin 2016 with Jean-Éric Vergne.

Mahindra Racing
Jérôme d'Ambrosio: #64 Mahindra M5Electro
What did he do in 2017-18: D'Ambrosio's best finish was third at Zürich but he scored 27 points over the course of the season and he was 14th in the championship.
What to expect in 2018-19: Though this team has had success and d'Ambrosio is a Formula E race winner, this could be the sneaky pick of the season. The team was quick during testing and this could be a shot in the Belgian's arm after two rough years at Dragon Racing. He should be in the top ten of the championship.

Pascal Wehrlein: #94 Mahindra M5Electro
What did he do in 2017-18: Wehrlein returned to the DTM after two seasons in Formula One. His best finish was third at Lausitz and he finished eighth in the championship on 108 points.
What to expect in 2018-19: Wehrlein is going to miss the opening round due to him not being able to get out of his Mercedes-Benz contract until the start of 2019. That means Felix Rosenqvist will get one final round before his Formula E career comes to a close and he moves to IndyCar. My concern with Wehrlein is we haven't seen him do much in single-seaters in six years and he never got the results expected. He didn't have many flashy days in Formula One. He wasn't in great equipment but for some reason I do not have high expectations for him. I think he will do well but he will be in a tough fight for the top ten in the championship.

Teams Notes: Mahindra finished on the podium in the first three races last season but did not finish on the podium in the final nine races of the season.

D'Ambrosio made all 45 Formula E starts with Dragon Racing.

D'Ambrosio is tied with Felix Rosenqvist for seventh all-time in podium finishes in Formula E history with seven podium finishes.

Wehrlein will become the third-to-last driver alphabetically by last name all-time in Formula E history ahead of Justin Wilson and Sakon Yamamoto.

Nissan e.dams
Oliver Rowland: #22 Nissan IM01
What did he do in 2017-18: Rowland ran twice in the Blancpain Endurance Series, including the Spa 24 Hours and he ran in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for CEFC TRSM Racing. Rowland has made one Formula E start. His only start was for Mahindra in the 2015-16 season at Punta del Este and he finished 13th.
What to expect in 2018-19: Rowland got one test day at Valencia, the final day, and even then it wasn't clear who Nissan's second driver would be. After the tussle over Alexander Albon was lost to Toro Rosso, Rowland got the seat. This has the feeling of a team not ending up with who they wanted and has the potential of Rowland never really being embraced by the team. Nicolas Prost did not get great results last year in that seat, as Prost only scored eight points. Rowland should do better than that but this could be a case where Rowland is quite a distance below his teammate.

Sébastien Buemi: #23 Nissan IM01
What did he do in 2017-18: Buemi did not win a race last season, the first time he was shut out in his Formula E career but he had four podium finishes and he was fourth in the championship. Buemi won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima and they currently leads the World Endurance Drivers' Championship.
What to expect in 2018-19: You would think Buemi would bounce back after not winning a race last season. But Nissan has not shown the dominant pace that e.dams had with Renault at the start of this series. I think Buemi will be toward the front but this team is not leading the pack any more. He could win a race but he will not be reeling them off like he did a few years ago.

Teams Notes: e.dams has the most victories for any team in Formula E history with 15.

Buemi is the all-time leader in Formula E history in victories (12), pole positions (11), fastest laps (7), laps led (405) and races with at least one lap led (17).

Buemi is tied with di Grassi and Bird are tied for most total races with points at 36.

Five of Buemi's seven fastest laps occurred in the 2015-16 season.

Rowland is the first non-French speaking driver to join e.dams in Formula E.

Panasonic Jaguar Racing
Nelson Piquet, Jr.: #3 Jaguar I-Type III
What did he do in 2017-18: Piquet, Jr. finished ninth in the championship with his best finish being fourth in three races and he scored 51 points.
What to expect in 2018-19: For the inaugural champion, Piquet, Jr.'s Formula E career has been crap. He has not had a podium finish since he won at Moscow in June 2015! He started last year well with four points finishes from the first five races but that was followed with five retirements from the next six races. I don't think he finishes in the top ten in the championship. If he does, he finishes tenth.

Mitch Evans: #20 Jaguar I-Type III
What did he do in 2017-18: Evans had a third place finish at Hong Kong and he finished seventh in the championship on 68 points.
What to expect in 2018-19: Jaguar had a pendulum of a Valencia test. Both cars were at the bottom of day one, both were toward the middle of day two and Evans was fourth on the final day but Piquet, Jr. was 19th! I am not sure where this car falls in the pecking order but Evans went from 14th to seventh over his first two years and he has finished ahead of his teammate each season. I do not see that changing. Evans had one podium finish last year and on certain days he might have the ability to finish in the top three but I don't think those days will be frequent. He will finish in the backend of the top ten of the championship.

Teams Notes: Jaguar Racing went from six points finishes to 13 points finishes from 2016-17 to 2017-18.

Only four times has Jaguar Racing had both cars finish in the points.

Evans became the third youngest pole-sitter in Formula E history last season when he won pole position at Zürich.

Venturi Formula E Team
Felipe Massa: #19 Venturi VFE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Massa spent most of the year on the sideline after 16 years in Formula One. He made two starts in Stock Car Brasil. His first was at the season opener at Interlagos co-driving with Cacá Bueno and he started at Goiânia.
What to expect in 2018-19: This team is going to be middle of the road, scoring one week and then not scoring the next. I am not sure it can compete for podium finishes but I would not be surprised if Massa scored in six or seven races with his best finish being fifth.

Edoardo Mortara: #48 Venturi VFE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Mortara finished second in the second race of the season at Hong Kong but his next best finish was seventh in the season opener from Hong Kong and he missed three races due to Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. He ended the season with 29 points and 13th in the championship.
What to expect in 2018-19: I think Mortara can match his results from last year, runner-up at Hong Kong aside. I think he and Massa will be in a tough fight for best Venturi driver, similar to last season when Maro Engel finished one position and two points ahead of Mortara.

Teams Notes: Venturi has never won a race and it has never finished better than sixth in the teams' championship.

Mortara's second place finish at Hong Kong last year was the team's third podium finish and Venturi has contested all 45 Formula E races.

The team has never won a pole position or scored a fastest lap.

Massa will be the seventh driver in Venturi history.

Massa will become the seventh oldest driver in Formula E history at Saudi Arabia.

NIO Formula E Team
Tom Dillmann: #8 NIO Sport 004
What did he do in 2017-18: Dillmann ran three races substituting for Mortara and he finished fourth in the first race from Brooklyn. He scored 12 points and finished 18th in the championship.
What to expect in 2018-19: NIO was not fast in testing. Dillmann was never better than 12th at the Valencia test. He scored 12 points from three races last year and I am not sure he is going to score more than that in 2018-19.

Oliver Turvey: #16 NIO Sport 004
What did he do in 2017-18: Turvey rounded out the top ten of the championship with 46 points with his best result being second at Mexico City. He missed the final round from Brooklyn due to a fractured fifth metacarpal bone on his left hand.
What to expect in 2018-19: Like Dillmann, Valencia testing was not kind to Turvey. He was never better than 15th on any of the three test days. He is destined to take a big step back from his 2017-18 results. I think it will be a tight fight between who will be the best NIO driver in the championship but unfortunately, both drivers might be fighting outside the top fifteen in the championship.

Teams Notes: NIO has not won in the last 36 Formula E races.

The team has four top five finishes in the last 36 races.

With the exit of Nick Heidfeld and Stéphane Sarrazin, Turvey leads all active drivers with 35 entries without a victory.

Geox Dragon Racing
Maximilian Günther: #6 Penske EV-3
What did he do in 2017-18: Günther ran in the Formula Two series and he won at Silverstone and finished second at Bahrain, both sprint races. He ended the season on 41 points, 14th in the championship.
What to expect in 2018-19: Dragon Racing has slid from second in the champion in year one to fourth, eight and ninth last year. Günther ended the three-day Valencia test strong but he only had 13 laps over the first two days and that is a concern. We really haven't seen a driver come into Formula E from GP2/Formula Two and do well. I think he will be finishing toward the back of the championship.

José María López: #7 Penske EV-3
What did he do in 2017-18: López had three points finishes last season and was 17th on 14 points. He has also been running for Toyota in WEC and he has won two of five races this season.
What to expect in 2018-19: While Günther struggled to get laps, López did well the first two days and I think López will carry the load for this team. He will likely finish outside the top ten of the championship but it would not be surprising if he scored points in five or six races.

Teams Notes: Dragon Racing picked up its ninth podium finish last year when Jérôme d'Ambrosio finished third at Zürich.

López has scored points in ten of his 20 starts.

Günther will become the third youngest driver in Formula E history in Saudi Arabia. Only Matthew Brabham and Pierre Gasly started a race at a younger age.

BMW i Andretti Motorsport
Alexander Sims: #27 BMW IFE.18
What did he do in 2017-18: Sims has spent the last two seasons driving for BMW Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan in IMSA and he won five races over the two seasons including two races in 2018.
What to expect in 2018-19: Sims topped two of three days of the Valencia testing in October. He has been kind of a sleeper the last few years. He came to IMSA and was successful right off the bat. This will be his first time in a single-seater since he ran a Formula Three round at Hockenheim in 2016. He has not won in a single-seater since the 2013 GP3 sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps. He will be competitive, could win a race or two and he should be the best rookie.

António Félix da Costa: #28 BMW IFE.18
What did he do in 2017-18: Da Costa scored 20 points and finished 15th in the championship but his best finish occurred in the first race of the season in Hong Kong when he finished sixth.
What to expect in 2018-19: Da Costa was fastest on the second day of Valencia testing. This should be his best season in Formula E yet. He seems to have finally landed in the right car at the right time. I expect him to score at least 80 points and get a victory or two.

Teams Notes: Andretti Autosport has never won in Formula E competition.

The team has not had a podium finish in the last 32 races.

The team has had four different drivers finish on the podium (Franck Montagny, Jean-Éric Vergne, Scott Speed and Robin Frijns).

Sims is the 14th driver for Andretti Autosport in Formula One history.

With the increased BMW influence, the team has switched to a German team from an American team.

HWA Racelab
Stoffel Vandoorne: #5 Venturi VFE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Vandoorne raced with McLaren in Formula One and he scored 12 points, good enough for 19th in the championship. His best finish was eighth at Bahrain and Mexico City.
What to expect in 2018-19: Vandoorne could have left one difficult situation for another difficult situation. HWA was not toward the top of the grid in testing and I fear what Vandoorne was hoping would be a restart for his career could end up being another set back that some will use it as proof he is not as a great of a talent despite his junior formula success.

Gary Paffett: #17 Venturi VFE05
What did he do in 2017-18: Paffett won the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship, his second title in the series, after winning three races and having ten podium finishes from 20 races.
What to expect in 2018-19: This is Paffett's big move back to single-seaters about 14 years later than expected. He was once a McLaren test driver on the sidelines waiting to breakthrough and Prodrive's attempt to enter Formula One seemed to be his shot but it never materialized. I am not sure how many points will come but the goal should be to keep up and beat his teammate.

Teams Notes: This will be HWA's first season in Formula E.

Vandoorne will be the second Belgian driver in Formula E history.

Paffett will become the sixth oldest driver in Formula E with his start in Saudi Arabia.

Final Takeaways:
The early favorites appear to be the BMW team. Not only was the team fast but it appears other teams have taken notice and are expect to have to up their game.

Alexander Sims has been a bit of a silent assassin in sports cars and he transitions back to single-seaters. Meanwhile, António Félix da Costa has made a career in Formula E after appearing to be the best Red Bull development driver to get the short straw and not get a crack at Formula One.

Audi Sport Abt has never wavered from the front of the Formula E grid and last season the team had a sluggish start but rallied at the end, who the teams' championship and got Lucas di Grassi to second in the championship. It is hard to see Audi Sport Abt fall from the top and not give BMW a run for its money.

Jean-Éric Vergne is coming off a career year that included last season's Formula E championship. Techeetah still appears to have the pace but it will be difficult for Vergne to keep up his level of consistency. While Virgin Racing did not top any of the test sessions, the team has the Audi powertrain and Sam Bird has been just as consistent as Vergne in Formula E.

Mahindra is shaking up its lineup after a rather stable two seasons with Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld. While Jérôme d'Ambrosio has gotten results in Formula E and I think he will be able to do respectable for the team I expect the team to take a step back especially with the rise of BMW.

What about Nissan? The re-branded team is coming off a surprisingly winless season and Sébastien Buemi was quick but not up there competing at the top of the test. Nissan and Jaguar are two teams that will have good days but it feels neither will quite have it in every race.

I think the championship will come down to Sims, da Costa, di Grassi, Vergne or Bird.

The youth of the series means its seminal moments happen more frequently and this is another big year for the series. It has ventured away from the novelty and inefficiency of the car swap and now races will be 45-minute fights. Conservation should not be a concern and we should see the series go away from the goal being to get the car to the end of a race but rather covering as much distance as possible in the allotted time. This change would hopefully set off the dominoes where tire conservation and increased passing attempts occur.

Then there is attack mode, the Mario Kart-ization of the series. The series is attempting to be different and we are going to see a change in how an actual race takes place. Formula E may be attempting to kill the racing line as we know and that could be the greatest thing to happen to motorsports with cars instead of running single-file on the same part of the racetrack for lap after lap to cars swerving left and right, missing apexes and running wide and increasing the action. It could also be a dangerous shakeup with increased movement on the racetrack increasing the number of accidents, some of which could be deemed unnecessary.

Attack mode might be a hit or it may fall flat with the time lost running offline not being worth the additional boost of power. The series will be faced with drivers realizing the lack of benefit and remain glued to the racing line and force the series' hand to make the power increase astronomically more or force the series to drop it and look for another way to leave its fingerprints on a race.

The important thing to remember is Formula E is not the Formula E of four years ago or last year. If you were one who did not fancy what was offered four years ago the good news is the series has evolved and like when the series was first introduced this is the time to give it a chance. It has implemented changes to many of the hot-button issues that drove people away or kept people from emotionally investing.

It would only be fair to give the series a chance and see if the changes were good enough.