Track Walk: Iowa 2023

The 11th and 12th round of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series brings the series to Iowa Speedway for the only doubleheader on the calendar. This is the third consecutive time Iowa has hosted a doubleheader. Chevrolet has won five consecutive Iowa races, and since engine competition returned to IndyCar in 2012, Chevrolet has won nine of 12 Iowa races. Honda enters this weekend having won four consecutive races, but Honda has not won in any of the last five oval races. With 28 cars entered, these will be the largest Iowa races in IndyCar history. Four Iowa races had started 26 cars, including both races last year.

Coverage

Time: Coverage for the first Iowa race begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Saturday July 22 with green flag scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET. Coverage for the second Iowa race begins at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday July 23 with green flag scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET (90 minutes)

Saturday:

Qualifying: 9:30 p.m. ET 

Race: 3:05 p.m. ET (250 laps)
Sunday:
Race: 2:30 p.m. ET (250 laps)

* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock

Newgarden's Last Stand

With the dominance of Álex Palou championship, time is running out on the rest of the field when it comes to the championship, and we are reaching the point where even if a driver is winning every race, it could not be enough to beat Palou in points. 

For two-time champion Josef Newgarden, Iowa might be his last chance to make a run at the title. Entering this weekend, Newgarden is third in the championship, 126 points behind Palou, and with seven races remaining, only 378 points remain on the table. 

Newgarden is by far the best driver at Iowa. He leads all drivers with four victories. His average finish is 6.75. He has led 1,506 laps, including having led at least one lap in nine consecutive Iowa races. He has led over 100 laps seven times at Iowa. In five of those races, he has led over 200 laps. The Tennesseean has led 46.9% of the laps he has completed at Iowa. Newgarden's 1,506 laps led are 862 more than the next closest driver, which would be Hélio Castroneves. 

And this includes some of Newgarden's worst results. He has eight top five finishes and nine top ten finishes and then has finishes of 19th, 15th and 24th, which was in the second race last year when Newgarden suffered a rear right suspension failure while leading with 65 laps remaining. Remove that result alone from his Iowa data, and Newgarden's average finish improves to 5.181. 

It isn't just race pace either. Newgarden has qualified in the top three in seven of the last eight Iowa races. He has started on pole position in the last four races. However, his only pole position here was the second race of the 2020 Iowa doubleheader. 

Iowa isn't the only thing on Newgarden's side. It is ovals in general. Newgarden has won the last three oval races dating back to Gateway last year, and his last four victories have been on ovals. He has won five of the seven oval races since the start of the 2022 season. During this three-race oval winning streak, Newgarden has led only 206 of 710 laps. He led only five laps in the Indianapolis 500 back in May and he won that race from 17th starting position, the furthest back he has won from in his career. 

It was the 13th oval victory in his career, but it was the first time he has won an oval race from outside a top ten starting position. Nine of his oval victories have come from a top four starting position. In his other three oval victories, Newgarden started seventh in each of them.

Victories and laps led are the most important, but what will get Newgarden back into the championship is points, and with all of his victories and top five finishes, he has bagged a fair number of points at this place. Since the 2014 Iowa race, Newgarden has scored 400 points out of a possible 540 points at the 7/8-mile oval. That is an average of 40 points per Iowa start, equivalent to a second-place finish. 

Ganassi's Drought

It has been a long time since Chip Ganassi Racing has won at Iowa Speedway, 14 years to be exact. Of all the tracks on the 2023 IndyCar schedule, it is the track where Ganassi has gone the longest without a victory. In fact, of the other 14 circuits on the 2023 IndyCar schedule, Ganassi has won at 12 of them since the start of the 2020 season. The only other circuit the team has not won at during this decade is Long Beach, where Ganassi's most recent victory was in 2015.

Scott Dixon has never won at Iowa in 17 starts. The only track where Dixon has more starts without a victory is St. Petersburg, where Dixon is 0-for-19. While Dixon has yet to win at Iowa, he has a respectable track record there. Among drivers with at least three Iowa starts, Dixon ranks second all-time in average finish at 6.529, behind only Patricio O'Ward's 4.75 and ahead of Josef Newgarden's 6.75. 

Dixon's 11 top five finishes are most all-time. His 14 top ten finishes are also most all-time. The only other driver with at least ten top ten finishes at Iowa is Graham Rahal at 11. Dixon enters this weekend with five consecutive top five finishes at Iowa despite not starting in the top five in any of those races. The New Zealander has not started in the top five in any of the last eight Iowa races, and he has started outside the top ten in the last four Iowa races. 

While Dixon has been at the front, he has not been a true contender. He has led only 130 laps in his career at Iowa. In the last ten Iowa races, Dixon has led only 22 laps, and in only one of those races has he led more than two laps, that was 17 laps in the 2014 race. Only twice has he led more than 20 laps in an Iowa race, 21 in the 2010 race and 76 in the 2012 race. 

Beside Dixon, this will only be the third Iowa experience for Álex Palou, and if there was ever a weekend to slow the Spaniard's championship assault, Iowa is it. Palou has finished 11th, 14th, sixth and 13th in his four Iowa starts. He has never finished on the lead lap at Iowa, but he has finished exactly one-lap down in each occasion. He has never led a lap at the 7/8th-mile oval and his average starting position is 12.5 with his only top ten start being seventh in the second race in 2020.

Though Palou had no oval experience prior to his IndyCar debut in 2020, he has been respectable. In his last three Indianapolis 500 starts, he has finished second, ninth and fourth from pole position. At Texas, he has four consecutive top ten finishes. It is the short ovals which he has found trickiest. Along with his Iowa results, in four Gateway starts he has finished 15th, 12th, 20th and ninth. Beside the 2021 Gateway race, where he was caught in an accident, Palou has finished on the lead lap in his other three Gateway starts. 

Marcus Ericsson has never finished worse than 11th at Iowa, and even 11th is not an accurate representation of that race. In his first Iowa start, Ericsson was called for an improper pit entry on his final pit stop in the 2019 race, and it cost what was definitely going to be a top ten finish and was likely going to be a top five result. Since that night, Ericsson has finished ninth, ninth, eighth and sixth at Iowa. This all coming despite his best starting position being ninth at the track. Ericsson has never led a lap at Iowa. 

Beside Iowa, Ericsson has eight consecutive top ten finishes on ovals dating back to Gateway 2021. 

This weekend sees Takuma Sato return to the Ganassi fold in the #11 Honda. Iowa has not been one of Sato's better tracks. Despite being the location of Sato's first career pole position in IndyCar, he has one one top five finishes and three top ten finishes in 14 Iowa starts. He was third in 2018 and then tenth in the first race in 2020 and the second race last year. 

Sato's average finish of 16.142 is the second worst among drivers with at least five Iowa starts. The only driver he is ahead of is Colton Herta, whose average through five Iowa starts is 18.6.

Going For 300

Christian Lundgaard's victory last weekend at Toronto made Lundgaard the 299th different winner in IndyCar history. The Danish driver led 54 of 85 laps from pole position, taking the lead once and for all on lap 62 and stretching his margin of victory out to 11.789 seconds by the time he took the checkered flag. 

It was Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's first victory since the 2020 Indianapolis 500 and the team's first street course victory since the second Belle Isle race in 2017. Lundgaard became the second first-time winner this season, and in doing so the next new winner will complete the third century of victorious drivers for a record book that dates back to the 1909 season, which the American Automobile Association sanctioned. 

There will be two chances at a first-time winner this weekend at Iowa, and there will be ten drivers entered this weekend who could become the 300th winner. 

Romain Grosjean is the top driver in the championship without a victory in his career. Grosjean has nose-dived since finishing second in consecutive races at Long Beach and Barber Motorsports Park this spring. His best finish in the last six races is 11th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and he has finished outside the top twenty in four of those events. The Frenchman was one of five drivers who had top ten finishes in both Iowa races last year. 

Callum Ilott was 12th and 11th in the Iowa races last year, and Ilott is also winless in his still young IndyCar career. Ilott was in the top ten in the first two races this season, including a ninth at Texas, his first oval top ten finish. However, he has not finished in the top ten since. He has finished inside the top twenty in the last eight races, but only two of those have been top fifteen results. 

Santino Ferrucci was a contender at the most recent oval race, the Indianapolis 500. Ferrucci qualified fourth and led 11 laps before finishing third, his career best finish. All five of Ferrucci's top five finishes in his career have come on ovals, but in three Iowa starts, his best finish is 12th. 

David Malukas has finished in the top five in two of his last three oval starts. Malukas was runner-up at Gateway to Newgarden last year, and he was fourth at Texas in April. However, he struggled in the Indianapolis 500 and was 29th after hitting the barrier. He was sixth at Mid-Ohio two races ago, but his average finish since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is 21.833.

Agustín Canapino matched his career best finish of 12th at Toronto. Canapino opened the season with a pair of 12th-place finishes. Last week, Lundgaard became the first Danish winner in IndyCar history. Canapino would be the first Argentine winner in IndyCar history. Denmark became the first new country with an IndyCar winner since Takuma Sato scored Japan's first IndyCar victory back in 2013. The only other new countries to win in IndyCar since the start of the 21st century are South Africa with Tomas Schecker and Spain with Oriol Servià. 

Devlin DeFrancesco is looking to win Canada its first race since James Hinchcliffe won at Iowa in 2018. Hinchcliffe also won at Iowa in 2013. 

Jack Harvey was seventh in both Iowa races in 2020, but Harvey was 18th and 20th in the Iowa races last year. 

Conor Daly is back in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda as Simon Pagenaud continues to recover from his Mid-Ohio practice accident. Daly's only pole position came in the first Iowa race in 2020. Last year, he was 19th and 16th at Iowa. Daly was eighth in the Indianapolis 500 in May. 

Sting Ray Robb was 19th at Toronto, his best finish since he was 18th at Long Beach in April. Robb was fifth in last year's Indy Lights race at Iowa, his first appearance at the circuit. 

Benjamin Pedersen is looking to become the second Danish winner in as many race weekends. The last time IndyCar had consecutive first-time winner that came from the same country was in 2000 when Brazilians Hélio Castroneves, Roberto Moreno and Cristiano da Matta each scored their first career victories in CART that season. Each had their first career victory occur over a span of six races. 

This is the second time in three seasons there have been multiple first-time winners in an IndyCar season. Last decade, there were only three seasons that had multiple first-time winners (2011, 2013 and 2015).

One of These Drivers Will Not Win a Race

There are only seven races left in the IndyCar season, which means at most we can only see seven more winners this season. That means a fair number of drivers will end 2023 without a victory, and there is a notable list of drivers who could be end the year winless. 

Dixon leads that list at the moment. He has won a race in 18 consecutive seasons, an IndyCar record. He has won a race in 20 seasons, an IndyCar record. Dixon is second all-time in IndyCar victories with 53, but he is pushing a full calendar year without a victory. Since 2003, Dixon has gone at least 365 days without a victory on only two occasions. The first time was from Richmond 2003 to Watkins Glen in 2005. The other was from Texas 2021 to Toronto 2022.

Along with Dixon, Will Power has not won yet this season, and it has been more than a calendar year since Power's most recent victory. The last time Power was on top was the final Belle Isle race in 2022, over 13 months ago. Power is currently in the middle of a 16-season winning streak, the second longest in IndyCar history, only behind Dixon. Power has won a race in 16 seasons, currently tied for the third most seasons with a victory with Mario Andretti and Hélio Castroneves. 

Patricio O'Ward began the season with three runner-up finishes in the first five races. O'Ward has since stood on the podium on only one other occasion and had a victory slip through his fingers after leading the most laps in the Indianapolis 500. O'Ward is the most recent Iowa winner, taking advantage of Newgarden's accident. However, O'Ward has finished fourth, 12th, second and first in his four Iowa starts, and that 12th came after a bad pit stop took him out of contention for a podium finish. 

Alexander Rossi ended a three-year winless drought last August on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. In his first year with McLaren, Rossi is approaching another year without a victory. He has five top five finishes since that victory, but only one podium finish, a third on the IMS road course this past May. Iowa has not been one of Rossi's favorite tracks. While he does have five top ten finishes at the short track, Rossi has never finished in the top five here and he has finished off the lead lap in five of eight Iowa starts. 

This time last year, Colton Herta was looking to fight for a top three championship finish, which would have earned Herta enough FIA Super License points to qualify for Formula One. Herta is already over a year removed from his most recent victory. His third-place at Toronto last week was only his second podium finish in the last 22 IndyCar races. As mentioned before, Iowa is not Herta's comfort zone. His best finish here is 12th. 

Felix Rosenqvist is another McLaren driver looking for a victory. Rosenqvist was third in Detroit, and his only other top five was fifth at the IMS road course in May. It has been over three years since the Swede's only IndyCar victory. His only top five finish on an oval was fourth in the Indianapolis 500 last year. His best Iowa finish was seventh in the second Iowa race last season. 

Graham Rahal has made 100 starts since his most recent victory, and Iowa is a possible place for him to break his duck. Rahal only has four top five finishes, including a third in the second race in 2020, but he does have 11 top ten results in 16 starts. He has never started in the top five at Iowa and he has started outside the top ten in 12 races. 

Rinus VeeKay is responsible for Ed Carpenter Racing's most recent victory, but that was over two years ago in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Ed Carpenter Racing has not won an oval race since Josef Newgarden won at Iowa in 2016. VeeKay has had at least one podium finish in each of his first three seasons in IndyCar. Through the first ten races in 2023, the Dutchman's best finish is tenth, which came at the Indianapolis 500.

Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay are two past Iowa winners who are winless entering this weekend. Castroneves' best finish this year was tenth at Texas. His most recent top five finish was his fourth Indianapolis 500 victory in 2021. Hunter-Reay's finishing positions in his three races with Ed Carpenter Racing are 17th, 19th and 26th. He won three Iowa races in a four-year span from 2012 to 2015, but he has finished outside the top fifteen in five of his last six Iowa starts.

Of these ten drivers, five carried a winning streak into this season.

Indy Lights

Iowa marks the first of two oval races in the 2023 Indy Lights season, and there are only seven races remaining. 

Forty-two points cover the top four drivers. Nolan Siegel lost a chunk of his championship lead after an off-track excursion at Mid-Ohio kicked him down to a 15th-place finish. Siegel leads with 244 points, but he is only 16 points ahead of Christian Rasmussen, who was third in the most recent race. Hunter McElrea's three consecutive top five finishes has McElrea 39 points behind Siegel in the championship. Louis Foster won at Mid-Ohio and Foster is up to fourth in the championship. 

Jacob Abel rounds out the top five in the championship on 196 points. Reece Gold is sixth on 185 points. St. Petersburg winner Danial Frost has dropped to seventh in the championship on 177 points, only 12 points ahead of James Roe, Jr. Kyffin Simpson was runner-up at Mid-Ohio and Simpson is ninth in the championship on 162 points. Enaam Ahmed round outs the top ten on 150 points. 

Ernie Francis, Jr. has 148 points, two points ahead of Matteo Nannini. It was announced earlier this week that Nannini and Juncos Hollinger Racing had parted ways. Matthew Brabham will drive the #75 JHR entry this week at Iowa. 

Jagger Jones is on 145 points, five more than Christian Bogle. Jamie Chadwick sits on 119 points, one more than Rasmus Lindh and Josh Pierson sits on 68 points with only four starts. 

Last year, McElrea won at Iowa after Linus Lundqvist blocked Matthew Brabham and Lundqvist was issued a three-position penalty. Rasmussen was elevated to second while Brabham took third. Abel, Frost and Francis, Jr. took sixth, seventh and eighth respectively in the final results. 

The Indy Lights race will be at 11:10 a.m. ET on Saturday July 22 and is scheduled for 75 laps. 

Fast Facts

Saturday's race will be the 11th IndyCar race to take place on July 22, and the first since Hélio Castroneves won at Edmonton. That was the final IndyCar race at Edmonton. 

Saturday's race falls on Scott Dixon's 43rd birthday. Dixon is one of nine drivers to have won on their birthday. Dixon did it on July 22, 2007 at Mid-Ohio. Dixon could become the first driver to win multiple times on his birthday. 

At 43 years old, Dixon would become the oldest birthday winner in IndyCar history. Nigel Mansell Bettenhausen is currently the oldest birthday winner when he won on his 40th birthday, August 8, 1993 at Loudon.

Sunday's race will be the ninth IndyCar race to take place on July 23, and the first since last year when Josef Newgarden won the first race of the 2022 Iowa doubleheader. 

Sunday's race falls on Christian Lundgaard's 22nd birthday. 

Lundgaard could become the tenth driver to win an IndyCar race on his birthday. The most recent birthday winner was Dan Wheldon at Iowa on June 22, 2008. 

Lundgaard would become the youngest birthday winner. Sam Hornish, Jr. and Scott Dixon both won on their 27th birthdays. Hornish won at Kansas on July 2, 2006. 

Iowa has never produced a first-time winner.

The average starting position of an Iowa winner is 7.411 with a median of fourth.

Only three Iowa races have been won from the front row (2016, 2020 race II, 2022 race I). Josef Newgarden won all three races.

Six Iowa races have been won from outside the top ten, most recently the first race in 2020, where Simon Pagenaud won from 23rd, the worst starting position for an Iowa winner. 

Eight of 17 Iowa races have been won from outside a top five starting position. 

The average number of lead changes in an Iowa race is 9.352 with a median of nine. 

Eight Iowa races have had at least a double-digit number of lead changes, but only one in the last six Iowa races has had more than seven lead changes. 

The average number of cautions in an Iowa race is 4.1764 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 46.117 with a median of 45.

The fewest cautions in an Iowa race is one, which was the first race in 2020, and it lasted 26 laps. The fewest number of caution laps in an Iowa race is 17, which were spread over two caution periods in 2018. 

The most cautions in an Iowa race is seven, which occurred in 2014.

Predictions

Scott Dixon gets his second birthday victory, and Josef Newgarden wins the Sunday race. Álex Palou's championship lead will be less than 100 points after this weekend. No more than five drivers finish in the top ten of both Iowa races. Romain Grosjean will get at least one top ten result. At least one of the races will end with a green flag run greater than 150 laps. There will be a caution that involves at least four cars and it will happen in the first five laps of a race. Somebody will get his best finish of the season this weekend. Sleepers: David Malukas and Callum Ilott.

Musings From the Weekend: Digital Existentialism

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

Christian Lundgaard earned his first career victory in IndyCar while Álex Palou continues to be bulletproof. Mother Nature keeps having her way with the motorsports world. She shortened an SRX race for the first time ever, lingered around Toronto long enough to shake up some Road to Indy races, pushed the NASCAR Cup race to Monday afternoon and washed out the entire Saturday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It was dry in Rome and the championship was flipped upset down in the second race of that weekend, allowing a Brit to put one hand on the championship trophy with only a London doubleheader remaining. There was a fairytale winner in Misano, but we do not live in a fairytale world.

Digital Existentialism

This has nothing to do with motorsports, but rather with this space, how it exists and its future existence. 

A few weeks ago, while trying to check on the start of the Mid-Ohio IndyCar weekend, I was stopped in my tracks and left rather lost with the only explanation being "Rate Limit Exceeded." 

I wasn't alone, and many experienced this on Twitter as the social media platform changed how much non-subscribers could see and engage with on the platform with no warning of the change. 

Social media has never been my cup of tea, at least not in its excessive nature. It can be useful, but most of it is junk for the sake of junk. People making noise because they cannot stand silence, believing whatever is in their head must be made public to prove existence in this world. The truth is we need more listen more. 

Twitter has been a great distributor. It has allowed writing and stories to be easily shared and given people profiles they otherwise would not have. It has allowed information to easily be shared and keep people informed. There is also the counter to that where it has allowed many to deceive others, but when used with good intention it is a pubic square, a global bulletin board of the digital age. 

I am not somebody of great prestige. I do this for fun. I do this as a hobby and a way to share my passion and excitement for IndyCar and motorsports. It is a sandbox for my ideas and I get to share it with anyone who is interested. I am grateful for those who do read and take something away from my words, and without Twitter, you are likely no reading this. 

Over a decade ago, in the public square, I started making noise, just hoping somebody would notice and follow along. It has been a modest crowd, but one I am thankful to have. It has all because of Twitter, the one platform I could grasp. A special shoutout should be given to all those who have shared my worked, spread it to others and has offered extended platforms beyond social media, most notably Kevin Lee and Curt Cavin through the Trackside program. 

The world is changing, or more specifically, Twitter is changing. It isn't getting better. For someone so passionate about free speech, he sure knows how to put a price on it. 

Business aside, the rate limit exceeded experience wasn't the most convenient one, and it goes to show you should never take for granted what you have. It has been a long time since I wasn't able to keep up on track activities on a near minute-by-minute basis. Come to think of it, before this hyper-connected time, where every junior series is streamed (even if all the cameras are locked down and the production budget is zero), and timing and scoring is regularly accessible, the only thing that matter was the race window. 

Before we knew every session was available to watch or listen to, all that matter was when the race was coming on. I didn't bother trying to scope out practice or qualifying in real time. I knew at the end of Friday and the end of Saturday I could read a report on the day. Find out who was fast and who was in trouble, and that was enough. The good ole days. Life was much different then. A race weekend wasn't an obsession like we see now. It was a more causal experience that dipped into your life and didn't steer it. 

After over 15 years working this way, it is hard to go back. It is hard to trade the knowledge you did have. But, when you are getting nothing, it is easy to move on and focus on the moment. That weekend, I could only accept it wasn't working and focus on what I could control, problems be damn. The best I could do was looking up the schedule for the day and know what time to tune in on Peacock for practice and qualifying. 

I knew there were things I was missing, but they were things I missed previously in my lifetime. The world wasn't always this way, especially an IndyCar race weekend. There was so much we didn't know because it could not be shared. We didn't go into a Saturday practice knowing who had dinner with whom the night before, which young driver was hanging out on what pit stand and whether the restrooms had been renovated at a facility. We only knew what we could glean from a few trackside reports and whatever the race broadcast covered. The rest was lost to time, becoming anecdotal stories shared years or perhaps decades later and now leave digital fingerprints in the 21st century. 

As I endured the rate lite exceeded experience, I wondered what it meant for me. The juice isn't worth the squeeze for Twitter's subscription, but it is all I have. I have written before about my place in this world where I am a mere speck of dust. I participate less on Twitter than I once did. I think it has helped my writing. 

Considering the downgrade in Twitter's quality over the last year, I wouldn't be missing much if I left. There is more garbage out there. More spam. More smut. Remember when you could go on Twitter and not have an explicit post randomly appear in a search or as a bot response? I guess civility was too much to ask for. 

This is almost the experience of a beach town that let seedy motel pop up along the promenade and now fewer people visit because it is not enticing to be in that area. We are all managing, but are not pleased. The problem is we are too used to this place, building our own followings to leave. We aren't sure if any alternative is worth it. 

I could stop on Twitter and just continue writing. That wouldn't upset me, but I know no one would read this. Some would, but much fewer. Frankly, it the public square is rather cluttered now, and it requires much more noise. I am not raising my voice that much higher anymore. 

I am not someone who can generate an audience all on my own. I don't command that kind of attention. Whatever readers I do have are because of the public square we are all standing in. Moving to the outskirts of town may be the humble thing to do but it is isolating. 

I joined Threads as a fallback, waiting to see if Twitter collapses in on itself. I am too old for a new social media platform. I am back to zero and there is no reason to think even the meager levels reached on Twitter will be duplicate there. We will wait and see how the landscape changes. 

The coincidental thing is nearly a year ago, I wrote about change and this outlet. I guess it is becoming a July tradition. Let's see where we are a year for now. 

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Christian Lundgaard, but did you know...

Mitch Evans and Jake Dennis split theRome ePrix.

John Hunter Nemechek won the NASCAR Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season, and his second consecutive victory.

The #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca-Gibson of James Allen, Alex Lynn and Kyffin Simpson won the 4 Hours of Le Castellet. The #31 Racing Spirit of Léman Ligier-Nissan of Antoine Doquin, Jacques Wolff and Jean-Ludovic Foubert won in LMP3. The #77 Proton Competition Porsche of Christian Ried, Giammarco Levorato and Julien Andlauer won in GTE. 

Liam Lawson won the Super Formula race from Fuji, his third victory of the season.

Álvaro Bautista (race one) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (SuperPole race and race two) split the World Superbike races from Imola. Stefano Mazni swept theWorld Supersport races.

Michael d'Orlando and Myles Rowe split the USF Pro 2000 races from Toronto. Simon Sikes and Nico Christodoulou split the U.S. F2000 races. 

Denny Hamlin won the SRX season opener at Stafford after weather ended the race prematurely with 58 of the 75 scheduled laps completed.

The #88 AKKodis ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy and the #46 Team WRT BMW of Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi split the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup races from Misano.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar keeps going with its Iowa doubleheader.

Formula One sees the return of Daniel Ricciardo in Hungary.

IMSA has its first of two GT-only rounds, which takes place at Lime Rock Park.

NASCAR is a little further south at Pocono.

SRX remains at Stafford as flooding in Vermont forced the Thunder Road International SpeedBowl round to be moved.

World Rally is in Estonia.

First Impressions: Toronto 2023

1. Approaching the halfway point of this race I was thinking this was going to be an old school street course race where the pole-sitter gets away, makes two pit stops and wins comfortably, and if that was the case, congratulations to Christian Lundgaard on a flawless first career victory. However, a pair of cautions in the middle of the race took what was a certain victory away from the Dane and then gave it back to him with some sensational driving on his part in the process. 

Lundgaard was gone after the first round of pit stop cycled through, but when the caution came out for Romain Grosjean getting into the turn ten barrier, it created a scenario where a driver could make it to the finish on a 41-lap stint. Most of the time that is just out of reach, and if you are leading the race you are definitely not stopping at that lap. Almost half the grid did stop, and on the ensuing restart Kyle Kirkwood hit Hélio Castroneves from behind in the final corner and the caution was back out. 

Now everyone could make it on fuel and Lundgaard would relinquish his lead when he came in. There was no guarantee he would make it back to the front. However, a few things benefitted Lundgaard. One, a few drivers that stopped under the Grosjean caution chickened out and stopped to top off on fuel under the Castroneves caution. That gifted Lundgaard a few spots. Two, Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon and Rinus VeeKay did not come down during either caution for Grosjean or Castroneves. It was a curious strategy decision, but it would mean three spots for Lundgaard later on when those three stopped later in the race, whether under green flag conditions or under caution. 

Then Lundgaard scrapped his way forward and picked up a handful of spots on the restart, passing Colton Herta, Patricio O'Ward and Kyle Kirkwood in the process and the only threat between Lundgaard and victory was Álex Palou. 

While Palou has been the man to beat for over a month, Palou damaged his front wing avoiding a spinning Castroneves, and it cost the Catalan driver time. Palou had also stopped under the Grosjean caution and had to save some fuel. Palou was holding on but he was not going to hold off Lundgaard for long, and Lundgaard swept ahead on the outside of turn three. 

Earlier this week, The-Race IndyCar Podcast with Jack Benyon and J.R. Hildebrand went over their top ten drivers through the first half of the season. While listening and thinking about it, I had Lundgaard fifth or sixth on my list. Consider Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's season. Lundgaard has regularly been at the front despite the team showing speed deficiencies. Lundgaard has qualified and finished in the top ten while his two teammates were not close. Lundgaard already had one pole position before this weekend and he was tenth in the championship. Then he went out this week and took a second pole position in changing conditions on Saturday before having the best car in the Honda Indy Toronto. 

This day has been two years in the making. Lundgaard was a surprise debutant back in 2021 when he ran a third RLLR entry for the August Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race while he had a break from his Formula Two season. Lundgaard qualified fourth on debut. The race was tough, especially as he learned how to use the alternate compound tire, but he still finished 12th. It almost became a no-brainer to put Lundgaard in a car full-time. 

Last year, Lundgaard was teething on new circuits, but was getting results. He was the best RLLR driver at the end of the season. A few races got away from him, but he was still second in the summer IMS road course race, and he had a stellar drive from 16th to fifth at Laguna Seca. 

In 2023, Lundgaard is the leader, supplanting Graham Rahal. As bad as this season has been, Lundgaard had two top five finishes and five top ten finishes through nine races. He has been making the most of a team that isn't at the top of IndyCar. RLLR might not be in the cellar, but it has been clawing in the muck for the better part of the last two seasons. 

While many names are getting attention for that next big move in IndyCar, Lundgaard is the most ready for it. How isn't Chip Ganassi on the phone to get Lundgaard, especially if Palou and Marcus Ericsson could both be gone? Roger Penske would be smart to line up Lundgaard to replace Will Power when Power calls its quits. 

RLLR is an accomplished race team. It was only three years ago the team won the Indianapolis 500. It has competed an IndyCar championship. It has won championships in sports cars. RLLR has what it takes to be one of the best teams in IndyCar. If it can keep Lundgaard, it could rise to a higher level and be a greater name in the series.

2. Álex Palou has clinched this championship, not mathematically, but psychologically it is his. 

Come on! Palou finished second with a front wing dangling like a baby tooth in a nine-year-old's mouth. He started 15th, brushed the wall after a car spun in front of him, had to drive 41 laps on the final stint, and still finished second! Besides Christian Lundgaard, there are 25 other drivers saying, "You cannot be serious," after this race. 

But you cannot be serious! This is the kind of race a champion pulls out. And now the championship lead is 117 points! It is over. I have been saying that since Road America, but now it is really over! 

If Palou isn't going to have a bad day after this one, when will he? This is the kind of race where a driver has to pit for a repair late and goes from second to 15th and coughs up 25 points. Not Palou. He only improved his championship standing after a day such as this one.

3. For a split-second, it looked like Colton Herta was in the catbird seat when the Castroneves caution came out. About a dozen cars had to make a pit stop, Kirkwood was likely going to get a penalty, and Herta was the next car in line, primed to take the lead. 

Palou passed Herta immediately on the final restart, so there went that golden position, but Herta was still looking at a podium finish after starting 14th, he just had to stretch the fuel. He made it! But just so. He parked the car on the straightaway just after turn two. 

If qualifying was not in wet conditions, or if Herta was in group one for Saturday qualifying instead of group two, there is a good chance Herta would have qualifying on pole position or the front row and prevented Lundgaard from having this day. He and the entire Andretti Autosport team looked that good on Friday and Saturday. The problem is Andretti Autosport too often looks phenomenal on Friday and Saturday and then comes out on Sunday pear shaped. It is a minor victory today, but there is plenty of work to do. 

4. As mentioned above, Scott Dixon decided to not pit under two cautions and it looked like he definitely threw away a top five finish and likely a top ten as well. But Dixon wound up fourth! How? It is Scott Dixon! That's how!

Dixon leap-frogged ahead of Scott McLaughlin during that final pit cycle. Dixon drove from 14th to seventh, and then he gained a few spots when Marcus Ericsson and Will Power both dove for the pit lane at the start of the final lap to top off on fuel! 

Fourth is respectable for Dixon. It could have been a little better, but it shouldn't have been much worse than fourth. Dixon never looked to have Lundgaard's pace, but he had good pace. If it wasn't for that teammate of Dixon's, Dixon would be in the championship lead and we would be talking about how with six races remaining Dixon would be on the verge of suffocating the field and taking a seventh championship after pulling out this result. That isn't the case in 2023, and it will require something remarkable, borderline unfathomable, for Dixon to take the championship this year. 

5. Josef Newgarden had a good day and finished fifth. Scott McLaughlin qualifying second was a bit of rouse on Team Penske's pace this weekend. The team never looked that great this weekend. Any top five finish at Toronto was going to be a great success. Newgarden is in a good position heading to Iowa, but any championship run this season requires something nearly greater than perfection.

6. It is hard to say Scott McLaughlin was a big loser today. The strategy choice was head-scratching. McLaughlin still ended up sixth, but he did more work was necessary in this one. 

If McLaughlin stops under the Castroneves caution with Lundgaard, McLaughlin is likely restarting in the top five, definitely in the top ten. Lundgaard restarted seventh. McLaughlin could have made a fight for the victory from Lundgaard's gearbox than restarting in the lead but still owing one more pit stop while all but two other drivers were done with stop. 

I don't think McLaughlin would have beaten Lundgaard today, but McLaughlin likely would have ended a few spots better than where he did end up. Then again, after Saturday practice, I don't think I had McLaughlin finishing in the top six. This weekend could have been better, but it could have been much worse.

7. Another quiet top ten finish for Marcus Armstrong. The crazy thing is Armstrong and Lundgaard were teammates at ART Grand Prix in the 2020 Formula Two season. Lundgaard did well and was sevneth in the championship. Armstrong was in his first Formula Two season and finished 13th. Armstrong stuck around two more seasons in Formula Two, Lundgaard stuck around for one more, but they were both looking to IndyCar as the Formula One opportunities were not arising. 

There are many talented drivers in this world. It is nice to see some of the promising talent in the European junior series is coming to IndyCar. There was a long stretch where that wasn't the case. The top GP2/Formula Two drivers weren't moving to IndyCar. They were settling to stand at the back of a Formula One garage or going right into sports cars. IndyCar is benefitting from the likes of Lundgaard and Armstrong coming off. The series is only getting better. If Armstrong is full-time next year, and if he is driving for Ganassi, his first career victory isn't that far off either.

8. I am not sure how Patricio O'Ward ended up eighth in this one. For the first stint, O'Ward was running in third, then he lost some ground as those who stopped early in the race to get off the alternate tires cycled jumped ahead. He did not pit under the Grosjean caution, but did under the Castroneves caution and was still in the top ten. O'Ward just didn't go forward today, and this is the first weekend in a while where all three Arrow McLaren cars were rather anonymous. 

9. There is not much a driver can do from 27th on the grid at Toronto and hope to earn a respectable result. Graham Rahal nearly didn't make it to the second corner. When the track was blocked after Jack Harvey, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tom Blomqvist came together, Rahal ran into Benjamin Pedersen, but Rahal was able to reserve and take the detour that goes through the Princes' Gate and outside of turns one and two to rejoin the circuit and get repairs. At that point, all Rahal could do was run long each stint and hope something worked out. 

It was working, and Rahal was up into the top fifteen. Rahal did stop under the Grosjean caution, but he was one of those that topped off under the Castroneves caution as well to be safe. It didn't look like a top ten was in the works, but a top 12 finish would be something to glean a positive from after how Saturday went. However, David Malukas brushed the wall late, and then Ericsson and Power made last lap pit stops and Rahal ended up ninth! A double top ten day for RLLR on a day where they won! It was a difficult weekend but take it and run. 

Rahal is savvy enough to turn out a performance like this. He knew he wasn't going to pass 26 cars today and win by nine seconds. This race was going to require patience and understanding. Before today's race, there was a good chance the #15 team would do everything right today and still only finish 17th. The group was setup from behind from the start but earned a brilliant result.  

10. Like O'Ward, Felix Rosenqvist went backward today. Kooky weekend for Rosenqvist when you consider how fast he was before an accident in Saturday practice forced the change to a backup car. With the backup car, he still qualified in the top five, but McLaren could not make up ground in this race. He was competitive, but strategy didn't click today for any of these cars and Rosenqvist finished tenth.

11. We are going to chunk the field here. Marcus Ericsson was 11th after his late splash of fuel and Will Power was 14th. We don't see many IndyCar races where cars are on the verge of running out in the dying laps. Both of these drivers stopped on lap 49 and didn't make it. Seven drivers, including Lundgaard, stopped on lap 49 and did make it. It could be as simple as those two teams were a half-second too fast and didn't get enough in the cars or both drivers were really aggressive and burned more than expected. 

Power sounded surprised he didn't make it. We didn't hear from Ericsson afterward. Both cars should have finished in the top ten today.

12. Agustín Canapino was 12th again! Canapino has three 12th-place finishes this season! That isn't an earth-shattering result for most, but this is his first full season in open-wheel racing. It was a race of survival. When it is a race of pace, Canapino doesn't finish 12th or in the top twenty for that matter. He isn't there yet. He may never quite get there, but he is putting in the work and we aren't close to crashing into his ceiling. But when it is a race of survival, Canapino does not put a wheel wrong. He doesn't overdrive the car. He doesn't step over the edge. He knows the race is 85 laps and his goal is to complete all 85. 

His job only becomes easier when about six or seven cars are damaged in an opening lap accident. That gifts Canapino a handful of positions. 

13. Rinus VeeKay played the same hand as Scott Dixon and Scott McLaughlin. Those two were in the top six. VeeKay was 13th. That is the difference between Ganassi, Penske and Ed Carpenter Racing. VeeKay also made his final stop two laps before McLaughlin and three lap before Dixon. It could be a case of he got caught behind a few extra cars after his stop and it cost him a few positions. 

It was still a strange strategy choice, and seeing as how ECR's season has gone, if the team was doing anything risky, it should have stopped under the Grosjean caution and tried to run 41 laps. I cannot say for certain it would have gotten VeeKay a finish better than 13th, but this strategy was not the correct choice, I don't care what Dixon and McLaughlin did. 

14. Fifteenth is brutal for Kyle Kirkwood. Kirkwood was the leading driver of those that stopped under the Grosjean caution, and it felt like he was set to possibly win this race. Then he got into the back of Hélio Castroneves coming to the green and that ruined Kirkwood's race. 

It should be noted that was a such a funky restart and it appeared the lapped car of Alexander Rossi floored pass Castroneves on the outside of turn ten to have the inside of turn 11 coming to the green flag. If that wasn't a jumped restart, then there are no such things as jumped restarts in IndyCar. The drivers should just gun it the second the pace car enters pit lane. 

I think there is a chance that car being to Castroneves' inside going into turn 11 spooked Castroneves, forced him to back off to avoid contact but it suddenly put Castroneves on Kirkwood's front wing and Castroneves was around. 

It wasn't as black-and-white as Kirkwood spun Castroneves. I don't understand how the officials didn't notice that restart and at least penalize Rossi or whichever McLaren car it was as well. It is harsh because Kirkwood deserved better than this. This is a result that got away from him.

Speaking of Rossi, he was 16th after spending the entire race one lap down because Rossi was caught in the opening lap incident. That is just as harsh as Kirkwood's result. For Rossi, the one time he is stuck starting at the back and he is caught in the track blocking incident and then no timely caution comes out during the race to put him back on the lead lap. Life sucks sometimes. 

15. Let's run through the field. Santino Ferrucci was in the opening lap accident and needed repairs. Ferrucci ended up three laps down, but in this race three laps down gets you 17th. Not thrilling but could have been worse. Callum Ilott was running just outside the top ten when something went wrong and he lost four laps. It wasn't clear what happened, but he didn't make a pit stop, as his last stop was listed as happening on lap 50. It sounds like he and Canapino may have had slight contact late and that ended Ilott's day. 

16. Sting Ray Robb was in the opening mess and was four laps down in 19th at the finish, which is one spot better than his Dale Coyne Racing teammate David Malukas because Malukas brushed the barrier on exit of turn one with just over 15 laps remaining. That bent Malukas' suspension and it cost him a possible top ten finish. The good news is both DCR drivers finished in the top twenty. The bad news is they were 19th and 20th, so they bare made it.

17. It looked like Hélio Castroneves was only going to lose about nine spots after the Kirkwood contact, but Castroneves stalled trying to spin the car back in the correct direction and then the car would not re-fire, as it appeared the gearbox seized up. I am not sure a top ten finish was in the cards, but a top fifteen looked likely and that is what Meyer Shank Racing is fighting for at the moment. 

Then there was Romain Grosjean. Grosjean slammed into the barrier and he said the steering wheel slipped out of his hands going through the turn nine and ten section. That part of the course was notably rough, but this is another street course event where Grosjean found the barrier when it looked like he was at least in for a good result. Those two runner-up finishes and the St. Petersburg race that got away from him were a long time ago at this time.

Devlin DeFrancesco said he had brake problems and only completed ten laps, finishing 23rd.

18. This was not the race Jack Harvey could afford to have Christian Lundgaard win because while Lundgaard was taking the checkered flag, Harvey didn't complete a lap, barely completed a corner, and it is partially because he was three-wide with Tom Blomqvist and Ryan Hunter-Reay. 

Harvey was on the inside slid into Hunter-Reay, who slid into Blomqvist, and all three squeeze into the barrier before spinning back across, blocking the track and taking out a few other cars. 

I have been a proponent of Jack Harvey's since Indy Lights. I have defended him over the last two seasons. I don't know how RLLR can continue with him. Lundgaard just won. Rahal went from 27th to ninth after Rahal was fighting at the front at Mid-Ohio before pit stop issues let him down in the most recent race. Harvey only has bad results. Even when he is starting well it goes sideways. Over a season-and-a-half with RLLR, we have not had a weekend where Harvey sneaks into the second round of qualifying, starts 12th and then ends up finishing tenth without doing anything impressive.

Those are the kind of days Harvey needs at the moment! He needs to be anonymous and at least in the middle of the field. We know he can do that. We saw him do that and more at Meyer Shank Racing. RLLR has had issues over the last two seasons, but not enough where Harvey cannot contender for a top ten finish on a semi-regular basis. We have been watching his teammates do it and now a teammate has won a race. It might be time for a driver change. 

As for Hunter-Reay and Blomqvist, this is more about their teams. Ed Carpenter Racing and Meyer Shank Racing cannot buy a good day at the moment. Hunter-Reay's track record at Toronto is atrocious since his 2012 victory, and most of that isn't really on him. Blomqvist barely completed a corner on his IndyCar debut. No blame can be put on Blomqvist, but my goodness, he could have experienced a more welcoming start to his IndyCar career. 

Benjamin Pedersen was also caught in that accident and his race ended after one corner, so at least he couldn't get in anyone's way this race. 

19. Since Toronto moved the pit lane to serpentine on the inside of turns nine, ten and 11, we have talked about this track and how there must be a better way for that setup, and now the roughness of the surface is another concern. I wish Toronto could get all the money necessary to re-pave the entire circuit. There shouldn't be a draining grate in the middle of the corner that cars are hop-scotching over and that is in the middle of a newly re-surfaced section of the course! Everything from turn four through turn six has needed to be paved over since 2005. The track is too damn narrow from turns nine through 11. This is the worst street course IndyCar goes to, and Detroit wasn't wonderful either. 

Most of the street courses are far below the standard IndyCar should have. It doesn't have to be Formula One level, which is a little ridiculous, but it feels like IndyCar is stuck in 1989 and running some street course configurations because it can run those layouts and not because it should run those layouts. 

Toronto is a hackjob. Detroit was pitiful. Nashville is ok but still has that section from turn four through eight that is single-file and unnecessary. I have suggested alternatives to Toronto before, but nothing is going to change. Green Savoree Productions only makes changes when they are absolutely necessary, not when they should be made for the greater good of an event. 

It is disappointing because the crowd looked great today. The race kept you on edge but it could be better if the course was in better condition. I hope the two-lane pit lane that we saw at Detroit could be incorporated at Toronto. There are a few parking lots available around BMO Field in Exhibition Place. It would require some grandstands move around, but it would likely be worth it if it made the track and the racing better. The final three corners should not be that cavernous. It makes most Formula E tracks look good.

It is appalling IndyCar has been living with this since 2016, and the series should hold its races to a higher standard. I am not saying it should be demanding a state-of-the-art pit building with suites on the second level, but it shouldn't be jamming itself into a corner where it must cut off two-feet from each pit box to fit in another two entries. This should have be handled years ago. It isn't going to change for 2024, but a man can dream. 

20. And now a doubleheader is six days away. Onto Iowa.

Morning Warm-Up: Toronto 2023

Through a dry-to-wet-to-dry qualifying session, Christian Lundgaard picked up his second career pole position with a lap of 64.1567 seconds during the final round of qualifying on the streets of Toronto. Lundgaard picked up his first career pole position at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May. The Dane is attempting to pick up his third consecutive top ten finish. Lundgaard has had four previous chances for a third consecutive top ten finish, and he finished 26th (Iowa II 2022), 19th (Gateway 2022), 19th (Texas 2023) and 19th (2023 Indianapolis 500) in those events. This will be Lundgaard's 28th career start. Only two drivers have won their first race in their 28th career start: Gary Bettenhausen at Phoenix in November 1968 and Carlos Muñoz at Belle Isle in June 2015.

Despite having a spin in the final round of qualifying and seemingly impeding multiple drivers, Scott McLaughlin kept his second-place qualifying effort, 0.3223 seconds off Lundgaard, and it is McLaughlin's second front row start this season. He started second at Detroit. The New Zealander has three consecutive top ten finishes for the first time this season and for the first time since he ended the 2022 season with six top ten finishes on the spin. 

Patricio O'Ward was only 0.071 seconds shy of a front row starting position, but third is O'Ward's seventh top five starting position this season. O'Ward has finished outside the top ten in four of the last five street course races. Since 2021, O'Ward has finished outside the top ten in eight of 13 street course races. O'Ward was 11th in his Toronto debut last year.

For the first time since Long Beach, Marcus Ericsson is the best Chip Ganassi Racing starter, as Ericsson finds himself fourth on the grid. Ericsson is coming off a 27th-place result at Mid-Ohio, his first non-top ten finish of the season. Ericsson has not had consecutive races outside the top ten since Long Beach and Barber Motorsports Park last season. 

Felix Rosenqvist ends up starting a position behind his fellow Swede Ericsson for the second consecutive race. This time Rosenqvist is in fifth position. Rosenqvist has finished 20th and 25th in the last two races. Rosenqvist has not had three consecutive results outside the top ten since a six-race slump from the final two 2021 races through the first four races of 2022.

Will Power made it to the Fast Six for the first time this season, guaranteeing his best starting position of the season. However, all Power could do was qualify sixth. This is the fourth time in the last five seasons Power enters the tenth race of the season without a victory. Power had won one of the first nine races in ten of his first 12 full seasons in IndyCar. The Australian has never won a race from sixth starting position in his career, but he did win from seventh at Toronto in 2007. 

Scott Dixon fell just over a tenth of a second short of advancing to the final round, and Dixon will start seventh. Dixon enters Toronto this weekend having not won one of the first nine races. Last year, Dixon did not win any of the first nine races and then won the tenth race of the season at Toronto. Dixon was second at Mid-Ohio. He has not had consecutive podium finishes since he was third in the 2020 St. Petersburg season finale and then was third in the 2021 season opener at Barber Motorsports Park.

Kyle Kirkwood is the top Andretti Autosport starter in eighth position, his third consecutive top ten start. This is the fourth time this season Andretti Autosport has failed to have a top five starter, but it is the first time it has happened on a street course. Kirkwood won at Toronto in three of his four Road to Indy starts. His only top five finish in IndyCar remains his Long Beach victory earlier this season. 

Romain Grosjean takes ninth on the grid. Grosjean has finished outside the top ten in five consecutive races, the longest slump of his IndyCar career. Grosjean was fifth in the championship, 25 points off the lead after Barber Motorsports Park in April. He is now 12th in the championship, 110 points off the championship lead.

Marcus Armstrong qualified tenth, his second top ten start in the last three races. This is the sixth consecutive race Chip Ganassi Racing has had at least three cars start in the top ten, and Ganassi has had at least three top ten starters in nine of ten races this season. Armstrong has finished eighth in his last two street course starts and he has not finished worse than 11th on a street course in his brief IndyCar career. 

Josef Newgarden ended up 11th on the grid. This is the fifth time Newgarden has started outside the top ten this season. He started outside the top ten only three times over the entire 2022 season. He has finished on the podium in the tenth race of the season in seven of the last eight seasons. Newgarden was tenth in the tenth race last year at Toronto. Newgarden won the 2015 Toronto race from 11th on the grid.

Rinus VeeKay made it to the second round of qualifying for the first time since the Indianapolis 500, and VeeKay will start 12th. It was his first second round appearance on a road/street courses since Barber Motorsports Park in April. The Dutchman has not had a top ten finish on a street course since he was sixth in the 2022 St. Petersburg season opener. 

Hélio Castroneves scored his best starting position of the season in 13th, partially due to the rain that occurred late in the group one session in the first round of qualifying. Castroneves was 0.0674 seconds off advancing to the second round. The Brazilian has never won the tenth race of a season in his IndyCar career. Only three times has Castroneves finished on the podium in the tenth race of the season. In 21 starts in the tenth race of the season, his average finish is 13.476.

Colton Herta was 0.0213 seconds shy of advancing from group two, as that group ran entirely in the wet. Herta has finished seventh and second in his two Toronto starts. Five times has a driver finished second at Toronto and then won the next Toronto race. Those occasions are Michael Andretti in 1990 and 1991, Alex Zanardi in 1996 and 1997, Dario Franchitti in 2010 and 2011, Simon Pagenaud in 2018 and 2019 and Dixon in 2019 and last year. 

The rain caught out Álex Palou in the first round of qualifying, and Palou will start 15th, his worst starting position of the season, and his worst since he started 22nd in this race at Toronto last year. Along with going for his fourth consecutive victory, Palou is attempting to become the first driver to open a season with ten consecutive top ten finishes since Dario Franchitti in 2007. Franchitti opened the 2007 season with 12 consecutive top ten results, three of which were victories with nine podium finishes and his worst result in that stretch was seventh. 

Callum Ilott joins Palou on row eight after Ilott was 0.0616 seconds off advancing. Ilott started 16th at Belle Isle last month and failed to complete a lap. Ilott opened the season with finishes of fifth and ninth. Ilott's average finish in the seven races since is 17.571. 

David Malukas lost his fastest two laps after impeding Scott Dixon during the group one qualifying session, and this means Malukas will start 17th. Malukas has finished 20th or worse in five of eight career street course starts.

Agustín Canapino scored his best starting position in his young IndyCar career with Canapino taking 18th. The Argentine driver has finished inside the top fifteen in two of his three street course starts, and Canapino was the top finishing rookie at Detroit in 14th. 

Jack Harvey is 19th on the grid. This is the ninth time in ten races Harvey has started outside the top ten. He has finished outside the top fifteen in six consecutive races. Since becoming a full-time driver in 2020, Harvey has finished outside the top fifteen in 29 of 55 starts. 

Tom Blomqvist makes his IndyCar debut from 20th on the grid. Blomqvist will become the sixth driver to make his IndyCar debut at Tornto. The first driver to do it was Jon Beekhuis in 1989. The other drivers to do were Bertand Gachot in 1993, Mimmo Schiattarella in 1994, Alex Sperafico in 2003 and Ryan Dalziel in 2005.

Ryan Hunter-Reay rolls off from 21st position. Hunter-Reay won the 2012 Toronto race. In Hunter-Reay's nine Toronto starts since that victory he has one top ten finish and had an average finish of 15.667. Hunter-Reay does not have a top ten finish in his last six starts, a slump which dates back to the 2021 season. He has not gone seven consecutive starts without a top ten result since the 2010 Homestead season finale through the first race of the 2011 Texas doubleheader.

Devlin DeFrancesco finds himself in 22nd on the grid for his home race in Canada. DeFrancesco has finished inside the top fifteen in three of the last four races. DeFrancesco had three top fifteen finishes in his first 22 starts. He didn't have top fifteen result until the 12th race last year. 

Sting Ray Robb occupies 23rd on the grid. Robb has finished 22nd in three consecutive races. He has finished outside the top twenty in six consecutive races. Robb made four starts at Toronto in Indy Pro 2000. He had finishes of fifth, seventh and 11th twice. 

Santino Ferrucci qualified 24th, Ferrucci's worst starting position on a street course this season. Ferrucci has an average finish of 18.667 on street courses this season. His average finish over the full season is 18.111.

Benjamin Pedersen starts 25th. This is Pedersen's worst starting position since starting 25th at Barber Motorsports Park. This is Pedersen's first visit to Toronto, as Indy Lights did not compete at Exhibition Place during his two seasons in that series. 

Electrical issues knocked Alexander Rossi out in round one, and Rossi will start 26th, his worst start ever on a road/street course and only the second time he has started outside the top 25 in his career. The other was starting 32nd in the 2018 Indianapolis 500. The American has six consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since an eight-race stretch during the 2019 season. That eight-race run went from the sixth round at the Indianapolis 500 to the 13th round at Mid-Ohio. Rossi won the tenth round that season, which was at Road America. 

Graham Rahal rounds out the grid in 27th after hitting the barrier during qualifying. This is the send time this season Rahal will be starting dead last. He started 27th at Detroit. Rahal has three top ten finishes in the last four Toronto races and four top ten finishes in the last six. 

Peacock's coverage of the Honda Indy Toronto begins at 1:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 1:45 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 85 laps. 

Track Walk: Toronto 2023

The tenth round of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season takes IndyCar to Toronto and the streets winding in and around Exhibition Place in Canada's largest city. Over the span of 28 days, IndyCar will contest five races, two street course races, two oval race and a permanent road course. At the end of this stretch, only three races will remain in the season. With a maximum 432 remaining on the table for all drivers, time is ticking on a number of championship hopes, and over the course of the next few races, dreams of a title will be extinguished. Anyone without a point will be eliminated this weekend. 

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday July 16 with green flag scheduled for 1:53 p.m. ET.
Channel: Peacock
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

First Practice: 3:00 p.m. ET (75 minutes)

Saturday:

Second Practice: 10:35 a.m. ET (60 minutes)
Qualifying: 2:50 p.m. ET 
Sunday:
Warm-up: 10:15 a.m. ET (30 minutes)
Race: 1:53 p.m. ET (85 laps)

* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock

Do We Hear Four?

Outside of a misfortunate day in late May, Álex Palou has been near unstoppable for two months. 

Palou has three consecutive victories. In those three races, Palou has led 132 of 235 laps, 56.17% of the laps run. He has eight consecutive top five finishes, the longest streak since Scott Dixon had an eight-race streak spread over the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Palou has started on one of the first two rows in seven consecutive races. The Catalan driver has not started worse than seventh this season, and he has not finished worse than eighth this season.

Naturally, Palou's form has him the top average starting position at 3.5556 and the top average finish at 3.222. However, Palou has a chance to do something that has not done in over 17 years. 

A victory in Toronto would Palou's fourth consecutive and he would become the first driver to win four consecutive races since Sébastien Bourdais won the first four races of the 2006 Champ Car season. 

In IndyCar history, there have been 12 occasions where a driver has won four consecutive races. The only other time it happened in 21st century was with Cristiano da Matta during the 2002 CART season. Da Matta won at Laguna Seca, Portland, Chicago Motor Speedway and his four-race winning streak was capped off with a Toronto victory. 

The only Chip Ganassi Racing driver to win four consecutive races was Alex Zanardi in 1998. Zanardi's first victory was at Belle Isle. The Italian then won at Portland, Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio and Zanardi finished the streak with a victory in Toronto. 

It should be noted Palou's streak began in Detroit, he then won at Road America but followed it with a victory in the Buckeye State at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. 

The only other four-race winning streak in the last 50 years was Al Unser, Jr. in 1990 when Unser, Jr. won at Toronto, Michigan, Denver and Vancouver. 

Al Unser is the only driver to win at least four consecutive races on multiple occasions in IndyCar history, and both times Unser did it, he won five consecutive races, first accomplishing it in 1968 with a victory at Nazareth before two doubleheader sweeps on the Indianapolis Raceway Park road course and then at Langhorne. The second time was in 1970 with victories at DuQuoin, Indiana State Fairgrounds, Sedalia, Trenton and Sacramento. 

Bobby Unser also won four consecutive races in 1968, starting at Stardust Raceway, a three-mile road course in Las Vegas, Nevada before winning at Phoenix, Trenton and the Indianapolis 500 to top it all off. 

Mario Andretti had four consecutive victories in the 1967 season at the IRP road course, Langhorne and a doubleheader sweep at Mont-Tremblant. A.J. Foyt famously opened the 1964 season with seven consecutive victories. Jimmy Bryan closed the 1954 season with four consecutive victories. 

In 1922, Jimmy Murphy won four consecutive races, starting at the 1.25-mile board oval in Cotati, California, including his Indianapolis 500 victory and then victories on the board ovals in Uniontown, Pennsylvania and Tacoma, Washington. 

The first driver to win at least four consecutive races was Ralph DePalma. In 1918, DePalma won five consecutive races. Two were held on July 18 on the two-mile Speedway Park board oval in Chicago. The other three were on August 17 around the two-mile Sheepshead Bay Speedway board oval in New York. 

Twice has a driver won four consecutive races in a season and not won the championship. Andretti could not close out the 1967 season, and Foyt took the title by 80 points after a dramatic Riverside season finale. 

Al Unser did not win the 1968 championship despite his summer hot streak, but his brother Bobby did win the title that season with his four consecutive victories early providing the backbone for a tight championship battle that saw Bobby Unser hold off Andretti by 11 points to win the title.

How Do Streaks End?

While Palou is on a historic tear and is hoping for the history to continue in Canada, eventually, history stops being made. More three-race winning streaks did not become four than did. The last nine three-race winning streaks went no further. So what happened? 

The previous three-race winning streak belonged to Scott Dixon at the start of the 2020 season. Dixon won the first three races, beginning at Texas, continuing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and concluding at the first race of a doubleheader weekend at Road America. The third victory for Dixon was rather fortunate as Josef Newgarden stalled on a pit stop and Dixon overtook Will Power during the final round of pit stops. In the next race, Dixon had a bad break of his own, stalling twice and finishing 12th.

Prior to Dixon, Simon Pagenaud won three consecutive races early in the 2016 season, Long Beach, Barber Motorsports Park and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Pagenaud had finished second in the first two races of that season as well. The next race was the 100th Indianapolis 500. Sadly, an engine issue knocked Pagenaud out of contention and an unsafe pit release did not help his hopes. The Frenchman settled for 19th. 

Will Power had a three-race winning streak spanning two seasons. Power won at Houston and in Fontana at the end of 2013 and then Power won the 2014 St. Petersburg season opener. In the next race at Long Beach, Power qualified 14th but he fought his way forward only to finish second to Mike Conway. 

Earlier in the 2013 season, Dixon won three consecutive races at Pocono and over the Toronto doubleheader weekend. That streak lifted Dixon from seventh in the championship, 92 points off the lead, to second, 29 points back. The next race was Mid-Ohio. Dixon qualified third, but the two-stop strategy saw him fall backward while Chip Ganassi racing teammate Charlie Kimball used three stops to beat Simon Pagenaud for the victory. Dixon settled for seventh. 

There were two three-race winning streaks during the 2012 season. The first was Power, who won at Barber, Long Beach and São Paulo, and then was caught in an accident in the Indianapolis 500 when Mike Conway spun with front wing damage. Power was 29th. Later that season, Ryan Hunter-Reay won at Milwaukee, Iowa and Toronto on the spin. Hunter-Reay qualified on pole position for the next race at Edmonton, but Hunter-Reay had to serve a ten-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change. From 11th, all the American to get was seventh in Canada. 

Dixon's first three-race winning streak occurred in the 2007 Indy Racing League season. He won at Watkins Glen, Nashville and Mid-Ohio. At Michigan, Dixon was running second when he and Dario Franchitti got together on the back straightaway and had an accident. Dixon ended up finishing tenth.

After opening the 2007 Champ Car season with an accident in the Las Vegas street race, Sébastien Bourdais responded with victories at Long Beach, Houston and Portland. At Cleveland, Bourdais started on pole position and led the first 27 laps. Bourdais lost the lead to Power during the first pit cycle and an ignition issue ended Bourdais' race after 67 laps, placing him 12th.

A.J. Allmendinger won his first three races for Forsythe Racing during the 2006 Champ Car season. Allmendinger won at Portland, Cleveland and Toronto. Allmendinger went from fifth in the championship, 67 points behind Bourdais to second, 23 points back after that streak. At Edmonton, Allmendinger was third, one position behind Bourdais with Justin Wilson taking the victory. 

In summation, the last nine three-race winning streaks ended with only two podium finishes, four top ten finishes and three retirements. The average finish of the streak ending races is 11.222.

Honda is Running the Streets

Toronto is the fourth of five street course races this season, and Honda has started 2023 going three-for-three, winning all three street events this year. Dating back to last season, Honda has won five consecutive street course events, a streak that started at Toronto with Scott Dixon's 52nd career victory. 

Along with Dixon's 52nd career victory, the New Zealander was responsible for Honda's next street course victory, this his 53rd career victory, putting Dixon ahead of Mario Andretti record book, occurred at Nashville. Chip Ganassi Racing made it three consecutive street course victories when Marcus Ericsson pounced on Patricio O'Ward's plenum event caused O'Ward to lose power exiting the final corner and saw Ericsson blast through to the lead with four laps remaining. 

Kyle Kirkwood kept Honda's streak alive at Long Beach, leading a Honda 1-2-3 with Romain Grosjean and Ericsson rounding out the podium. Álex Palou's first victory of this three-race streak on the first race on the new Detroit street course brought this streak to five races in June. 

During this five race streak, Honda entries have led 285 of 450 laps, claimed ten of 15 podium finishers and 17 of 25 top five finishes. A Honda driver has started on pole position in four of the last five street course races.

Chip Ganassi Racing will look to keep up its form, and it enters as the defending Toronto race winners. Dixon's victory last season was Ganassi's eighth Toronto triumph, and it broke a tie with Newman-Haas Racing for most victories in event history. Dixon is responsible for half of the team's victories here. Last year, Palou was sixth after starting 22nd in what was his Toronto debut. Marcus Ericsson went from ninth to fifth in what was his second Toronto start. 

Andretti Autosport has been quick on street courses, but the results do not always go the team's way. While Kirkwood won at Long Beach and led an Andretti 1-2, victory slipped out of its grasp at St. Petersburg when Grosjean was knocked out of the race after contact with McLaughlin. At Detroit, Grosjean qualified third but slipped back before colliding with the barrier and ending his race. Kirkwood suffered damage on lap one and went on the drive of his career to finish sixth while Colton Herta had front wing damage cost him spots late and drop Herta to 11th in the final result, one spot ahead of Devlin DeFrancesco.

Prior to this streak, Team Penske had won three consecutive street course races, one for each driver with Scott McLaughlin winning at St. Petersburg in February 2022, Josef Newgarden winning at Long Beach that April 2022 and Will Power winning the final Belle Isle race in June 2022, which remains Power's most recent victory to date. Team Penske has won three of the last five Toronto races. 

Honda enters this weekend having won three consecutive races, all thanks to Álex Palou. Honda has not won four consecutive races since Herta won the 2019 season finale at Laguna Seca and then Chip Ganassi Racing opened the season with four consecutive victories, three for Dixon and then the first career victory for Felix Rosenqvist at Road America. 

Toronto is Not Known For Variety

Of the 14 Toronto races held since reunification, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing has combined to win ten times. The only other team with multiple victories during that span is Ed Carpenter Racing, which won the second race of the 2014 doubleheader with Mike Conway and then Josef Newgarden won in 2015 when the team was branded as CFH Racing after merging with the Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing organization.

The other two races were won by Andretti Autosport in 2012 with Ryan Hunter-Reay, and the first race of the 2014 doubleheader with Sébastien Bourdais taking victory for KV Racing, a team that has been defunct since 2016. 

Last year, Felix Rosenqvist had McLaren third at Toronto, and the McLaren organization has finished third in four of the last five Toronto races, dating back to the team's time as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Patricio O'Ward was 11th last year in his Toronto IndyCar debut. Alexander Rossi had finished in the top ten in three consecutive Toronto races before contact with Rosenqvist took Rossi out of the race last year and left Rossi with a 23rd-place classification. 

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is coming off a double top ten finish day at the most recent race at Mid-Ohio. Last year, RLLR had a double top ten day in Toronto with Graham Rahal finishing fourth and Christian Lundgaard ending up eighth. RLLR has not had a podium finish on a street course since Takuma Sato was third in the first Belle Isle race in 2019. 

Toronto has not been a kind place to Dale Coyne Racing. Since 2015, the team has one top ten finish out of 12 possible top ten finishes. DCR's average finish in this race during that time is 15.5883. The team has two combined top five finishes in the team's history at Toronto, both were fifth-place results, the first coming with Bruno Junqueira in 2007 and the other with Justin Wilson in 2009. 

Meyer Shank Racing is making a driver change this weekend. After Simon Pagenaud was not cleared to return to competition after his practice accident at Mid-Ohio, MSR has drafted in its sports car driver Tom Blomqvist to run the #60 Honda this weekend at Toronto. Blomqvist has spent the last two seasons driving for MSR in IMSA, where he has won four races, the 24 Hours of Daytona twice, Petit Le Mans and Mosport last week. He has also made 23 starts in Formula E. Blomqvist was second in the 2014 Formula Three championship behind Esteban Ocon and ahead of Max Verstappen.

Hélio Castroneves remains in the #06 Honda for MSR this weekend. Castroneves has never won in Toronto despite having made 16 starts. He has finished second three times at Exhibition Place plus a third. All four of those results came in a five-race span. Castroneves has only seven top ten finishes in the Queen City.

A.J. Foyt Racing was third in the 2012 Toronto race with Mike Conway, and the team has some good history at the track. From 2011 through 2016, Foyt had a top five finisher in four of eight Toronto races. However, in the last four Toronto races, the team has one top ten finish and an average finish of 16.875.

Juncos Hollinger Racing will only be making its third Toronto appearance this weekend. Its first trip to the Queen City was with René Binder in 2018 and Binder finished 17th, two laps down. Last year, Callum Ilott qualified seventh, but dropped to 14th, completing all 85 laps. 

Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport have combined to win 22 of 24 street course races run since the introduction to the universal aero kit ahead of the 2018 season. The only races one of these three teams did win was the first race with the universal aero kit when Sébastien Bourdais won at St. Petersburg with Dale Coyne Racing in 2018. The other was O'Ward and McLaren winning the second Belle Isle race in 2021. 

Road to Indy

The lower two series in the Road to Indy will join IndyCar on the trip to Canada.

USF Pro 2000 has seven races remaining and after Toronto the series has a six-week break before competing at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas at the end of August. 

Myles Rowe scored his first victory since March in the second Mid-Ohio race earlier this month and that has Rowe's championship lead up to 251 points. Rowe has finished in the top five in nine of 11 races this season, and it has given him a 64-point gap over Kiko Porto in second. 

Porto has yet to win in 2023, but he has four runner-up finishes this season. However, the Brazilian has finished outside the top five in six races this season. Joel Granfors is two points behind Porto, and Granfors has finished outside the top five in seven races. 

Salvador de Alba is fourth on 173 points, two ahead of Francesco Pizzi. De Alba has three top five finishes all season, while Pizzi has five, but Pizzi is coming off finishing 15th and 17th at Mid-Ohio. Michael d'Orlando has found form in the last two weekends with three podium finishes in four races, including two victories. It has d'Orlando up to sixth on 169 points. 

Jace Denmark is three points behind d'Orlando after he had a double top-five weekend at Mid-Ohio and Denmark was second in the first Mid-Ohio race to d'Orlando. Jonathan Browne is done to eighth on 152 points, five points ahead of Jack William Miller and Lirimi Zendeli rounds out the top ten on 142 points, two more than Reece Ushijima. 

St. Petersburg season opener winner Christian Brooks returns to competition this weekend driving for Turn3 Motorsport. Brooks won with the team at St. Petersburg.

USF Pro 2000 will race at 11:50 a.m. ET on Saturday July 15 and at 11:05 a.m. ET on Sunday July 16. Both races will be 25 laps with a 45-minute time limit on Saturday and 40-minute limit on Sunday. 

Toronto is the penultimate weekend of the U.S. F2000 weekend, and only five races remain this season. 

Simon Sikes leads the championship by 40 points over Lochie Hughes and Nikita Johnson after Sikes finished second, 17th and first at Mid-Ohio while Hughes was fourth, 19th and 22nd. Hughes had the car breakdown on the grid for the final Mid-Ohio race after being in an incident the previous race with Sikes. Johnson has nine consecutive top five finishes and 11 top five finishes from 13 races. 

Sikes and Hughes has both won four times this season. The only other driver with multiple victories is Mac Clark, who is fourth in the championship on 246 points. Clark has four consecutive podium finishes. No driver has had five consecutive podium finishes this season. Evagoras Papasavvas rounds out the top five in the championship on 235 points. 

Chase Gardner is the top driver in the championship without a victory this season. Gardner is sixth on 176 points, 12 points ahead of Sam Corry. The final driver mathematically eligible for the championship is Jorge Garciarce on 160 points.

After this weekend, a driver must be within 99 points of the championship lead to be mathematically alive of the championship at the Portland season finale over the weekend of September 2-3.

U.S. F2000 will race at 1:40 p.m. ET on Saturday July 15 with the second race at 8:10 a.m. ET on Sunday July 16. Both races will be 20 laps with a 45-minute time limit on Saturday and 40-minute limit on Sunday. 

Fast Facts

This will be the eighth IndyCar race to take place on July 16 and the first since Josef Newgarden won at Toronto in 2017. 

Three Toronto races have taken place on July 16. Michael Andretti won the other two on July 16, 1995 and July 16, 2000. 

This year's Toronto race falls on the 34th anniversary of Bobby Rahal winning the Marlboro Grand Prix at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was Bobby Rahal's first victory after the birth of his son Graham Rahal on January 4 that year. 

Bobby and Graham Rahal have never won a race on the same day. 

Felix Rosenqvist and Patricio O'Ward are the only drivers entered at Toronto that has won at the track in Indy Lights. The only driver to win in Indy Lights and IndyCar at Toronto is Paul Tracy.

The only driver to win at Toronto in Atlantics and IndyCar is A.J. Allmendinger.

No rookie has ever won at Toronto.

Adrián Fernández and Justin Wilson are the only two drivers to pick up their first career victory at Toronto.

The average starting position for a Toronto winner is 3.7778 with a median of third.

Seventeen Toronto races have been won from the front row and 27 Toronto races have been won from inside the top five. 

Three Toronto races have been won from outside the top ten (Michael Andretti from 13th in 2001, Mike Conway from 11th in 2014 race two and Josef Newgarden from 11th in 2015). 

The average number of lead changes in a Toronto race is 4.228 with a median of four. 

Last year's race had seven lead changes. It was the eighth time a Toronto race had at least seven lead changes. Three of the last five Toronto races have had at least seven lead changes.

Five times has a Toronto winner led every lap (Michael Andretti 1991-92, Dario Franchitti 1999, Cristiano da Matta 2002 and Paul Tracy 2003).

The average number of cautions in a Toronto race is 3.542 with a median of three. The average number of caution laps is 14.228 with a median of 12.

There has never been a caution-free race at Toronto.

The last Toronto race to have only one caution was in 1992.

Only one of the last ten Toronto races has had more than four caution periods. That one race was the second race of the 2014 doubleheader, a race that was shortened due to the Saturday race being postponed to Sunday, and then ended early due to a time limit due to the race taking place in wet conditions. 

Predictions

Colton Herta makes it six consecutive street course victories for Honda, and he leads another Honda 1-2-3 with Álex Palou extending his championship lead. Arrow McLaren will have the most Chevrolet entries in the top ten. Will Power does make the Fast Six, but he does not finish in the top six. Tom Blomqvist ends up finishing ahead of Hélio Castroneves. Jack Harvey has his best finish of the season. Sting Ray Robb does not finish 22nd. There will not be an incident on the opening lap. At least one car will suffer significant damage from contact on pit lane. Marcus Armstrong increases his lead in the rookie of the year battle by at least 12 points. Sleeper: Callum Ilott.

Musings From the Weekend: Who is SRX For? Volume II

Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...

Max Verstappen has won six consecutive races, and he could tie the Formula One record at Zandvoort. Red Bull has won 11 consecutive races, matching the record McLaren set in 1988. The British drivers had a good home weekend. The party was spoiled in Italy. Corvette should be rather happy. Cadillac had another big accident. Mosport has some questionable barrier placement. Shane van Gisbergen returned home. There were some night races in Atlanta, and some rain. However, there are is another night race later this weekend that are on my mind.

Who is SRX For? Volume II

The 2023 Superstar Racing Experience season starts a little later than the first two seasons, but year three sees a host of changes to the short track series. A brainchild of Tony Stewart, Ray Evernham and others, SRX was introduced as an all-star series competing at local short tracks across the United States with a national television presentation. 

That continues into 2023, but this year the series moves from Saturday night events broadcasted at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on CBS to Thursday night races broadcasted at 9:0 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Those aren't the only notable changes to the series. 

SRX began in 2021 with a dash of skepticism that it would work. In year one, it gained traction and respectable viewing numbers, and it had a few wonderful stories where overlooked or up-and-coming drivers such as Doug Coby, Ernie Francis, Jr., Kody Swanson and Luke Fenhaus were able to display their skills to a much larger audience and became the story of the night over NASCAR Cup champions and Indianapolis 500 winners. 

However, year three is seeing SRX shift significantly from what was celebrated in year one and became a calling card for the series. Two years after it was about to debut at Stafford Spring Speedway in Connecticut, I ask again, less than a week from the 2023 Stafford season opener, who is SRX for?

At that time, I was wondering if the appetite was there to watch what was mostly retired drivers compete against a handful of active drivers and some guests. The "retirement tour" nature of the series only continues into year three. 

Stewart continues as a driver, as does Bobby Labonte and Paul Tracy, but this season will see Ken Schrader, who last started a NASCAR Cup Series race in 2013, also compete full-time. Along with those three are the part-timer national series drivers of Ryan Newman, Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay. 

Hailie Deegan returns as a full-time competitor after being part-time the previous two seasons. Deegan will run full-time simultaneously with her full-time NASCAR Truck Series commitments, and Deegan isn't the only full-time NASCAR driver signed up for all six races. Brad Keselowski will run the entire SRX slate, becoming the first active NASCAR Cup Series driver to attempt a full SRX season. 

The full-time grid is a little more balanced in terms of where drivers are in their careers, but the part-time drivers are nearly all active guests from NASCAR and IndyCar.

Stafford sees Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Tony Kanaan on the guest list. 

Kanaan will also be attending the Thunder Road International SpeedBowl date in Barrie, Vermont along with Greg Biffle, Daniel Suárez and Kenny Wallace.

Bowyer returns for Pulaski County Motorsports Park in Fairlawn, Virginia but will have four-time Indianapolis 500 Hélio Castroneves, 2023 Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden, and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch joining the bill.

Castroneves and Busch stick around for the Berlin Raceway event in Marne, Michigan with Harvck returning and Kasey Kahne joining the fun. 

Eldora Speedway is the first of two dirt races, and the penultimate round of the season, and the guests that weekend will be Kanaan returning for his third race, Matt Kenseth, Austin Dillon and NHRA champion Ron Capps. 

Lucas Oil Speedway, a 3/8th-mile dirt oval in Wheatland, Missouri, hosts the finale and the final guests of the season will be Castroneves, Bowyer, Wallace and a returning Francis, Jr.

Those are all notable names, all with national recognition. In year three, there is no more room for the unsung hero, one of the selling points for the series in the previous two seasons. 

It is understandable what SRX is doing. It must generate viewership, and bringing in drivers with national recognition will help with viewership and keep the series alive. The series is also leaning into nostalgia with the move to ESPN and the races taking place on Thursday night, essentially reviving Thursday Night Thunder, a weekly showcase of motorsports on the ESPN platform in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Not to forget mentioning the series is almost literally riding NASCAR's coattails. 

Stafford opens the season in July 13, three days before the NASCAR Cup Series races at Loudon, New Hampshire. Four days after the Loudon Cup race, SRX is in Barre, Vermont, which is three days before NASCAR runs at Pocono. Pulaski County in Virginia kicks off the Richmond NASCAR weekend. Berlin is three days before NASCAR's only trip to Michigan International Speedway. Eldora, which is a stone throw's from the Ohio-Indiana border, is a few days before the IndyCar/NASCAR combination weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The season finale in Missouri is the only trip out of the way, taking place between the Indianapolis and Watkins Glen rounds. It is a good strategy to attract the drivers. They will be in the area and will not have to go out of the way to run SRX. Accommodating the guests is always appreciated. 

People like comparing SRX to IROC. It has similarities, but IROC took drivers at their highest level and it was an exclusive group that competed in every race. Of the 24 drivers scheduled to compete in SRX this year, 11 are not full-time in one of the premier North American series. The average age of the scheduled participants is 44.5 years old.

There is going to be an audience excited for short track racing and seeing some of these places on the national stage. It is exhilarating thinking ThunderRoad will get to host one of these races. The races could be quite good with the drivers have been brought in, but SRX was a chance to show there were quality drivers competing throughout this country that are not running in NASCAR or IndyCar. It was a chance for the little guy to get his or her shot. Moving away from that betrays the short track roots SRX claims to care about. 

The drivers brought in for season three should produce good races, and we will likely have a few memorable battles that can only be seen in SRX. Nowhere else this season will Kyle Busch be on the same track as Josef Newgarden, but the series does rely too much on Stewart's rolodex to fill the grid when it should save a few seats for the drivers that are busting their backsides and are just looking for an opportunity. If the wish for this to be an IROC-esque series then invite the champions from USAC, World of Outlaws, NASCAR Modifieds and other top tier short track drivers as well as the millionaires regularly on our television screens every weekend.

However, it is a business. 

Though the first two seasons went rather well, SRX is still trying to keep the lights on. It is dependent on drawing sponsors and covering the costs. Running any race car is not cheap, even those that only run six weekends a year exclusively on short tracks. The first two years might have had features we loved and separated it from other series, but SRX is not a charity. Profit is the bottom line.

Recognition plus nostalgia could be the recipe to greater success, but the series is forfeiting some of its identity in that chase.

Champions From the Weekend

The #33 Corvette of Ben Keating, Nicky Catsburg and Nicolas Varrone clinched the FIA Endurance Trophy for GTE-AM drivers with a fourth-place finish at Monza despite there being two races remaining. 

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Max Verstappen, but did you know...

The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the 6 Hours of Monza, its third victory of the season. The #28 Jota Oreca-Nissan of Pietro Fittipaldi, David Heinemeier Hansson and Oliver Rasmussen won in LMP2. The #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche of Christian Ried, Mikkel Pedersen and Julien Andluaer won in GTE-Am.

William Byron won the rain-shortened NASCAR Cup race at Atlanta, his fourth victory of the season. John Hunter Nemechek won Grand National Series, his third victory of the season. Corey Heim won the Truck race at Mid-Ohio, his second victory of the season.

The #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun won the IMSA race from Mosport, its second victory of the season. The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson won in LMP3, its third consecutive victory. The #3 Corvette of Antonio García and Jordan Taylor won in GTD Pro. The #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow won in GTD, its third victory of the season.

Frederik Vesti (sprint) and Victor Martins (feature) split the Formula Two races from Silverstone. Franco Colapinto (sprint) and Oliver Goethe (feature) split the Formula Three races.

Sheldon van der Linde and Thomas Preining split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters from Norisring.

Will Brown and Anton de Pasquale split the Supercars races from Townsville.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar makes its summer trip to Toronto. 

Formula E has its penultimate round, a doubleheader in Rome.

NASCAR moves north to Loudon, New Hampshire.

SRX operns its season at Stafford.

Super Formula is back in Fuji.

After a three-month break, the European Le Mans Series finally contests its second round of the season at Circuit Paul Ricard.

After a two-month break, the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup finally contests its second round of the season at Misano.