We are less than two weeks until the IndyCar finale from Laguna Seca and it is the first time IndyCar has been to the track since 2004.
This has been a period of returns for IndyCar. In 2016, Phoenix returned after 11 years and Road America after nine years; in 2017, Gateway returned after 13 years and last year, Portland returned for the first time since 2007.
The past few years we have looked back at some of IndyCar's previous visits to these new but yet familiar places. We did it for Gateway and Portland and now it is Laguna Seca's turn to receive some attention.
I went back and decided to watch 11 races from Laguna Seca. After doing this for Portland last year, I thought about what races to watch and while I feel it is important to give a complete picture of how the races have been it does not necessarily translate to what we will see in 2019. The races of the 1980s and 1990s were different in terms of attrition and fuel rules. In Laguna Seca's case, the entire track layout was different. Of these 11 races, six were from the last nine years Laguna Seca hosted a race.
We will start with the first time IndyCar made its way to Monterey in 1983.
1983
This was a much different circuit compared to what we see today and it was really an oval except for the corkscrew and the right-hand penultimate corner. The 1.9-mile circuit had very little run-off area and it had little in terms of actual walls to keep the cars within the race course. Parts of the circuit were right against the berm where fans overlooked the circuit.
Teo Fabi started on pole position and he flew from the rest of the field at the start. Because of the nature of the circuit, the corkscrew was actually a passing zone. The cars built up a lot of speed going up hill and it allowed for cars to make a move to the inside into the corkscrew, including Al Unser, Jr. on his father Al Unser.
Of course, because the corkscrew was such a prime position for action, it led to mistakes including Pancho Carter spinning on exit and Derek Daly and Steve Chassey getting together into the corner. Kevin Cogan was second but had an incident with Roger Mears in the final corner of the course. It was game over for Cogan.
Fabi won the race in a runaway, 22 seconds clear of Mario Andretti and Chip Ganassi rounded out the podium with Unser, Jr. finishing fourth.
The 1980s were a different time and in this race only nine of 27 cars finished the race. This allowed for Unser, Jr. to finish fourth from 12th on the grid, Howdy Holmes to finish fifth from 17th and two laps down and Roger Mears to finish sixth from 16th and four laps down. It also allowed Bobby Rahal to finish seventh, five laps down despite having an early pit stop for repairs.
Unrelated Notes:
I enjoyed this circuit and I wonder how a race with today's car would play out. There are a few tight corners but would it race closer to an oval? There was not much side-by-side racing through the first few corners going uphill, I wonder if that would be possible today.
1986
This was the third of Bobby Rahal's four consecutive Laguna Seca victories, all of which came on the original track configuration but this race had six lead changes, the most on the original track.
Mario Andretti started on pole position and led at the start ahead of Rahal. Michael Andretti moved up to third in the corkscrew with a pass on Rick Mears on the first lap. On lap nine, Rahal made a move up the inside of Mario Andretti into the corkscrew and took the lead.
Outside of Rahal's pass into the corkscrew, the other lead changes came from pit cycles. Geoff Brabham had a hard battle for sixth with Emerson Fittipaldi with the two trading the position. Fittipaldi got sixth on the front straightaway after Brabham was slowed in traffic but Brabham got the spot back into the corkscrew.
This was a fast race, in fact, the fastest race at Laguna Seca with an average speed of 119.693 MPH. The speed of the race led to fuel concerns for the top two and between fuel conservation and the lapped traffic it led for Danny Sullivan to close on Rahal in the final laps. Rahal held on for the victory by 1.41 seconds over Sullivan and Michael Andretti finished third.
Unrelated Notes:
Geoff Brabham had to switch from Honda to a Cosworth engine for this race because the team did not have enough Honda engines to complete the season.
There were two notable instances that did not bring out a caution. Tom Sneva spun in the middle of the straightaway before the corner that leads to what is now the Rahal Straight. There was no caution despite the car being stuck with very with runoff room. Randy Lewis had a fire on the front straightaway, no caution. My, how the times have changed.
1988
This was the first Laguna Seca race after the reconfiguration and creation of what we now know as the hairpin and turns three, four and five. Johnny Rutherford was in the booth for this race and he noted that the drivers liked the new configuration and it was more fun than the previous layout.
Danny Sullivan started on pole position in what could have been a coronation ceremony as he entered the race leading the championship over Bobby Rahal by 25 points. All Sullivan needed to clinch the title was a finish of tenth or better.
Sullivan kept the lead from the start but Teo Fabi spun in the hairpin on the first lap. It was a single-car incident and he continued.
Dale Coyne had a rough accident entering the corkscrew after he squeezed Tony Bettenhausen, Jr. and it brought out a caution early.
The racing was close. The field didn't really spread out but it remained single-file and all the lead changes came through pit cycles. However, there were eight lead changes and statistically that is the most lead changes in a Laguna Seca race, regardless of track configuration.
What passing we did see was on lapped traffic and there was a notable amount of it occurring into the corkscrew.
Sullivan cruised to a championship-clinching victory with Michael and Mario Andretti rounding out the podium and Rahal finished fourth after struggling with brake issues.
Unrelated Notes:
The sub-story of this race was the Marlboro Challenge, which would be held at the next race in Miami, and Derek Daly made the field as well as Teo Fabi. I kind of wish something like the Marlboro Challenge still existed but it would feel unnecessary.
Before the race, ESPN pit reporter John Bisignano was sitting on the right front tire of Daly's car while the car was on the grid. I know IndyCar is not the most restrictive series but I cannot imagine anyone allowing this today.
Al Unser, Jr.'s race was disrupted when he hit a rabbit and it broke his front wing. It dropped Unser, Jr. to a sixth place finish.
1989
The second race on the revised layout saw seven lead changes, the second-most in a Laguna Seca race. Danny Sullivan took the lead from the start from pole-sitter Rick Mears but Sullivan's and hopes for a second consecutive victory vanishes on lap three when he slows in Rainey Curve and Mears took the top spot.
Al Unser, Jr. closed in on Mears and remained on Mears' rear wing. Derek Daly, Scott Pruett and Teo Fabi had a tight three-way battle for eighth.
Mears and Unser, Jr. stopped on the same lap. Mario Andretti took the lead and ran a few more laps before his first stop. He and Michael Andretti stopped on the same lap but he lost time, as the tight nature of the pit lane made it difficult to get out around his son. Despite running longer and the additional time spend on pit lane, the Andrettis both exited ahead of Mears and Unser, Jr. but Mears would get around Michael Andretti for second on the straightaway before the corkscrew on Michael's out lap.
Mario Andretti made his second stop before the other leaders and two laps later Fabrizio Barbazza stopped on course to bring out a caution. Mears made it to the pit lane for his second stop but Unser, Jr. stayed out and inherited the lead. Kevin Cogan moved up to second. Unser, Jr. and Galles Racing felt Mears and Andretti were not in a window where they could comfortably make it to the end on fuel.
After the restart, Mears and Mario Andretti dispatched Cogan in the hairpin and turn five respectively. Unser, Jr. pulled away as he had to try and open a gap over Mears and Andretti. Unser, Jr.'s first stop came on lap 62 but he came out in third behind Mears and Andretti.
Pruett again found himself in a good battle for fifth with Bobby Rahal and Emerson Fittipaldi was behind him. Rahal lost those two spots when he dropped his right side tires off exiting turn six.
It did become a fuel conservation race between Mears and Mario Andretti. Andretti was six seconds behind Mears with three laps to go. With two laps to go, Andretti took a second out of the gap to Mears and he took another second out coming to the white flag. Mears held on to take the victory by 1.846 seconds over Andretti. Unser Jr. held off Pruett for the final podium position.
This victory tied Rick Mears with Rodger Ward for sixth most victories in IndyCar history and Ward was in attendance.
Unrelated Notes:
Noted during the broadcast was some of the fuel rules dated back to the gas crisis of 1973 and teams were talking about changing it so teams would have enough fuel and not have to worry about not having enough to make it to the finish.
Most of the final laps were spent on Rick Mears' wife and Paul Newman. I can understand why this practice was done to show the drama and emotion to the perimeter players because you cannot show it on the face of a driver who is in a full-face helmet and in the tight confines of a cockpit but man it has not aged well and you missed a lot of what happened on track.
1992
This race was the third of three consecutive Laguna Seca with zero lead changes. So why watch it? Because I want to get a feel if it was a case of there was no passing anywhere or the leader was able to pull away with the rest of the positions being jockeyed for.
It was noted that a record crowd was on hand for what would be the championship-decider. Bobby Rahal entered leading Michael Andretti by 12 points. Andretti was leaving for McLaren the following season and he started on pole position with Rahal in sixth. Andretti needed Rahal to finish fifth or worse.
Andretti held onto the lead from the start and he and the Penske cars of Paul Tracy and Emerson Fittipaldi pulled away. Rahal would be gifted fifth position when Scott Goodyear suffered a mechanical problem and prior to the halfway point Fittipaldi would also slow, moving Rahal up to fourth.
The leaders weren't passing each other but there was some action in the middle of the field. Jimmy Vasser spun passing Christan Danner into turn five and Danny Sullivan and Raul Boesel had a battle into the hairpin with Sullivan losing the spot on entry but gaining it on exit when Boesel ran wide. The one notable pass between the leaders was Rahal on Mario Andretti in the hairpin. This occurred after Andretti was balked in lap traffic entering the final corner and it allowed Rahal to get a run down the straightaway.
While Mario Andretti would get the position back on Rahal through pit stops, the title went to Rahal after a few fortunate circumstances. John Andretti was competitive and in the top five when he stalled on a pit stop and Tracy had damage after he spun the lapped car of Vasser in the final corner when Tracy was trying to pressure Michael Andretti for the lead.
Michael Andretti won the race with his father Mario in second but Rahal's third place result locked up the title by four points over Michael Andretti.
Unrelated Notes:
Nigel Mansell was in attendance and he was not a big deal. He was not shown on camera until about 2/3rd of the way through the race when he was interviewed and they showed him watching the closing stages of the race sitting on a wall on the edge of the final corner of the circuit.
Danny Sullivan was offered a role in a television movie.
Carl Hogan was trying a noise-canceling headset. We have come a long way.
1996
Entering this race it was a three-way battle for the championship between Jimmy Vasser, Michael Andretti and Al Unser, Jr. This was also the first race on the Laguna Seca layout as we know it today with turns ten and 11, the final two corners of the circuit, being re-profiled before the 1996 race.
Alex Zanardi started on pole position and he got out to a comfortable lead with cars going three-wide into the hairpin behind him on the opening lap. It remained tight in the middle of the top ten with a notable battle between Scott Pruett, Vasser and Unser, Jr.
Zanardi went 27 laps on the first stint while Vasser did 29 laps. Bryan Herta started second and remained in second in the opening stint. After the first round of pit stops Herta closed in on Zanardi.
It was noted the difficulty to pass especially in the hairpin because of how dirty it was off line and the way the track sloped. Greg Moore spun attempting to pass Maurício Gugelmin in this corner.
However, on lap 43, Herta took the lead from Zanardi in the hairpin. It was noted how much tires overheated and the cars were sliding around. The blistering of Zanardi's tires in this second stint allowed Herta to open a sizable gap.
Stefan Johansson had an accident after he suffered a rear wing failure into the hairpin. Everyone made their final pit stops under this caution and the restart came with 24 laps to go.
This set up what is the most notable moment in the history of Laguna Seca and perhaps American open-wheel history. Zanardi stayed close to Herta for the entirety of the final 24 laps. He really didn't pressure Herta off the restart. The pressure increased in the closing laps and it led to a slight error from Zanardi when he dropped his right side tires exiting Rainey Curve.
Zanardi regrouped and clawed back the gap to Herta.
Then the pass.
What else can be said?
Zanardi went full send from a mile back and made it stick. It was the only passing attempt in the corkscrew all race.
Zanardi won the race, Herta was second, Scott Pruett rounded out the podium from tenth on the grid and Jimmy Vasser won the championship with a fourth place finish.
Unrelated Notes:
This is the championship-decider we should dread, none of the drivers up at the front and no chance of a change for the top spot.
However, unlike 2019, where I feel the broadcast would focus on the championship drivers even if they were 12th, 18th and 20th and when we all knew nothing was going to change, the 1996 broadcast focused on the leaders. It mentioned the championship battle but once Michael Andretti had a flat tire and spun and Al Unser, Jr. was a lap down the attention stayed on the leaders and that was the correct choice.
I am afraid that in 2019 we are too focused on selling a title-deciding race that we lose sight of a great race and don't give it the attention it deserves just because the championship drivers aren't in the fight for the race victory.
1997
Picking up from where things left off in 1996, Bryan Herta and Alex Zanardi started on the front row and it led to a competitive battle in the opening laps of the race. This allowed Jimmy Vasser to make up a few positions from sixth starting position.
The opening stint was one where Herta was in front but mostly holding up the field and Zanardi, instead of sitting back and hoping to get the position through a faster in-lap and out-lap, tried to make a move on the outside of the hairpin. This led to contact, forcing Zanardi off the road, slowing Herta up and allowing Scott Pruett to take the lead in turn three. Vasser moved up to third with Zanardi stepping off the road and he pressured Herta into a mistake into turn six on that lap to moved up to second.
Vasser would take the lead through pit stops, coming out ahead of Pruett but like the first stint the top five remained in close proximity with Vasser ahead of Pruett, Zanardi, Maurício Gugelmin and Mark Blundell. Herta lost a significant amount of ground after his off track escapades and pit stop and he was in eighth.
On the second stint, Vasser and Blundell went the longest and Vasser maintained the lead while Blundell moved up to second. Pruett lost two spots dropping to fifth. Zanardi had a quick car and tried to make a pass on Blundell on the inside of the hairpin for second but locked up and went off. Zanardi continued but he had dropped to fifth. Zanardi came under pressure from André Ribeiro and Ribeiro completed a pass on the inside of Zanardi into the hairpin for fifth.
Vasser and Blundell remained in lock step in the closing laps while cars dropped out from the race at a significant pace in the final 20 laps, including Pruett, who was spun in the hairpin by Ribeiro. This moved Zanardi up two positions. Lapped traffic came into play on the final lap, backing Vasser up to Blundell. Vasser defended the inside of the corkscrew on the final lap and the inside of the final corner to take victory over Blundell. Gugelmin went off in the final lap, handing Zanardi third and clinching Zanardi his second title.
Unrelated Notes:
This was a caution-free race and eight cars retired in the final 20 laps. The attrition allowed...
André Ribeiro to go from tenth to sixth, Gil de Ferran to go from ninth to fifth, Gualter Salles to go from 18th to seventh, Raul Boesel to go from 15th to eighth and Roberto Moreno to go from 26th to tenth.
At the halfway point, Moreno was 17th, Boesel was 16th and Sallas was 13th.
1998
Bryan Herta started on pole position and held on to the lead from the start. Outside of the first lap, there was only one pass for position between lap two and lap 14. Color commentator Danny Sullivan said it was because of how competitive the field was and how close the field was.
Herta controlled this race and seemed to get to a two or three second lead and maintain that gap. Alex Zanardi started sixth and got a position at the start, another position through pit cycle and he got up to third passing Dario Franchitti into the hairpin on a restart.
Tony Kanaan was the mover of the race. He started 14th and was only tenth at the halfway point at lap 42. However, Kanaan got up to fourth on pit strategy by lap 57 and he made a pass on Franchitti on the inside of the hairpin for third a handful of laps later.
There was restart with seven laps to go and Patrick Carpentier, Scott Pruett and Gil de Ferran got together in the hairpin. It set up a restart with two laps to go. Herta defended the inside of the corkscrew from Zanardi on the penultimate lap, learning the lesson from his past missed opportunity. Zanardi kept the pressure on but Herta held on for his first career victory and Kanaan finished third, his first career podium finish.
Unrelated Notes:
ESPN cut away from this race for Sammy Sosa at-bats because it was during the home run race between Sosa and Mark McGwire. Sosa hit his 61st home run that day.
I know steroids were involved but I was kid and I remember when home runs were a big deal and ESPN would cut away regularly for these at-bats and later Barry Bonds. ESPN doesn't cut away ay all for these type of milestone moments nor no-hitters or perfect games and I miss it.
While ESPN was cutting in for home runs, Honda provided limited commercial interruption during the closing stage of the race.
ESPN had pop-up video fun facts during this race, which were odd and the oddest of all was one that said Dario Franchitti's nickname was "Speedwagon." Who called him that?
Blundell's car had Haas sponsorship on the side.
2001
When going over the Laguna Seca results you see 20 of 22 races have been won from inside the top three with 18 races from the front row and then you have the 2001 race where the winner started 25th. How could such a thing occur?
The answer is eight cautions for 29 laps and a race that was run to a time limit.
Michael Andretti spun in the hairpin at the start, Kenny Bräck suffered damage after contact with Maurício Gugelmin in turn five and then the teammates Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier got together in the penultimate corner.
Gil de Ferran led from the start ahead of Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon. On lap 15, Memo Gidley was 18th after starting 23rd and Max Papis was 20th from 25th. Roberto Moreno spun three laps later exiting turn four and Michel Jourdain, Jr. got into the barrier. Castroneves made a pit stop while de Ferran and the rest of the front-runners stayed out.
Castroneves would make up some ground, including passes on Gidley and Gugelmin in the hairpin.
The rest of the leaders would not come in until around lap 34 when de Ferran came in and lap 37 when Dixon, who Parker Johnstone praised for his great fuel mileage that season, made his first stop.
On lap 42, Papis was fourth while Gidley was ninth and Shinji Nakano stopped on circuit to bring out a caution. Papis would make a pit stop under this yellow and he would restart in 15th, one spot ahead of Gidley.
This is where the time limit starts to come into play. After another Andretti spin in the hairpin the field pits under caution at lap 50, which includes Castroneves making contact with Paul Tracy on exit.
Fernández leads on the restart ahead of Papis, Gidley, de Ferran and Dixon and immediately Dario Franchitti and Cristiano da Matta get together exiting the hairpin sending da Matta into the tires. The next restart would come on lap 56, 27 laps to go or 32 minutes remaining.
At this point, Fernández has not made a stop since lap 36, Gidley on lap 37 and Papis on lap 43. Tracy would go off in turn three and Franchitti would go off moments later in a separate accident in the same corner. That would bring out a caution and bring Fernández to the pit lane.
Papis was going for it like he did at Portland in 2001 and the restart came on lap 65. Not long after, Oriol Servià would have his infamous accident climbing over Gugelmin in the hairpin and nose-diving into the sand, this launched Servià's car into a somersault, traveling some 30-50 feet. Servià was conscious and moving when the medical team reached the car and all he was being checked for was a sore neck. The HANS device was largely credited for saving Servià in that accident.
This accident would not only confirm the race would run to a time limit but that Papis and Gidley would be good to make it on fuel. The other thing in Papis and Gidley's favor was the lapped car of Andretti was in-between Gidley and de Ferran.
The final restart came with six minutes to go and Papis went unchallenged. He would take his second victory of the season while Gidley finished second ahead of pole-sitter de Ferran.
Unrelated Notes:
The big story entering the race was Honda's exit from the series and this is a bad reminder of a dark period for American open-wheel racing.
We have been lucky, one not to have the split, but two because while Lotus flamed out after one horrendous season Honda and Chevrolet have provided stability. I don't think anyone wants IndyCar to be in a position where we could be down to one manufacture again and it is kind of why everyone is eager for additional manufactures to join with the next generation engine regulations.
2003
This was the second consecutive year CART went to Laguna Seca in June opposed to September or October and this was the first time after the significant shift in power with Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Green Racing moving to the Indy Racing League while Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing remained straddling no-man's land.
The race weekend started with some drama when Michel Jourdain, Jr. had pole position taken away for his car being underweight and it put Patrick Carpentier on pole position while Jourdain had to start 13th.
The initial start was waved off but the race got going on lap two and Paul Tracy moved into second ahead of Bruno Junqueira. The one thing I noticed was how cars would use the pit exit lane as racetrack down into the hairpin. At the start it allowed cars to set up for the inside into the hairpin but did not cause any incidents.
This was the period of mandatory pit windows and no car could go more than 24 laps. Every car tried to go as long as they could with Carpentier, Tracy and Junqueira all coming in on lap 24. Carpentier was stuck in traffic at the end of the stint and it closed the gap considerably, making execution from the crews crucial. Everyone held their position after the first stop and Carpentier pulled away with clear track ahead.
Carpentier made a mistake into turn three, dropping his left side tires into the dirt. Tracy closed but could not get through. Junqueira would again close on the two Canadians. All three went the maximum distance on the second stint, pitting on lap 48 and this is where the race was interesting. Tracy clipped the tire in Adrian Fernández's pit stall on exit and he locked up the right front mightily rejoining the racetrack in the hairpin.
Carpentier again pulled away while Tracy struggled with tires and he dropped his right tires off exiting turn six getting on the Rahal straightaway. This allowed Junqueira to reassume second position.
Junqueira was able to close in on Carpentier and he was within a second and a half of Carpentier for the entirety of the final stint but could not put together a serious challenge for the lead. Tracy held onto third once Sébastien Bourdais had turbo pressure issues.
The notable mover of the day in what was otherwise a caution-free race except for the waved off start was Michel Jouradin, Jr. Jourdain made up two spots at the start but was only up to tenth on lap 16. He got to ninth by lap 44 and was up to eighth on lap 50 after a pass on Fernández into the corkscrew. He was up to sixth ten laps later and Bourdais' problems put him into the top five. Jourdain had another pass into the corkscrew on lap 74, this time for fourth on Mário Haberfeld.
Most of the ground Jourdain made up was through pit strategy but the passes he made on track were outstanding executions of risk.
Unrelated Notes:
It should be noted that the balance of the tires started to shift about 17 laps into a stint.
There was a flashback to when Patrick Carpentier had an accident in turn four at Laguna Seca in 2000 and he cleared the catchfence. I had forgotten that happened.
Can we talk about the career year for Michel Jourdain, Jr. in 2003? He led the championship after this race. He won two races, first at Milwaukee and later at Montreal. He had six podium finishes, 11 top five finishes from 18 starts and he won a pole position. He was never worse than third in the championship.
What other driver had all the highlights of his or her career occur in one season? Jourdain had been around for a while but he was never flashy. At the same time, he had never been in great equipment having driven for Dale Coyne Racing and Bettenhausen Racing. And he is a forgotten driver that left for NASCAR.
Unfortunately, Jourdain, Jr.'s career may be remember solely for being the one car that could not qualify for the 2013 Indianapolis 500 where he basically had six hours to find speed, never did and never bothered to make a qualifying attempt. That is all really harsh but I think we should remember his 2003 season more than what happened a decade later.
There was one name of note that was mentioned that I did not remember and knew nothing about that was Jamie Dingman, who was co-owner of Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing with Emerson Fittipaldi and who Tiago Monteiro drove for. During the broadcast, Tommy Kendall described Dingman as someone who always wanted to be an owner and not a driver, was trying to get a race in St. Petersburg... Russia and he wanted to be the next Roger Penske.
With all those ambitious, I had to Google search Dingman and the first thing that comes up is he dated Tiger Woods' ex-wife. On top of that, he could be the subject of a documentary produced by an investor that Dingman owes $500,000.
Dingman was sued by eight plaintiffs for not using the capital he as given to develop a hospitality business but on his own lifestyle of luxury travel and recreational drug use. Dingman didn't appear in court and in an email to one of the plaintiff's lawyers Dingman said he was living on the Turkish border near Syria.
Let's not forget to mention he is an heir to billionaire Michael Dingman.
I hope this documentary gets made but I really want a 30-45 minute section dedicated to the one year of Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing because there has to be some stories there. The team existed for one season! It was born during the most vulnerable time for CART! The series was desperate for cars and I bet it was taking whoever was interested but who did he make promises to and who didn't he paid?
This could be the three-part podcast series that wins Marshall Pruett a much-deserved award for all his hard work.
2004
Laguna Seca moved back to mid-September and the start was a mess with only the first row of Sébastien Bourdais and Patrick Carpentier side-by-side with the rest of the cars single-file. Tommy Kendall even called the start atrocious. On the opening lap, Rodolfo Lavín made contact with Justin Wilson in the corkscrew, ending Wilson's only start at Laguna Seca after one lap.
Bourdais made a pit stop on lap two from the lead after a flat left rear tire. Paul Tracy assumed the lead ahead of Carpentier and A.J. Allmendinger. Tracy may have his right front end plate rubbing this tire and this allowed Carpentier to challenge into the corkscrew but to no prevail.
Nelson Philippe and Gastón Mazzacane got together in the corkscrew, leaving Mazzacane parked in the famed corner. Philippe went off heading into the hairpin immediately after that accident and it brought out a caution on lap 12. There were no takers for an alternate strategy.
Bourdais made a move on Mário Haberfeld into the hairpin on the restart and two laps later Alex Tagliani moved ahead of Haberfeld in the same corner. Bourdais remained stuck behind Roberto González for eighth position and lost his right front end plate after contact on González into the corkscrew in an ambitious move on lap 26. Bourdais had to pit and González had a tire puncture after the contact.
Tracy and Carpenter remained within a second of each other for the opening stint while Allmendinger was within about 1.5 seconds. Tracy was the first to stop on lap 29. Carpentier and Allmendinger each stopped on the following lap. Allmendinger stalled but Carpentier made it out ahead of Tracy. Tracy was not happy with the call to bring him in on lap 29. He felt the team brought him in too early.
Tagliani took the lead and he stretched the stint to lap 37. Carpentier caught the leaders Tagliani and Michel Jourdain, Jr. Tracy made an unscheduled stop on lap 39 for a front wing change after the tire rub got worse and it cost him massive amounts of time. Jourdain's pit stop came on lap 40, meaning he did the entire first half of the race before his first stop.
Allmendinger's race ended when he made contact with Servià into the hairpin. Allmendinger made a move up the inside and drove over the curbs into Servià. The Spaniard continued with no damage. Allmendinger took blame for the incident and his other mistakes during the race.
Carpentier had a 15-second lead over Junqueira on lap 43 and he was only getting faster with a lead of 20 seconds at lap 51. Part of that increase may have been because Junqueira was caught behind the lapped car of Tracy.
González stopped on circuit on lap 55 and this caused the leaders to dive into the pit lane. Carpentier maintained the lead ahead of Junqueira with traffic between the top two drivers. Servià saved a set of alternate tire for the final stint and he was up to third.
With 66 laps complete, Carpentier's lead was up to six seconds and the race switched to a timed-race with uncertainty the race would reach the 80-lap distance. Not long after this Carpentier dropped his right tires off into the final corner and ran wide but did not go fully off the circuit. He did lose two seconds to Junqueira.
It was not really an eventful race and Carpentier won comfortably, 5.395 seconds ahead of Junqueira and Servià put Dale Coyne Racing on the podium in third after completing 79 laps.
Unrelated Notes:
Bruno Junqueira did 140 MPH through turn six and was going about 150 MPH into the corkscrew. He was at 167 MPH into the hairpin.
Race coverage has improved over the last 15 years. Pit strategy was not covered well at all. Pit stops were missed. They weren't really talking about strategy. It took a good three or four minutes for the Mazzacane/Philippe contact to be addressed. It just felt bad. That doesn't mean the people on screen were bad but it was a different time and watching this race and compared to what we have seen in the last few years on NBC's coverage, we should be grateful.
Oriol Servià got pulled over driving to Laguna Seca after coming from the NASCAR race at Fontana. He was doing 105 MPH.
Derek Daly was on the scene when Mike Cannon walked down to Craig Hampson discussing for the lapped car of Mario Domínguez to let Bourdais through. We don't see that broadcasted at all now but kudos on Daly for being there and putting the microphone into the conversation. I am not sure anybody would do that today.
For most of the closing laps, Jourdain, Jr. was fourth and bunched up the rest of the top ten but there were no moves for position.
What Should We Expect This Year?
I think if IndyCar has the level of tire degradation at Laguna Seca that we saw at Road America this could be a really interesting race and it seems Laguna Seca was a track where tires would fall off. It will also depend on the fuel window. If the cars can do 30 laps and it is a 90-lap race, it will be a two-stopper.
I have a feeling IndyCar instituted a distance that would mean teams could not make it on two stops and everyone would have to make three stops regardless of how much conservation. If the most a car can do is 25 laps then it opens the door for interesting strategy choices. It means cars could stop as early as lap 15 on the opening stint and make it on three stops while other cars could go as long as lap 25.
It should be noted that this would be the longest IndyCar race ever at Laguna Seca at 90 laps for 201.42 miles. I think unless there are four or five cautions for 25 laps, this is going to be a three-stop race. Now, we just saw 13 of the first 16 laps at Portland be run under caution so it cannot be ruled out but if everyone gets through the hairpin clean the first two laps that could really shape out how teams run this race.
When it comes to passing places, it seems like the hairpin is the place of choice but it is not going to be as straightforward as that. The hairpin is a place where a car has to hold the inside when making a pass. Too much momentum means that car will run wide and lose that spot immediately on exit.
Traffic could come into play especially in the final corners. If traffic ruins the rhythm of a car in the final corners it could allow a car to gain and have more momentum down the front straightaway into the hairpin.
The type of race we will want to see is some combination of the 1997 and 1998. Those were races with plenty of jockeying and we are going to want a race where a battle can continue out of the hairpin into turn three.
As for other areas of the track, turn five is a place where someone could try a pass. It is notable how the corkscrew has changed. In the early races, passes into the corkscrew were commonplace. In the final years of CART/Champ Car those attempts were few and far in-between. I am not sure we are going to see anyone try it this year and partially because I think after not racing at Laguna Seca for 15 years and living off the highlight of Zanardi's pass, no one is going to dare and try it. We will have to wait and see but I think whatever passing attempts occur come within the first three corners of the circuit.
We also have to prepare for a processional race and one where qualifying results will ultimately dictate who has a shot at victory. This is a track where 14 of 22 races have been won from pole position, 18 of 22 races have been won from the front row and 20 of 22 races have been won from a top three starting position. That doesn't give you much hope that someone can drive up from fifth or someone can go off strategy and win from eighth.
Trying to stay positive I guess the one thing to say is the past is not always precedent and many things have changed since 2004. It could be a case of this combination of the universal aero kit, push-to-pass and alternate tire creates a race we have never seen before at Laguna Seca. There will be only one way to find out and we have another week until the cars hit the track.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Monday, September 9, 2019
Musings From the Weekend: Diving into the IndyCar/NASCAR Doubleheader Hurdles
Charles Leclerc took the torch as lead Ferrari driver with his victory in the Italian Grand Prix over Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton while Sebastian Vettel playing in the sand with Lance Stroll. Meanwhile Formula Three driver Alexander Peroni took flight. Peroni walked away but with a broken vertebra. NASCAR had a sloppy race in Indianapolis and Jimmie Johnson did not make the Chase/playoffs for the first time since NASCAR adopted this championship format. World Superbike returned after two weeks off. There were some champions crowned in Hungary. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Diving into the IndyCar-NASCAR Doubleheader Hurdles
It has gone quiet on the IndyCar-NASCAR doubleheader idea. Both series have announced their respective 2020 schedules and neither are getting together. This will have to wait until 2021 but with NASCAR in IndyCar's backyard this weekend it is a chance to discuss the topic.
We touched upon some of the hurdles last year but that did not cover all the hurdles. A few were missed and this is a chance to not only double-check the previous things brought up and go over the new items on the plate.
Let's go back and hit the topics brought up last year in one swoop: Track schedule, tires and weather.
Track schedule comes down to who races when. Who runs on Saturday? Who runs on Sunday? Could both run on Sunday? Which race would get the best television window? The allure to a doubleheader weekend is seeing NASCAR Cup cars and IndyCar on track back-to-back. You want to see a Cup practice and then an IndyCar practice. It can't be two one-day shows happening on one weekend with all the IndyCar stuff on Saturday and NASCAR on Sunday or IndyCar on Friday and NASCAR on Saturday.
I believe there is not necessarily one golden time and instead of having one race be seen as the undercard to the main event I think you could have two main events. I think there are certain places where an IndyCar race on a Saturday night and a Cup race on Sunday or even a case where both races are on Sunday can be two main events and not one losing out to the other.
Tires provide a problem, especially on ovals. Goodyear and Firestone tires are incompatible and with the greater number of cars on Goodyear tires the track will not set up for Firestone to race well. Once the Goodyear rubber gets down when IndyCar takes to the track it will not get to a place where Firestone rubber is laid down. The Firestone tires would lift the Goodyear rubber from the surface. A racetrack would be one groove for IndyCar and teams would struggle for grip. This would likely lead to a less than ideal IndyCar race and people would be disappointed. A road course would be better for a doubleheader because you are not worried about two grooves forming and racing appearing more processional.
Then there is weather. Rain could drown out any IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader, especially on an oval. If the doubleheader was to occur on one of those weekends where it rains for three consecutive days and it was at an oval that Monday would be a nightmare, especially if the NASCAR Grand National Series and/or Indy Lights were also on the bill. One, there would not be enough time on a Monday to fit in four races or if you did try to run all four on a Monday, someone would be racing at 9:00 a.m. and racing would have to go until at least 7:00 p.m., if not 8:00 p.m. at night. Any oval that would use this event would have to have lights just to extend the racing window.
Weather is another reason a doubleheader should be on a road course. IndyCar can race in the rain. NASCAR can race in the rain. Unless the weather was disastrous the weekend could be completed without delay if it rained at a road course.
Those were the previous points. The next one is space.
A racetrack has to be able to host all the cars and that is not asking a lot. There are 40 Cup cars on a good weekend and 22-24 IndyCars. Sixty-four cars is not a lot of cars when you consider there are NASCAR weekends that bring over 110 cars. There are plenty of tracks that can accommodate the space but it is also the quality of the venue. Some tracks have the Truck Series and Grand National Series work from the back of the hauler. They are not in garages but under tents.
If IndyCar is going to a venue where it is used to having garages and NASCAR is going to a venue where it is used to having garages both have to get what they want. Either enough garages have to be available or concessions have to be made. There is also the quality of garages. We know there are tracks with high-end garages, which are meant for Cup cars, and then your more basic garages. If both series are used to the high-end garages it is going to be difficult to get either side to accept the downgrade.
Garage space aside, there is also pit lane. How IndyCar and NASCAR used pit lane during a weekend is quite different. IndyCar teams are used to setting up the pit stand and leaving it. All the work IndyCar teams do is from the pit lane. NASCAR teams are used to working out of the garage during practice and the pit boxes are not set up until Sunday when the order on pit lane is drawn. IndyCar teams know the lineup on pit lane prior to the weekend starting.
This could cause a problem especially if there is a NASCAR Grand National Series race before the IndyCar race. However, IndyCar is able to take down the pit stands at Texas when there is a Truck race on Friday night before IndyCar races on Saturday. This might not be as big of a deal but I am sure it could cause a commotion on pit lane as some teams will be tearing down equipment while others will be trying to set up in the same space.
This clash of using the same area brings us to time because it is going to take time for one of these weekends.
It takes a certain amount of time to set up pit lane. If IndyCar and NASCAR were to race on the same day, there would need to be a decent amount of time for one series to clear out and for the other to set up. It will not be a simple as IndyCar having a race at 12:00 p.m. and having a race that ends at 2:00 p.m. and then NASCAR being ready to go at 3:00 p.m. I have to imagine it will take more than an hour for the IndyCar teams to take down their equipment and to get all the cars move from the pit area. I also have to imagine it will take more than an hour for NASCAR teams to set up a pit stall, lay out all the tires and get the cars lined up on the grid.
It might take two hours, which would create a very long lull. Fans will get restless. You will either have fans show up for the first race and leave before the second begins or fans that do not show up until after the first race ends and attend only the second race.
On an oval, it will take more time than to just set up pit lane but the SAFER Barrier needs to be adjusted as well. People might not realize this but the foam blocks inside the SAFER Barrier are moveable and the layout for a NASCAR race is different for an IndyCar race. Typically, for IndyCar, the foam blocks are more spread out to absorb blows from the car at a faster speed. This is done to reduce the amount of ricochet.
This is a process that not only would take time but also if NASCAR and IndyCar sessions were intermingled this would have to be done multiple times during a day. It might take an hour to adjust the barriers. There is also a risk when changing it. The more you alter a barrier the greater chance a mistake could occur. A foam block could be forgotten; one could be spaced too far out or too close to another. I am sure a track can take the time to make sure it is done right but if it is going to take a minimum of 90 minutes between each session that is a turn off to those in attendance.
I think the option for the least amount of headaches is a road course and I have said before that the best option is the simplest option: Just add IndyCar to the Watkins Glen weekend. IndyCar gets to go back to Watkins Glen. NASCAR would have to run the boot. It is a weekend that already draws a significant crowd. In August, the days are long enough that a race can start at 6:00 p.m. ET and end before sunset. IndyCar would take a Saturday evening race. Everybody would win.
The one thing against Watkins Glen could be the number of garages. I am not sure there are enough for everybody. What is a road course that has enough garages and is suitable for NASCAR and IndyCar?
I think it is Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Most of the Cup cars are in the Formula One garages. There are a ton of garages at the facility and likely enough to accommodate 40 Cup cars and 24 IndyCars. Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosting the IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader has already been floated out there and with the Independence Day weekend it could set up nicely for the two series together and spend a holiday together.
There is one other venue I will throw out as a possible place for a combined weekend and it is a track that neither series has raced at. It is Sebring International Raceway. It seems like a crazy idea but Sebring built a second pit lane for the FIA World Endurance Championship when it joined the 12 Hours of Sebring weekend this year. The garages were temporary but still up to standards for these top-notch teams. If Sebring can house about 40 IMSA teams and about 30 WEC teams, it can be suitable for 40 Cup cars and 24 IndyCars. Each series would get its own area and would not have to worry about stepping on each other's toes.
This might be the best place for this doubleheader weekend: A place neither can call home. A place where the track surface is unsuitable for any race car but we still find a way to make the place work. A place that is under used and could host another event.
I don't know when you could fit Sebring into the calendar. You are not going in the summer, which is when I think this combined weekend would have to occur but with 2021 being the year NASCAR has penciled in changes to its calendar, why not create a new event unlike anything that exists? Why not have this event be the season finale for each and why not have it in the middle of December as one final hooray before winter? It is crazy but the entire concept of IndyCar and NASCAR running together is crazy.
No combined weekend will be happening until 2021 at the earliest. There is plenty of time for all the kinks to be ironed out but there could be more than each series wants to handle. It could be seen as too much work or it could be something where the sides cannot come up with a compromise. Neither side will be able to get everything it desires. The biggest hurdle of all maybe the egos of the two organizations.
Champions From the Weekend
The #563 Orange1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli won the Blancpain World Challenge Europe with finishes of fifth and fourth from the Hungaroring.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Charles Leclerc but did you know...
Kevin Harvick won the Brickyard 400, his third victory of the season and his second Brickyard 400 victory. Kyle Busch won the Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season, his 96th victory in NASCAR's second division and his sixth victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Nobuharu Matsushita won the Formula Two feature race from Monza and Jack Aitken won the sprint race. Robert Shwartzman and Yuki Tsunoda split the Formula Three races.
The #39 Lexus Team SARD Lexus of Heiki Kovalainen and Yuichi Nakayama won the Super GT race from Autopolis. The #60 LM Corsa/K-Tunes Racing Lexus of Hiroki Yoshimoto and Ritomo Miyata won in GT300.
Jonathan Rea won the first race and the Superpole race of World Superbike action from Algarve with Alvaro Bautista winning the second race. Federico Caricasulo won the Supersport race, his third victory of 2019.
The #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG of Vincent Abril and Raffaele Marciello swept the Blancpain World Challenge Europe races from Hungaroring.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP is at Misano.
NASCAR is in Las Vegas for an evening race.
Laguna Seca hosts the penultimate round of the IMSA season.
Nüburgring hosts the penultimate round of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season.
Supercars heads east to New Zealand and Pukekohe Park Raceway.
World Touring Car Cup is back in action and is in Ningbo.
The World Rally Championship will be in Turkey.
Diving into the IndyCar-NASCAR Doubleheader Hurdles
It has gone quiet on the IndyCar-NASCAR doubleheader idea. Both series have announced their respective 2020 schedules and neither are getting together. This will have to wait until 2021 but with NASCAR in IndyCar's backyard this weekend it is a chance to discuss the topic.
We touched upon some of the hurdles last year but that did not cover all the hurdles. A few were missed and this is a chance to not only double-check the previous things brought up and go over the new items on the plate.
Let's go back and hit the topics brought up last year in one swoop: Track schedule, tires and weather.
Track schedule comes down to who races when. Who runs on Saturday? Who runs on Sunday? Could both run on Sunday? Which race would get the best television window? The allure to a doubleheader weekend is seeing NASCAR Cup cars and IndyCar on track back-to-back. You want to see a Cup practice and then an IndyCar practice. It can't be two one-day shows happening on one weekend with all the IndyCar stuff on Saturday and NASCAR on Sunday or IndyCar on Friday and NASCAR on Saturday.
I believe there is not necessarily one golden time and instead of having one race be seen as the undercard to the main event I think you could have two main events. I think there are certain places where an IndyCar race on a Saturday night and a Cup race on Sunday or even a case where both races are on Sunday can be two main events and not one losing out to the other.
Tires provide a problem, especially on ovals. Goodyear and Firestone tires are incompatible and with the greater number of cars on Goodyear tires the track will not set up for Firestone to race well. Once the Goodyear rubber gets down when IndyCar takes to the track it will not get to a place where Firestone rubber is laid down. The Firestone tires would lift the Goodyear rubber from the surface. A racetrack would be one groove for IndyCar and teams would struggle for grip. This would likely lead to a less than ideal IndyCar race and people would be disappointed. A road course would be better for a doubleheader because you are not worried about two grooves forming and racing appearing more processional.
Then there is weather. Rain could drown out any IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader, especially on an oval. If the doubleheader was to occur on one of those weekends where it rains for three consecutive days and it was at an oval that Monday would be a nightmare, especially if the NASCAR Grand National Series and/or Indy Lights were also on the bill. One, there would not be enough time on a Monday to fit in four races or if you did try to run all four on a Monday, someone would be racing at 9:00 a.m. and racing would have to go until at least 7:00 p.m., if not 8:00 p.m. at night. Any oval that would use this event would have to have lights just to extend the racing window.
Weather is another reason a doubleheader should be on a road course. IndyCar can race in the rain. NASCAR can race in the rain. Unless the weather was disastrous the weekend could be completed without delay if it rained at a road course.
Those were the previous points. The next one is space.
A racetrack has to be able to host all the cars and that is not asking a lot. There are 40 Cup cars on a good weekend and 22-24 IndyCars. Sixty-four cars is not a lot of cars when you consider there are NASCAR weekends that bring over 110 cars. There are plenty of tracks that can accommodate the space but it is also the quality of the venue. Some tracks have the Truck Series and Grand National Series work from the back of the hauler. They are not in garages but under tents.
If IndyCar is going to a venue where it is used to having garages and NASCAR is going to a venue where it is used to having garages both have to get what they want. Either enough garages have to be available or concessions have to be made. There is also the quality of garages. We know there are tracks with high-end garages, which are meant for Cup cars, and then your more basic garages. If both series are used to the high-end garages it is going to be difficult to get either side to accept the downgrade.
Garage space aside, there is also pit lane. How IndyCar and NASCAR used pit lane during a weekend is quite different. IndyCar teams are used to setting up the pit stand and leaving it. All the work IndyCar teams do is from the pit lane. NASCAR teams are used to working out of the garage during practice and the pit boxes are not set up until Sunday when the order on pit lane is drawn. IndyCar teams know the lineup on pit lane prior to the weekend starting.
This could cause a problem especially if there is a NASCAR Grand National Series race before the IndyCar race. However, IndyCar is able to take down the pit stands at Texas when there is a Truck race on Friday night before IndyCar races on Saturday. This might not be as big of a deal but I am sure it could cause a commotion on pit lane as some teams will be tearing down equipment while others will be trying to set up in the same space.
This clash of using the same area brings us to time because it is going to take time for one of these weekends.
It takes a certain amount of time to set up pit lane. If IndyCar and NASCAR were to race on the same day, there would need to be a decent amount of time for one series to clear out and for the other to set up. It will not be a simple as IndyCar having a race at 12:00 p.m. and having a race that ends at 2:00 p.m. and then NASCAR being ready to go at 3:00 p.m. I have to imagine it will take more than an hour for the IndyCar teams to take down their equipment and to get all the cars move from the pit area. I also have to imagine it will take more than an hour for NASCAR teams to set up a pit stall, lay out all the tires and get the cars lined up on the grid.
It might take two hours, which would create a very long lull. Fans will get restless. You will either have fans show up for the first race and leave before the second begins or fans that do not show up until after the first race ends and attend only the second race.
On an oval, it will take more time than to just set up pit lane but the SAFER Barrier needs to be adjusted as well. People might not realize this but the foam blocks inside the SAFER Barrier are moveable and the layout for a NASCAR race is different for an IndyCar race. Typically, for IndyCar, the foam blocks are more spread out to absorb blows from the car at a faster speed. This is done to reduce the amount of ricochet.
This is a process that not only would take time but also if NASCAR and IndyCar sessions were intermingled this would have to be done multiple times during a day. It might take an hour to adjust the barriers. There is also a risk when changing it. The more you alter a barrier the greater chance a mistake could occur. A foam block could be forgotten; one could be spaced too far out or too close to another. I am sure a track can take the time to make sure it is done right but if it is going to take a minimum of 90 minutes between each session that is a turn off to those in attendance.
I think the option for the least amount of headaches is a road course and I have said before that the best option is the simplest option: Just add IndyCar to the Watkins Glen weekend. IndyCar gets to go back to Watkins Glen. NASCAR would have to run the boot. It is a weekend that already draws a significant crowd. In August, the days are long enough that a race can start at 6:00 p.m. ET and end before sunset. IndyCar would take a Saturday evening race. Everybody would win.
The one thing against Watkins Glen could be the number of garages. I am not sure there are enough for everybody. What is a road course that has enough garages and is suitable for NASCAR and IndyCar?
I think it is Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Most of the Cup cars are in the Formula One garages. There are a ton of garages at the facility and likely enough to accommodate 40 Cup cars and 24 IndyCars. Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosting the IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader has already been floated out there and with the Independence Day weekend it could set up nicely for the two series together and spend a holiday together.
There is one other venue I will throw out as a possible place for a combined weekend and it is a track that neither series has raced at. It is Sebring International Raceway. It seems like a crazy idea but Sebring built a second pit lane for the FIA World Endurance Championship when it joined the 12 Hours of Sebring weekend this year. The garages were temporary but still up to standards for these top-notch teams. If Sebring can house about 40 IMSA teams and about 30 WEC teams, it can be suitable for 40 Cup cars and 24 IndyCars. Each series would get its own area and would not have to worry about stepping on each other's toes.
This might be the best place for this doubleheader weekend: A place neither can call home. A place where the track surface is unsuitable for any race car but we still find a way to make the place work. A place that is under used and could host another event.
I don't know when you could fit Sebring into the calendar. You are not going in the summer, which is when I think this combined weekend would have to occur but with 2021 being the year NASCAR has penciled in changes to its calendar, why not create a new event unlike anything that exists? Why not have this event be the season finale for each and why not have it in the middle of December as one final hooray before winter? It is crazy but the entire concept of IndyCar and NASCAR running together is crazy.
No combined weekend will be happening until 2021 at the earliest. There is plenty of time for all the kinks to be ironed out but there could be more than each series wants to handle. It could be seen as too much work or it could be something where the sides cannot come up with a compromise. Neither side will be able to get everything it desires. The biggest hurdle of all maybe the egos of the two organizations.
Champions From the Weekend
The #563 Orange1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli won the Blancpain World Challenge Europe with finishes of fifth and fourth from the Hungaroring.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Charles Leclerc but did you know...
Kevin Harvick won the Brickyard 400, his third victory of the season and his second Brickyard 400 victory. Kyle Busch won the Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season, his 96th victory in NASCAR's second division and his sixth victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Nobuharu Matsushita won the Formula Two feature race from Monza and Jack Aitken won the sprint race. Robert Shwartzman and Yuki Tsunoda split the Formula Three races.
The #39 Lexus Team SARD Lexus of Heiki Kovalainen and Yuichi Nakayama won the Super GT race from Autopolis. The #60 LM Corsa/K-Tunes Racing Lexus of Hiroki Yoshimoto and Ritomo Miyata won in GT300.
Jonathan Rea won the first race and the Superpole race of World Superbike action from Algarve with Alvaro Bautista winning the second race. Federico Caricasulo won the Supersport race, his third victory of 2019.
The #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG of Vincent Abril and Raffaele Marciello swept the Blancpain World Challenge Europe races from Hungaroring.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP is at Misano.
NASCAR is in Las Vegas for an evening race.
Laguna Seca hosts the penultimate round of the IMSA season.
Nüburgring hosts the penultimate round of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season.
Supercars heads east to New Zealand and Pukekohe Park Raceway.
World Touring Car Cup is back in action and is in Ningbo.
The World Rally Championship will be in Turkey.
Friday, September 6, 2019
Motorsports Promotion: Accidents or No Accidents
Motorsports can be cruel and events can occur in untimely fashion.
For about two weeks I had been thinking about how accidents and crashes are used in advertising for motorsports series. Whether it is IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula One, etc., we see series and broadcasting partners include accidents in promotional material.
When used it can draw a response from a segment of audience that is dismissive. This segments reviles when accidents are used and it seems to be because they believe when accidents are shown a true representation of a race is not being given to the audience. It is seen as an exaggeration of a race and it leads to a misrepresentation of what a series is and it can draw in the wrong people. By showing accidents it draws in people who are only there for the accidents, the carnage and these people will not respect the competitors. They are there not for the competition but for schadenfreude, receiving joy out of another person's failure, in this case celebrating an accident, which can have horrible consequences.
Those horrible consequences are why people push back against the crowd only there for the accidents. It is an audience only into blood sports. They have no concern for the dangers. It is not them out there. They want to see something spectacular but do not think twice about what could happen to the man or woman behind the wheel.
Those horrible consequences were reality last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps with the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert.
It is tough to talk about accidents at this time and then to dive into the utterly meaningless nature of promotions and advertising makes you shake your head.
However, I think Hubert's accident has helped me wrap my head around this and it has simplified the debate. After seeing the worst motorsports can give us it provides clarity. When death occurs it puts into place everything that happens in life and what is important and what is not.
Knowing these are still somber times I will approach the topic from a respectful but critical viewpoint.
After last weekend, I believe there are three trains of thought when it comes to using accidents in promotions: Accidents should never be used, accidents should be used only if it did not have a serious injury or fatality, all accidents are fair game.
I am going to go over these from one polar end to the other and discuss all the pros and cons to each.
Accidents Should Never Be Used in Promotions
This viewpoint is held by those who are race focused. These people want the race to be the selling point. They want passing, quick hand movements, close quarters action and speed to be shown to the masses. They want the highest level of ability being sold to the people. They want to show the skill of the drivers and that is why they want people coming to series. They want other people who see the skill and respect it.
That is a notable thing to want and it is the same with any sport. Any sport wants to show its best athletes playing the game at the highest level. Hockey fans want the promotional material to be Sidney Crosby carving through three defensemen and putting the puck in the top corner from his backhand. Basketball fans want LeBron James chasing a defender down on defense and pinning a layup against backboard. Soccer fans want Lionel Messi nutmegging or breaking a defenders ankles and then slotting a ball into the goal.
It is reasonable for race fans to want the best of the drivers shown.
The push back I have is it is hard to show the skill of a driver and condense it to a 30-second advertisement. No 30-second advertisement is going to capture that. It can get pieces of it but sometimes when you take those spectacular moments out of context it does not look that spectacular. It is something you have to invest in to understand or have it make sense.
There are plenty of clear things that happen in a race that can be used: Passes, saves, side-by-side action, those all make up a race but accidents are part of a race as well. Not showing accidents is kind of disingenuous. Everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports. Not showing them is almost hiding it and people will call that out as well.
I think there is a happy medium and that brings us to our next train of thought....
Accidents Should Be Used Only if it Did Not Have a Serious Injury or Fatality
This is where we are today. When you see promotions for motorsports, if it has an accident or two in it, these are accidents when all the drivers involved walked away and let's be honest, about 97% of all accidents have all the drivers involved walk away. That means 97% of accidents are fair game to be used.
The promotions are not snuff films. They aren't glorying death. They are not selling death. They are selling what can happen when everyone is racing at the limit. When the drivers reach the limit there is a chance they will go over the line and the end result when going over the line is an accident. Some accidents are the back end stepping out and clipping the barrier and it is a single-car accident. Other times it is three cars getting together in one corner. Then there are the breath-taking accidents, the collision between Scott Dixon and Jay Howard in the 2017 Indianapolis 500 comes to mind.
The Dixon-Howard accident was a visual spectacle. Dixon's car floated like a kite before contact with the barrier on the inside of the short chute. It is something we cannot envision happening and it did and Dixon walked away. That is what makes it even more unfathomable. Sanity would tell us no one who flies through the air at 200 MPH in an automobile should live and yet not only did this man survive but he got out of the car seconds later and was standing on his own two feet.
Dixon's accident was used in a few IndyCar commercials and it drew some ire from the fan base. I can understand it but here is where we get to the happy medium. If a promotion is supposed to capture all aspects of a race that includes accidents but there also comes a correct representation of a race.
You can have a 30-second commercial that is nothing but accidents. The problem is that is a true representation of a race. No race is nothing but accidents, not even the races that seem like are nothing but accidents are nothing but accidents. That would be something worthy to get upset about.
If we use this year's statistics alone, 13.336% of all laps completed in the first 16 races in the 2019 IndyCar season have been under caution. Not every caution is because of an accident. Some are for debris and others are for cars breaking down on circuit but let's just use that 13.336% as a base. If 13.336% of a 30-second commercial is given to accidents than that is four seconds. That is not a lot of time. If four seconds of a commercial or even six or seven seconds is an accident or a pair of accidents I am not sure we can get upset with that.
We also need to be honest with ourselves. Majority of people that watch a race and follow a series on a regular basis do it because they love motorsports. They are not in it for the thrills. But even the most passionate fans have to admit that some of the moments that stand out in their minds are the accidents.
We remember Dixon and Howard. We remember Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay getting together at Fontana. We remember Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti getting together at Long Beach. We remember when Tony Kanaan took out half the field at Texas two years ago.
Those aren't the moments we harp on but if asked what do we remember about certain races there is a good chance we are going to remember an accident. Just because you remember an accident doesn't mean you are celebrating it or that is all you care about but it is a memorable part of a race. There are those that are visually memorable, like Dixon's and Briscoe's but accidents are memorable because they can change what happens in a race.
Look at Dixon and Colton Herta's accident at Texas this year. That will be remembered when people talk about the 2019 Texas race because it also set up the late battle between Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi. This year's Indianapolis 500 was changed because Graham Rahal and Sébastien Bourdais got together in turn three. If those two do not get together Alexander Rossi most likely runs away with his second Indianapolis 500 victory.
I think there is a happy medium. Not every accident is visually jarring and if the promotion is not too heavily focused on accidents then it can provide an accurate representation of what happens in a race.
But there is another side to the happy medium.
All Accidents are Fair Game
Welcome to the other side of the spectrum. The same way showing no accidents is an extreme showing any accident is also an extreme.
The argument that can be made here is if you want a true representation of a race than you have to include everything that could happen in a race and that includes these unfortunate accidents where drivers are hurt or killed.
However, there is a moral pushback to it. The same way everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports everyone also knows fatalities can occur in motorsports. The same way everyone knows injuries can happen in other sports.
Promoting a motorsports series does not need to be surgeon general's warning. It doesn't need to show the worst of what could happen.
Other sports do the same. We do not see cheap shots included in hockey commercials or terrible leg injuries in basketball or soccer commercials. All those occur in those sports but that isn't something to sell. It occurs, we know it occurs but we don't need to see it. It is in the back of our minds.
For decades now we have had on television these home video shows and they show people getting into some hair raising situations but the key thing is they do not show a video unless everyone is ok. That is a pretty good standard to keep. We know what is in good taste and what is not in good taste. We all know where the line is and we know not to cross it.
I do think the world is changing and what I mean by that is I do not think the audience that only watches for the crashes exists anymore, or at least it is not an audience that is tuning in like they once did. We live in a world of instant gratification. Anything we want to see we can get in seconds. If we want to watch a television that has been off the air for 25 years we can find it on a number of streaming services. If we want to hear a song we can just look it up. We don't have to wait to hear it on the radio or purchase an album.
The same is true with crashes. No one has to watch a race anymore to see crashes. It is actually the most inefficient way to watch crashes. You can go to YouTube and find compilations of crashes from the last 60 years in motorsports. You don't need a current race. A current race would actually waste your time. You could spend two hours watching a race and not see what you want. The Internet has allowed you to have nothing but crashes if that is what your heart desires. You can spend two hours watching nothing but 20-minute compilations of crashes. With that existing, a series is not going to draw these fans in. The audience does not have the patience to wait and see one in real time.
I think there is an accurate way for a promotion to include all aspects of a motorsports event. Those creating those promotions know right and wrong, what to include and what is forever off limits. I believe those in charge recognize the responsibility that is in their hands and will make the correct decisions.
For about two weeks I had been thinking about how accidents and crashes are used in advertising for motorsports series. Whether it is IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula One, etc., we see series and broadcasting partners include accidents in promotional material.
When used it can draw a response from a segment of audience that is dismissive. This segments reviles when accidents are used and it seems to be because they believe when accidents are shown a true representation of a race is not being given to the audience. It is seen as an exaggeration of a race and it leads to a misrepresentation of what a series is and it can draw in the wrong people. By showing accidents it draws in people who are only there for the accidents, the carnage and these people will not respect the competitors. They are there not for the competition but for schadenfreude, receiving joy out of another person's failure, in this case celebrating an accident, which can have horrible consequences.
Those horrible consequences are why people push back against the crowd only there for the accidents. It is an audience only into blood sports. They have no concern for the dangers. It is not them out there. They want to see something spectacular but do not think twice about what could happen to the man or woman behind the wheel.
Those horrible consequences were reality last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps with the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert.
It is tough to talk about accidents at this time and then to dive into the utterly meaningless nature of promotions and advertising makes you shake your head.
However, I think Hubert's accident has helped me wrap my head around this and it has simplified the debate. After seeing the worst motorsports can give us it provides clarity. When death occurs it puts into place everything that happens in life and what is important and what is not.
Knowing these are still somber times I will approach the topic from a respectful but critical viewpoint.
After last weekend, I believe there are three trains of thought when it comes to using accidents in promotions: Accidents should never be used, accidents should be used only if it did not have a serious injury or fatality, all accidents are fair game.
I am going to go over these from one polar end to the other and discuss all the pros and cons to each.
Accidents Should Never Be Used in Promotions
This viewpoint is held by those who are race focused. These people want the race to be the selling point. They want passing, quick hand movements, close quarters action and speed to be shown to the masses. They want the highest level of ability being sold to the people. They want to show the skill of the drivers and that is why they want people coming to series. They want other people who see the skill and respect it.
That is a notable thing to want and it is the same with any sport. Any sport wants to show its best athletes playing the game at the highest level. Hockey fans want the promotional material to be Sidney Crosby carving through three defensemen and putting the puck in the top corner from his backhand. Basketball fans want LeBron James chasing a defender down on defense and pinning a layup against backboard. Soccer fans want Lionel Messi nutmegging or breaking a defenders ankles and then slotting a ball into the goal.
It is reasonable for race fans to want the best of the drivers shown.
The push back I have is it is hard to show the skill of a driver and condense it to a 30-second advertisement. No 30-second advertisement is going to capture that. It can get pieces of it but sometimes when you take those spectacular moments out of context it does not look that spectacular. It is something you have to invest in to understand or have it make sense.
There are plenty of clear things that happen in a race that can be used: Passes, saves, side-by-side action, those all make up a race but accidents are part of a race as well. Not showing accidents is kind of disingenuous. Everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports. Not showing them is almost hiding it and people will call that out as well.
I think there is a happy medium and that brings us to our next train of thought....
Accidents Should Be Used Only if it Did Not Have a Serious Injury or Fatality
This is where we are today. When you see promotions for motorsports, if it has an accident or two in it, these are accidents when all the drivers involved walked away and let's be honest, about 97% of all accidents have all the drivers involved walk away. That means 97% of accidents are fair game to be used.
The promotions are not snuff films. They aren't glorying death. They are not selling death. They are selling what can happen when everyone is racing at the limit. When the drivers reach the limit there is a chance they will go over the line and the end result when going over the line is an accident. Some accidents are the back end stepping out and clipping the barrier and it is a single-car accident. Other times it is three cars getting together in one corner. Then there are the breath-taking accidents, the collision between Scott Dixon and Jay Howard in the 2017 Indianapolis 500 comes to mind.
The Dixon-Howard accident was a visual spectacle. Dixon's car floated like a kite before contact with the barrier on the inside of the short chute. It is something we cannot envision happening and it did and Dixon walked away. That is what makes it even more unfathomable. Sanity would tell us no one who flies through the air at 200 MPH in an automobile should live and yet not only did this man survive but he got out of the car seconds later and was standing on his own two feet.
Dixon's accident was used in a few IndyCar commercials and it drew some ire from the fan base. I can understand it but here is where we get to the happy medium. If a promotion is supposed to capture all aspects of a race that includes accidents but there also comes a correct representation of a race.
You can have a 30-second commercial that is nothing but accidents. The problem is that is a true representation of a race. No race is nothing but accidents, not even the races that seem like are nothing but accidents are nothing but accidents. That would be something worthy to get upset about.
If we use this year's statistics alone, 13.336% of all laps completed in the first 16 races in the 2019 IndyCar season have been under caution. Not every caution is because of an accident. Some are for debris and others are for cars breaking down on circuit but let's just use that 13.336% as a base. If 13.336% of a 30-second commercial is given to accidents than that is four seconds. That is not a lot of time. If four seconds of a commercial or even six or seven seconds is an accident or a pair of accidents I am not sure we can get upset with that.
We also need to be honest with ourselves. Majority of people that watch a race and follow a series on a regular basis do it because they love motorsports. They are not in it for the thrills. But even the most passionate fans have to admit that some of the moments that stand out in their minds are the accidents.
We remember Dixon and Howard. We remember Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay getting together at Fontana. We remember Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti getting together at Long Beach. We remember when Tony Kanaan took out half the field at Texas two years ago.
Those aren't the moments we harp on but if asked what do we remember about certain races there is a good chance we are going to remember an accident. Just because you remember an accident doesn't mean you are celebrating it or that is all you care about but it is a memorable part of a race. There are those that are visually memorable, like Dixon's and Briscoe's but accidents are memorable because they can change what happens in a race.
Look at Dixon and Colton Herta's accident at Texas this year. That will be remembered when people talk about the 2019 Texas race because it also set up the late battle between Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi. This year's Indianapolis 500 was changed because Graham Rahal and Sébastien Bourdais got together in turn three. If those two do not get together Alexander Rossi most likely runs away with his second Indianapolis 500 victory.
I think there is a happy medium. Not every accident is visually jarring and if the promotion is not too heavily focused on accidents then it can provide an accurate representation of what happens in a race.
But there is another side to the happy medium.
All Accidents are Fair Game
Welcome to the other side of the spectrum. The same way showing no accidents is an extreme showing any accident is also an extreme.
The argument that can be made here is if you want a true representation of a race than you have to include everything that could happen in a race and that includes these unfortunate accidents where drivers are hurt or killed.
However, there is a moral pushback to it. The same way everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports everyone also knows fatalities can occur in motorsports. The same way everyone knows injuries can happen in other sports.
Promoting a motorsports series does not need to be surgeon general's warning. It doesn't need to show the worst of what could happen.
Other sports do the same. We do not see cheap shots included in hockey commercials or terrible leg injuries in basketball or soccer commercials. All those occur in those sports but that isn't something to sell. It occurs, we know it occurs but we don't need to see it. It is in the back of our minds.
For decades now we have had on television these home video shows and they show people getting into some hair raising situations but the key thing is they do not show a video unless everyone is ok. That is a pretty good standard to keep. We know what is in good taste and what is not in good taste. We all know where the line is and we know not to cross it.
I do think the world is changing and what I mean by that is I do not think the audience that only watches for the crashes exists anymore, or at least it is not an audience that is tuning in like they once did. We live in a world of instant gratification. Anything we want to see we can get in seconds. If we want to watch a television that has been off the air for 25 years we can find it on a number of streaming services. If we want to hear a song we can just look it up. We don't have to wait to hear it on the radio or purchase an album.
The same is true with crashes. No one has to watch a race anymore to see crashes. It is actually the most inefficient way to watch crashes. You can go to YouTube and find compilations of crashes from the last 60 years in motorsports. You don't need a current race. A current race would actually waste your time. You could spend two hours watching a race and not see what you want. The Internet has allowed you to have nothing but crashes if that is what your heart desires. You can spend two hours watching nothing but 20-minute compilations of crashes. With that existing, a series is not going to draw these fans in. The audience does not have the patience to wait and see one in real time.
I think there is an accurate way for a promotion to include all aspects of a motorsports event. Those creating those promotions know right and wrong, what to include and what is forever off limits. I believe those in charge recognize the responsibility that is in their hands and will make the correct decisions.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
2020 NTT IndyCar Series Schedule Breakdown
IndyCar heads into its final race knowing the dates and locations for next season. The 2020 NTT IndyCar Series calendar was released on Sunday afternoon during the pre-race show for the Grand Prix of Portland.
While the number of races remains the same, there is a new but familiar location on the schedule and a few date shifts.
Every time a new calendar is released it draws a lot of attention from all corners of a motorsports series, from fans to drivers, crews to writers, everyone is interested in where the future will take them. Sometimes it is nice to have the comfort of familiar locations, other times you are excited for a trip to a new place and then there is the timing of all of it. Will it be hectic, weekly road trips or will it be spaced out and allow for time at home?
This is our chance to look over the 2020 season, what is different, what is the same, why changes were made and what is possible beyond 2020.
The Calendar
St. Petersburg remains the season opener for IndyCar and the 2020 season will kickoff on March 15th. The series will have two weeks off before it heads to Barber on April 5th. Easter will be an off week on April 12th but the Grand Prix of Long Beach will follow on April 19th.
The first change in the 2020 schedule sees Austin take place on April 26th, about a month later than IndyCar's inaugural trip this year. After a week off, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be on Saturday May 9th. Indianapolis 500 qualifying should take place the following week with the 104th Indianapolis 500 scheduled for May 24th.
Belle Isle will have its doubleheader on May 30th and May 31st with Texas following on June 6th before the long-awaited off week.
Road America will be on June 21st with IndyCar's first race at Richmond since 2009 scheduled for Saturday June 27th. IndyCar will have Independence Day weekend off and then head to Canada and Toronto on July 12th. Iowa will follow on July 18th.
After Iowa, IndyCar will take four weeks off, mostly because of NBC's commitments to coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games from Tokyo. IndyCar will return on August 16th at Mid-Ohio, a shift for the race from late-July due to the Olympics. The following week IndyCar will be at Gateway on Saturday August 22nd.
IndyCar will get an off week at the end of August before its Labor Day weekend event at Portland on September 6th. The season finale will take place at Laguna Seca on September 20th.
With the schedule laid out, let's go over some of the changes:
The Austin Shift
Austin moves a tad back in the schedule and this is due to other motorsports series.
NASCAR announced its 2020 calendars back in April and the first Texas race weekend for NASCAR moved to March 29th, the final weekend of the month and the same weekend the IndyCar race took place in 2019. IndyCar could have created a back-to-back with St. Petersburg and Austin with Austin on March 22nd but the 2020 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled for March 21st. This would have created a conflict for drivers who compete in the IMSA endurance races. Early April was taken as Austin hosts MotoGP on April 5th.
The series and the track decided, with all the other pieces on the board, that the best date was April 26th and I think both sides came to best solution.
Running either date in March would get people angry. People would be pissed if the race was the same weekend as Sebring and people would be pissed if the race was head-to-head with the NASCAR race a couple hours up the road, something Austin and Texas cannot avoid with the United States Grand Prix and the autumn NASCAR date.
Only five IndyCar drivers ran at Sebring this year, two of which (Sébastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon) were in the lame duck Ford GT program, so it is not a matter of half the IndyCar grid being in conflict. IMSA would be fine if it had to replace three drivers, although I have a feeling Team Penske and Honda Performance Development swayed IndyCar because the Acura program employs Alexander Rossi and Simon Pagenaud. The other IndyCar driver at Sebring this year was Colton Herta at RLL Team BMW.
I think it is good for IndyCar not to go head-to-head with Sebring. It is better to not run at Austin when NASCAR is in Texas and this late-April date fills a gap that existed in the 2019 schedule. This year IndyCar had a month between Long Beach and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. There is still two weeks between St. Petersburg and Barber but that is fine. A two-week break isn't the end of the world and those two weekends in March and busy NCAA tournament weekends. IndyCar doesn't have to worry possibly about going head-to-head with Indiana, Butler, Purdue, Notre Dame or a number of Midwestern schools that exist in IndyCar country.
A late-April date might be better for Austin. Spring will be fully in bloom. The weather should be nicer. The shift isn't a massive change. This isn't a race moving from March to July. I think Austin will be alright for year.
Richmond
This is the one swap on the calendar; Richmond in, Pocono out.
I know this is the one change that has people the most riled up. A lot of people wanted Pocono to stay on and wanted Richmond to be an addition to the calendar, not a swap. I get it.
A lot of people are unhappy with how IndyCar handled the situation with Pocono when Pocono publicly expressed interest in having an IndyCar race and it was a race that was showing growth in attendance and had sponsor backing.
You are going to have to get over the loss of Pocono. It sucks. It's not the end of the world. Most importantly, it has not been ruled out permanently going forward.
It could be a case of each side taking a year off and coming back together for 2021. IndyCar is trying to balance its schedule. Pocono is going through a change with its two NASCAR weekends become one weekend with a Cup Series doubleheader. I think each side is taking a moment to regroup and maybe find a better place. My concern in that case is all momentum made in 2019 in terms of attendance will be lost because there will not be a race in 2020 but we will have to wait and see.
Richmond will be back and it is an enticing ticket. Tickets are already on sale starting at $30. The most expensive ticket as of now is $44. Not a bad deal. We will still have to wait and see on paddock pass price but this seems to be a fan friendly event.
The race will be held in late-June, the same time frame when IndyCar ran at Richmond from 2001-2009. This weekend works out for IndyCar. This was a period of two consecutive off weeks in 2019. It takes a race out of late August and with Mid-Ohio moving back a few weeks due to the Olympics IndyCar was looking at four consecutive weekends of racing from Mid-Ohio to Gateway to Richmond (which would not have worked because NASCAR is at Daytona on the finale Saturday night of August in 2020) and Portland.
This IndyCar schedule addresses the long stretches of races. The 2019 season had three periods of three consecutive weekends at the racetrack or more. The 2020 season decreases that to one period, the five weeks to end spring with constant track action from the Grand Prix of Indianapolis through Texas. In addition to this second quarter from hell, IndyCar will have four other back-to-backs (Long Beach/Austin, Road America/Richmond, Toronto/Iowa and Mid-Ohio/Gateway).
The teams will also get a month off from mid-July to mid-August so hopefully the mood will be more relaxed in 2020.
The Road America/Richmond back-to-back does pose a concern for IndyCar as this will be the first time the DW12 chassis has run at the track and IndyCar has a spotty record on short oval success in recent years. The series never got Phoenix right and Gateway has been good but great on track but the crowd has masked that. Both Phoenix and Gateway had extensive testing in the lead up to the first race. Even Pocono had a lot of testing before IndyCar returned in 2013.
I am curious what IndyCar's plan for Richmond will be. Teams are going to hate testing during that off week after Texas but I have a feeling that will be the case. IndyCar does not give the teams a lot of track time and we see that have its limitations. It seems like the one thing that hurt Phoenix was the lack of a second lane developing and it is the same problem at Gateway.
IndyCar is doing something that I am in favor of and that is next year at Richmond practice will be held on Friday night, during race time and then qualifying will be before the race on Saturday. That Friday practice will be two hours. I would like to see Friday be more of a test day and the teams get a three-hour period of track time and just let the drivers run and hopefully get the track to a place where two lanes will be developed or on the verge of completely developed when it comes time to race on Saturday.
That is asking a lot but after seeing where the series got it wrong at Phoenix I think IndyCar has to try something different.
Olympic Break
People are going to be mad that IndyCar is taking a month off for the Olympics but this is part of the game. IndyCar got in bed with NBC, something 99% of the fan base wanted. This is a relationship. With relationships come compromises.
There is going to be no room for IndyCar on NBC or NBCSN for three weeks. You might not like there not being a race for a month but you would also be upset if IndyCar was relegated to CNBC because it decided to race during the Olympics. The first year of this television deal has almost half the IndyCar races on network television and the rest on NBCSN. IndyCar did not get bumped to CNBC with a re-broadcasting on NBCSN after a NASCAR race in 2019. That is a plus for IndyCar.
This is only once every four years. In 2021, Mid-Ohio will like move up two or three weeks and we will be fine until 2024.
The four-week break is not one to get upset about.
In Terms of Television
Not only do we know the dates and locations for all 17 IndyCar races in 2020 but we know the television channel as well! Plan accordingly!
It is no change from 2019. The eight races that were broadcasted on NBC in 2019 will be broadcasted on NBC in 2020 and those races are the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Indianapolis 500, two Belle Isle races, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Portland and Laguna Seca.
Should it be a concern that there were no changes?
Not really. Spring is a busy period for NBC with golf, the end of the Premier League season and the NHL, especially the NHL playoffs in April. These weekends are available and IndyCar is getting eight races on network television. That is great for the series.
Is it a bad thing that there were no changes?
A network time slot is valuable. It means more exposure to a race sponsor. I am sure the tracks that are NBCSN races would love to be on NBC but for some tracks that is not going to happen. The three short track races are all night races. Texas is a night race, actually I am now realizing the Indianapolis 500 is the only oval race that is not a night race, interesting.
Night races are not going to get a network time slot. Those races disqualify themselves in a sense.
Toronto is not going to be on network NBC because Toronto is not a U.S. market. It does not register in the ratings. There is no chance of that race getting a local bump.
There really is not a lot of room for change unless Texas, Richmond, Iowa or Gateway decides to race Sunday afternoon and I don't think any of those three tracks are interested. I would love for another oval race or two to get a network slot. When you look at some of the races that were held at Texas, Fontana, Iowa and Pocono in recent years those deserve to be on national television. Some of IndyCar's best races this decade were on ovals but were stuck to cable mostly because of the previous television deal. When you look back at a race like Fontana in 2015, Iowa in 2015 or 2016, Pocono 2014, 2016 or 2017 or Texas in 2016, those are races IndyCar should want on national television.
Unless one of these tracks bite the bullet and make a change or an oval is added and wants a day race the oval races will be kept to cable.
What about IndyCar/NASCAR Head-to-Heads?
Good question! Let's give you a quick synopsis (IndyCar/NASCAR):
March 15th: St. Petersburg and Atlanta (Direct head-to-head).
April 5th: Barber and Bristol (Semi-head-to-head. Barber is a race that starts later in the day. A 4:00 p.m. ET start for Barber means it will likely be starting when Bristol is in the closing laps).
April 19th: Long Beach and Richmond (Semi-head-to-head. Same as Barber and Bristol).
April 26th: Austin and Talladega (Likely direct head-to-head. Austin started at 1:30 p.m. ET this year and the spring Talladega race started at 2:00 p.m. ET. Most likely Austin will end during the Talladega race).
May 9th: Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Martinsville (No conflict. The IMS road course race will be over before the Martinsville night race begins).
May 24th: Indianapolis and Charlotte (No conflict. You know how that works).
May 31st: Belle Isle and Kansas (Direct head-to-head. Not entirely sure but it seems the most likely).
All those NASCAR races will be broadcasted on Fox. Obviously, Fox isn't worried about IndyCar but the NBC portion of the schedule should be favorable.
June 21st: Road America and Chicagoland (I expect no conflict. Road America starts early, 12:30 p.m. ET. The NASCAR race at Chicagoland wasn't scheduled to go green until 3:30 p.m. ET. The IndyCar race should be done well before the NASCAR race begins).
June 27th: Richmond and Pocono (This is NASCAR's doubleheader weekend. Pocono doesn't have lights. I expect this to be a case of Pocono ends around 6:30 p.m. ET, maybe closer to 7:00 p.m. ET and leads into IndyCar from Richmond, even more of a reason for IndyCar not to fuck around and get it right at Richmond the first time)
August 16th: Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen (Semi-head-to-head. I wish this one could be avoid but Mid-Ohio started at 4:00 p.m. ET this year on NBC. Mid-Ohio will be on NBC again. I have a feeling Watkins Glen will be on NBCSN. That doesn't mean going head-to-head is a good thing and I would be ok if IndyCar started Mid-Ohio at 1:00 p.m. ET that way the race could be completed and the NASCAR race could start at 3:30 p.m. ET. People could watch both instead of having to choose).
September 6th: Portland and Darlington (We just did this. Portland ends before Darlington begins).
It is still more conflicts than people would like. Some are unavoidable. I think IndyCar, NASCAR and NBC all do a great job coordinating and working together. There is next to nothing that can be done with Fox's portion of the NASCAR season.
The Richmond spring race was a Saturday night race but it moves to a day race in 2020 because Martinsville becomes a night race. That could have been one conflict avoided. Atlanta is moving back a few weeks and instead of having St. Petersburg on the same day as NASCAR at Phoenix or Fontana, the two series will be racing simultaneously in neighboring states.
Only so much can be done and people are going to get angry because that is how people are, they get mad over everything and they treat IndyCar and NASCAR running at the same time as some crime against humanity. No one likes it but it happens.
What is Next in the Short Term?
Trying to figure out the Indy Lights and Road to Indy schedule.
The only new player is Richmond and the biggest question is whether or not Indy Lights and/or Indy Pro 2000 join IndyCar at the 0.75-mile oval. Although, Richmond Raceway president Dennis Bickmeier says he does not expect any additional races for the Richmond IndyCar race weekend.
One thing to keep in mind is how few back-to-backs the junior series do. In 2019, the only back-to-back for Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 was Gateway and Portland. Indy Lights had six weeks off between Austin and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000 had two months off between St. Petersburg and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Looking at the schedule, with the number of back-to-backs you can do some deductive reasoning to figure out the schedule. All three Road to Indy series are going to Road America and Toronto. That means I doubt U.S. F2000 nor Indy Pro 2000 will be at Richmond or Iowa.
Does Indy Lights want to run a third oval race? That will really decide whether or not the series goes to Richmond or Iowa. The one reason why Indy Lights, and possibly Indy Pro 2000, might run at Richmond or Iowa is Indy Lights could be forced out of Gateway.
Next year, Gateway will host the NASCAR Truck Series and IndyCar on the same weekend. IndyCar and the Truck series do not run as many companion weekends as the series once did but recent years show when Trucks run with IndyCar the Road to Indy series are not there. I am not sure if that is because of garage space or sanctioning fees but Indy Lights has not gone to Texas and when IndyCar and the Trucks ran together at Iowa in 2014, none of the Road to Indy series went to Iowa.
It could come down to space. Gateway accommodated 22 IndyCars, eight Indy Lights cars, 12 Indy Pro 2000 cars and 19 NASCAR K&N East and West Series cars this year. That is 61 race cars. This year's Gateway Truck race had 32 entries. Can Gateway hold 93 race cars? That seems like a lot. The NASCAR K&N Series is going through a transition as NASCAR purchased ARCA and 2020 will be when the series are basically merged so that might mean that race goes away and Trucks come in but a NASCAR national series might be a different animal. NASCAR might have a regulation that the Truck series can race with IndyCar and the Firestone tires but it cannot race with Firestone tires and the Cooper Tires Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 use. I do not know.
Gateway has something good going and with the NASCAR race on Friday there is no reason Saturday could not be filled with racing like it was in 2019. There were four races on Saturday this year at Gateway starting with Indy Pro 2000 early in the afternoon and the IndyCar race didn't start until sunset. I cannot imagine Gateway giving that up but if Gateway's hand is forced that could mean Indy Lights and/or Indy Pro 2000 moving to Richmond.
I wish Indy Lights was a true support series and was with IndyCar more times than not.
If things remain the same as in 2019, there will be a month between St. Petersburg and Austin two weeks until the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and another two weeks until the Freedom 100 and then there will be a month until Road America, three weeks until Toronto, a month until Mid-Ohio, a back-to-back with Gateway then two weeks until Portland and two weeks until Laguna Seca.
Indy Lights is lost. It is a series with no value to sponsors therefore it does not draw many drivers and yet everyone thinks the answer is to keep slashing cost to make it desirable for IndyCar teams to join. It is frustrating. Indy Lights should be with IndyCar more times than not, it should run most of the oval but doesn't and its biggest problem is not that it costs too much but rather only one race is on television and the rest are on a streaming platform that a couple thousand people watch.
As for Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000, expect no changes. St. Petersburg starts the season with two months off until the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, races at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Carb Night, another month off until Road America, a couple weeks off and then Toronto, a month off and then Mid-Ohio with Indy Pro 2000 going to Gateway and then every series racing at Portland and Laguna Seca.
Testing
Another short-term thing to watch for is testing schedule because we will be having the aeroscreen implementation for 2020 and IndyCar has to get this generation of it on track.
IndyCar already rescheduled the first aeroscreen test. It was supposed to occur between Portland and Laguna Seca at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Scott Dixon. The first test will not be until October at Indianapolis with Dixon and a Team Penske car. A test will immediately follow at Barber with two different drivers and a third test at a yet to be announced when with another two drivers will be sometime after Barber.
There is a lot of work that has to be done and a number of items on the checklist that has to be taken care of. It will get to run an oval and a natural-terrain road course. It cannot get a street course test, the best street course equivalent is Sebring so let's not be surprised if the test concludes at Sebring but I do wonder if IndyCar will get some wet weather testing done.
IndyCar cannot control the weather but I am sure this is a concern we would all like cleared. I am sure IndyCar and Red Bull Advanced Technology is on top of this and has an aeroscreen that can work in the wet but I think we all want to see how it works. It is more curiosity than anything else. We want to see how it works, what drivers have to say and that is what will calm everyone down.
What is Next in the Long Term?
With every schedule announcement we try and look for the gaps that exist and what it could mean for the season after and let's do the same.
Everyone looks at the big gaps because those are where potential new races could be. There are two weeks off in March, there are four weeks available between July and August. The July/August gap is misleading because of the Olympics and Mid-Ohio is going to move to the start of August in 2021. There aren't as many weeks there as people think but there are still three weeks available.
Now that Richmond is on the schedule the on-deck circle for oval waiting in the wings is vacant. I guess Pocono is still around so that could be a possible August filler, especially if the NASCAR doubleheader weekend is a hit and returns in 2021. If the NASCAR doubleheader doesn't pay off in 2020 then Pocono goes back to two NASCAR weekends. If the doubleheader works then Pocono will be ready to work with IndyCar and fill an August date.
There really are no other venues on the docket. The return to Surfers Paradise has fizzled out. Watkins Glen has gone quiet. Homestead seems dead in the water now because the NASCAR race is moving from November and it will be March 22nd next year. With this change the only way IndyCar returns to Homestead if there is IndyCar either decides to race later into the year or IndyCar decides to start in January or February and even then I am not sure Homestead would bite.
I think IndyCar has to make this schedule work for at least two or three seasons. It has to breathe some life into Iowa and find a title sponsor for that race. It needs to find a title sponsor for Portland because Portland is on a tier with Gateway, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Barber that gets a solid 40,000 people, which is a healthy crowd and the only races that do better are the Indianapolis 500 and Long Beach.
It has to make sure not to mishandle Richmond. IndyCar cannot repeat what happened with Phoenix. IndyCar cannot have another one-and-done contract with an oval where the racing struggled to be considered good and after everyone is dissatisfied because the racing is processional. In three years, IndyCar cannot be looking for another track to fill a gap because Richmond didn't pan out.
We can only take things one step at a time. We still have a race left in the 2019 season. Let's get to 2020 and see how that season starts. Once we get to Richmond then we can start looking at 2021 and beyond.
While the number of races remains the same, there is a new but familiar location on the schedule and a few date shifts.
Every time a new calendar is released it draws a lot of attention from all corners of a motorsports series, from fans to drivers, crews to writers, everyone is interested in where the future will take them. Sometimes it is nice to have the comfort of familiar locations, other times you are excited for a trip to a new place and then there is the timing of all of it. Will it be hectic, weekly road trips or will it be spaced out and allow for time at home?
This is our chance to look over the 2020 season, what is different, what is the same, why changes were made and what is possible beyond 2020.
The Calendar
St. Petersburg remains the season opener for IndyCar and the 2020 season will kickoff on March 15th. The series will have two weeks off before it heads to Barber on April 5th. Easter will be an off week on April 12th but the Grand Prix of Long Beach will follow on April 19th.
The first change in the 2020 schedule sees Austin take place on April 26th, about a month later than IndyCar's inaugural trip this year. After a week off, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be on Saturday May 9th. Indianapolis 500 qualifying should take place the following week with the 104th Indianapolis 500 scheduled for May 24th.
Belle Isle will have its doubleheader on May 30th and May 31st with Texas following on June 6th before the long-awaited off week.
Road America will be on June 21st with IndyCar's first race at Richmond since 2009 scheduled for Saturday June 27th. IndyCar will have Independence Day weekend off and then head to Canada and Toronto on July 12th. Iowa will follow on July 18th.
After Iowa, IndyCar will take four weeks off, mostly because of NBC's commitments to coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games from Tokyo. IndyCar will return on August 16th at Mid-Ohio, a shift for the race from late-July due to the Olympics. The following week IndyCar will be at Gateway on Saturday August 22nd.
IndyCar will get an off week at the end of August before its Labor Day weekend event at Portland on September 6th. The season finale will take place at Laguna Seca on September 20th.
With the schedule laid out, let's go over some of the changes:
The Austin Shift
Austin moves a tad back in the schedule and this is due to other motorsports series.
NASCAR announced its 2020 calendars back in April and the first Texas race weekend for NASCAR moved to March 29th, the final weekend of the month and the same weekend the IndyCar race took place in 2019. IndyCar could have created a back-to-back with St. Petersburg and Austin with Austin on March 22nd but the 2020 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled for March 21st. This would have created a conflict for drivers who compete in the IMSA endurance races. Early April was taken as Austin hosts MotoGP on April 5th.
The series and the track decided, with all the other pieces on the board, that the best date was April 26th and I think both sides came to best solution.
Running either date in March would get people angry. People would be pissed if the race was the same weekend as Sebring and people would be pissed if the race was head-to-head with the NASCAR race a couple hours up the road, something Austin and Texas cannot avoid with the United States Grand Prix and the autumn NASCAR date.
Only five IndyCar drivers ran at Sebring this year, two of which (Sébastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon) were in the lame duck Ford GT program, so it is not a matter of half the IndyCar grid being in conflict. IMSA would be fine if it had to replace three drivers, although I have a feeling Team Penske and Honda Performance Development swayed IndyCar because the Acura program employs Alexander Rossi and Simon Pagenaud. The other IndyCar driver at Sebring this year was Colton Herta at RLL Team BMW.
I think it is good for IndyCar not to go head-to-head with Sebring. It is better to not run at Austin when NASCAR is in Texas and this late-April date fills a gap that existed in the 2019 schedule. This year IndyCar had a month between Long Beach and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. There is still two weeks between St. Petersburg and Barber but that is fine. A two-week break isn't the end of the world and those two weekends in March and busy NCAA tournament weekends. IndyCar doesn't have to worry possibly about going head-to-head with Indiana, Butler, Purdue, Notre Dame or a number of Midwestern schools that exist in IndyCar country.
A late-April date might be better for Austin. Spring will be fully in bloom. The weather should be nicer. The shift isn't a massive change. This isn't a race moving from March to July. I think Austin will be alright for year.
Richmond
This is the one swap on the calendar; Richmond in, Pocono out.
I know this is the one change that has people the most riled up. A lot of people wanted Pocono to stay on and wanted Richmond to be an addition to the calendar, not a swap. I get it.
A lot of people are unhappy with how IndyCar handled the situation with Pocono when Pocono publicly expressed interest in having an IndyCar race and it was a race that was showing growth in attendance and had sponsor backing.
You are going to have to get over the loss of Pocono. It sucks. It's not the end of the world. Most importantly, it has not been ruled out permanently going forward.
It could be a case of each side taking a year off and coming back together for 2021. IndyCar is trying to balance its schedule. Pocono is going through a change with its two NASCAR weekends become one weekend with a Cup Series doubleheader. I think each side is taking a moment to regroup and maybe find a better place. My concern in that case is all momentum made in 2019 in terms of attendance will be lost because there will not be a race in 2020 but we will have to wait and see.
Richmond will be back and it is an enticing ticket. Tickets are already on sale starting at $30. The most expensive ticket as of now is $44. Not a bad deal. We will still have to wait and see on paddock pass price but this seems to be a fan friendly event.
The race will be held in late-June, the same time frame when IndyCar ran at Richmond from 2001-2009. This weekend works out for IndyCar. This was a period of two consecutive off weeks in 2019. It takes a race out of late August and with Mid-Ohio moving back a few weeks due to the Olympics IndyCar was looking at four consecutive weekends of racing from Mid-Ohio to Gateway to Richmond (which would not have worked because NASCAR is at Daytona on the finale Saturday night of August in 2020) and Portland.
This IndyCar schedule addresses the long stretches of races. The 2019 season had three periods of three consecutive weekends at the racetrack or more. The 2020 season decreases that to one period, the five weeks to end spring with constant track action from the Grand Prix of Indianapolis through Texas. In addition to this second quarter from hell, IndyCar will have four other back-to-backs (Long Beach/Austin, Road America/Richmond, Toronto/Iowa and Mid-Ohio/Gateway).
The teams will also get a month off from mid-July to mid-August so hopefully the mood will be more relaxed in 2020.
The Road America/Richmond back-to-back does pose a concern for IndyCar as this will be the first time the DW12 chassis has run at the track and IndyCar has a spotty record on short oval success in recent years. The series never got Phoenix right and Gateway has been good but great on track but the crowd has masked that. Both Phoenix and Gateway had extensive testing in the lead up to the first race. Even Pocono had a lot of testing before IndyCar returned in 2013.
I am curious what IndyCar's plan for Richmond will be. Teams are going to hate testing during that off week after Texas but I have a feeling that will be the case. IndyCar does not give the teams a lot of track time and we see that have its limitations. It seems like the one thing that hurt Phoenix was the lack of a second lane developing and it is the same problem at Gateway.
IndyCar is doing something that I am in favor of and that is next year at Richmond practice will be held on Friday night, during race time and then qualifying will be before the race on Saturday. That Friday practice will be two hours. I would like to see Friday be more of a test day and the teams get a three-hour period of track time and just let the drivers run and hopefully get the track to a place where two lanes will be developed or on the verge of completely developed when it comes time to race on Saturday.
That is asking a lot but after seeing where the series got it wrong at Phoenix I think IndyCar has to try something different.
Olympic Break
People are going to be mad that IndyCar is taking a month off for the Olympics but this is part of the game. IndyCar got in bed with NBC, something 99% of the fan base wanted. This is a relationship. With relationships come compromises.
There is going to be no room for IndyCar on NBC or NBCSN for three weeks. You might not like there not being a race for a month but you would also be upset if IndyCar was relegated to CNBC because it decided to race during the Olympics. The first year of this television deal has almost half the IndyCar races on network television and the rest on NBCSN. IndyCar did not get bumped to CNBC with a re-broadcasting on NBCSN after a NASCAR race in 2019. That is a plus for IndyCar.
This is only once every four years. In 2021, Mid-Ohio will like move up two or three weeks and we will be fine until 2024.
The four-week break is not one to get upset about.
In Terms of Television
Not only do we know the dates and locations for all 17 IndyCar races in 2020 but we know the television channel as well! Plan accordingly!
It is no change from 2019. The eight races that were broadcasted on NBC in 2019 will be broadcasted on NBC in 2020 and those races are the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Indianapolis 500, two Belle Isle races, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Portland and Laguna Seca.
Should it be a concern that there were no changes?
Not really. Spring is a busy period for NBC with golf, the end of the Premier League season and the NHL, especially the NHL playoffs in April. These weekends are available and IndyCar is getting eight races on network television. That is great for the series.
Is it a bad thing that there were no changes?
A network time slot is valuable. It means more exposure to a race sponsor. I am sure the tracks that are NBCSN races would love to be on NBC but for some tracks that is not going to happen. The three short track races are all night races. Texas is a night race, actually I am now realizing the Indianapolis 500 is the only oval race that is not a night race, interesting.
Night races are not going to get a network time slot. Those races disqualify themselves in a sense.
Toronto is not going to be on network NBC because Toronto is not a U.S. market. It does not register in the ratings. There is no chance of that race getting a local bump.
There really is not a lot of room for change unless Texas, Richmond, Iowa or Gateway decides to race Sunday afternoon and I don't think any of those three tracks are interested. I would love for another oval race or two to get a network slot. When you look at some of the races that were held at Texas, Fontana, Iowa and Pocono in recent years those deserve to be on national television. Some of IndyCar's best races this decade were on ovals but were stuck to cable mostly because of the previous television deal. When you look back at a race like Fontana in 2015, Iowa in 2015 or 2016, Pocono 2014, 2016 or 2017 or Texas in 2016, those are races IndyCar should want on national television.
Unless one of these tracks bite the bullet and make a change or an oval is added and wants a day race the oval races will be kept to cable.
What about IndyCar/NASCAR Head-to-Heads?
Good question! Let's give you a quick synopsis (IndyCar/NASCAR):
March 15th: St. Petersburg and Atlanta (Direct head-to-head).
April 5th: Barber and Bristol (Semi-head-to-head. Barber is a race that starts later in the day. A 4:00 p.m. ET start for Barber means it will likely be starting when Bristol is in the closing laps).
April 19th: Long Beach and Richmond (Semi-head-to-head. Same as Barber and Bristol).
April 26th: Austin and Talladega (Likely direct head-to-head. Austin started at 1:30 p.m. ET this year and the spring Talladega race started at 2:00 p.m. ET. Most likely Austin will end during the Talladega race).
May 9th: Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Martinsville (No conflict. The IMS road course race will be over before the Martinsville night race begins).
May 24th: Indianapolis and Charlotte (No conflict. You know how that works).
May 31st: Belle Isle and Kansas (Direct head-to-head. Not entirely sure but it seems the most likely).
All those NASCAR races will be broadcasted on Fox. Obviously, Fox isn't worried about IndyCar but the NBC portion of the schedule should be favorable.
June 21st: Road America and Chicagoland (I expect no conflict. Road America starts early, 12:30 p.m. ET. The NASCAR race at Chicagoland wasn't scheduled to go green until 3:30 p.m. ET. The IndyCar race should be done well before the NASCAR race begins).
June 27th: Richmond and Pocono (This is NASCAR's doubleheader weekend. Pocono doesn't have lights. I expect this to be a case of Pocono ends around 6:30 p.m. ET, maybe closer to 7:00 p.m. ET and leads into IndyCar from Richmond, even more of a reason for IndyCar not to fuck around and get it right at Richmond the first time)
August 16th: Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen (Semi-head-to-head. I wish this one could be avoid but Mid-Ohio started at 4:00 p.m. ET this year on NBC. Mid-Ohio will be on NBC again. I have a feeling Watkins Glen will be on NBCSN. That doesn't mean going head-to-head is a good thing and I would be ok if IndyCar started Mid-Ohio at 1:00 p.m. ET that way the race could be completed and the NASCAR race could start at 3:30 p.m. ET. People could watch both instead of having to choose).
September 6th: Portland and Darlington (We just did this. Portland ends before Darlington begins).
It is still more conflicts than people would like. Some are unavoidable. I think IndyCar, NASCAR and NBC all do a great job coordinating and working together. There is next to nothing that can be done with Fox's portion of the NASCAR season.
The Richmond spring race was a Saturday night race but it moves to a day race in 2020 because Martinsville becomes a night race. That could have been one conflict avoided. Atlanta is moving back a few weeks and instead of having St. Petersburg on the same day as NASCAR at Phoenix or Fontana, the two series will be racing simultaneously in neighboring states.
Only so much can be done and people are going to get angry because that is how people are, they get mad over everything and they treat IndyCar and NASCAR running at the same time as some crime against humanity. No one likes it but it happens.
What is Next in the Short Term?
Trying to figure out the Indy Lights and Road to Indy schedule.
The only new player is Richmond and the biggest question is whether or not Indy Lights and/or Indy Pro 2000 join IndyCar at the 0.75-mile oval. Although, Richmond Raceway president Dennis Bickmeier says he does not expect any additional races for the Richmond IndyCar race weekend.
One thing to keep in mind is how few back-to-backs the junior series do. In 2019, the only back-to-back for Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 was Gateway and Portland. Indy Lights had six weeks off between Austin and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000 had two months off between St. Petersburg and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Looking at the schedule, with the number of back-to-backs you can do some deductive reasoning to figure out the schedule. All three Road to Indy series are going to Road America and Toronto. That means I doubt U.S. F2000 nor Indy Pro 2000 will be at Richmond or Iowa.
Does Indy Lights want to run a third oval race? That will really decide whether or not the series goes to Richmond or Iowa. The one reason why Indy Lights, and possibly Indy Pro 2000, might run at Richmond or Iowa is Indy Lights could be forced out of Gateway.
Next year, Gateway will host the NASCAR Truck Series and IndyCar on the same weekend. IndyCar and the Truck series do not run as many companion weekends as the series once did but recent years show when Trucks run with IndyCar the Road to Indy series are not there. I am not sure if that is because of garage space or sanctioning fees but Indy Lights has not gone to Texas and when IndyCar and the Trucks ran together at Iowa in 2014, none of the Road to Indy series went to Iowa.
It could come down to space. Gateway accommodated 22 IndyCars, eight Indy Lights cars, 12 Indy Pro 2000 cars and 19 NASCAR K&N East and West Series cars this year. That is 61 race cars. This year's Gateway Truck race had 32 entries. Can Gateway hold 93 race cars? That seems like a lot. The NASCAR K&N Series is going through a transition as NASCAR purchased ARCA and 2020 will be when the series are basically merged so that might mean that race goes away and Trucks come in but a NASCAR national series might be a different animal. NASCAR might have a regulation that the Truck series can race with IndyCar and the Firestone tires but it cannot race with Firestone tires and the Cooper Tires Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 use. I do not know.
Gateway has something good going and with the NASCAR race on Friday there is no reason Saturday could not be filled with racing like it was in 2019. There were four races on Saturday this year at Gateway starting with Indy Pro 2000 early in the afternoon and the IndyCar race didn't start until sunset. I cannot imagine Gateway giving that up but if Gateway's hand is forced that could mean Indy Lights and/or Indy Pro 2000 moving to Richmond.
I wish Indy Lights was a true support series and was with IndyCar more times than not.
If things remain the same as in 2019, there will be a month between St. Petersburg and Austin two weeks until the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and another two weeks until the Freedom 100 and then there will be a month until Road America, three weeks until Toronto, a month until Mid-Ohio, a back-to-back with Gateway then two weeks until Portland and two weeks until Laguna Seca.
Indy Lights is lost. It is a series with no value to sponsors therefore it does not draw many drivers and yet everyone thinks the answer is to keep slashing cost to make it desirable for IndyCar teams to join. It is frustrating. Indy Lights should be with IndyCar more times than not, it should run most of the oval but doesn't and its biggest problem is not that it costs too much but rather only one race is on television and the rest are on a streaming platform that a couple thousand people watch.
As for Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000, expect no changes. St. Petersburg starts the season with two months off until the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, races at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Carb Night, another month off until Road America, a couple weeks off and then Toronto, a month off and then Mid-Ohio with Indy Pro 2000 going to Gateway and then every series racing at Portland and Laguna Seca.
Testing
Another short-term thing to watch for is testing schedule because we will be having the aeroscreen implementation for 2020 and IndyCar has to get this generation of it on track.
IndyCar already rescheduled the first aeroscreen test. It was supposed to occur between Portland and Laguna Seca at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Scott Dixon. The first test will not be until October at Indianapolis with Dixon and a Team Penske car. A test will immediately follow at Barber with two different drivers and a third test at a yet to be announced when with another two drivers will be sometime after Barber.
There is a lot of work that has to be done and a number of items on the checklist that has to be taken care of. It will get to run an oval and a natural-terrain road course. It cannot get a street course test, the best street course equivalent is Sebring so let's not be surprised if the test concludes at Sebring but I do wonder if IndyCar will get some wet weather testing done.
IndyCar cannot control the weather but I am sure this is a concern we would all like cleared. I am sure IndyCar and Red Bull Advanced Technology is on top of this and has an aeroscreen that can work in the wet but I think we all want to see how it works. It is more curiosity than anything else. We want to see how it works, what drivers have to say and that is what will calm everyone down.
What is Next in the Long Term?
With every schedule announcement we try and look for the gaps that exist and what it could mean for the season after and let's do the same.
Everyone looks at the big gaps because those are where potential new races could be. There are two weeks off in March, there are four weeks available between July and August. The July/August gap is misleading because of the Olympics and Mid-Ohio is going to move to the start of August in 2021. There aren't as many weeks there as people think but there are still three weeks available.
Now that Richmond is on the schedule the on-deck circle for oval waiting in the wings is vacant. I guess Pocono is still around so that could be a possible August filler, especially if the NASCAR doubleheader weekend is a hit and returns in 2021. If the NASCAR doubleheader doesn't pay off in 2020 then Pocono goes back to two NASCAR weekends. If the doubleheader works then Pocono will be ready to work with IndyCar and fill an August date.
There really are no other venues on the docket. The return to Surfers Paradise has fizzled out. Watkins Glen has gone quiet. Homestead seems dead in the water now because the NASCAR race is moving from November and it will be March 22nd next year. With this change the only way IndyCar returns to Homestead if there is IndyCar either decides to race later into the year or IndyCar decides to start in January or February and even then I am not sure Homestead would bite.
I think IndyCar has to make this schedule work for at least two or three seasons. It has to breathe some life into Iowa and find a title sponsor for that race. It needs to find a title sponsor for Portland because Portland is on a tier with Gateway, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Barber that gets a solid 40,000 people, which is a healthy crowd and the only races that do better are the Indianapolis 500 and Long Beach.
It has to make sure not to mishandle Richmond. IndyCar cannot repeat what happened with Phoenix. IndyCar cannot have another one-and-done contract with an oval where the racing struggled to be considered good and after everyone is dissatisfied because the racing is processional. In three years, IndyCar cannot be looking for another track to fill a gap because Richmond didn't pan out.
We can only take things one step at a time. We still have a race left in the 2019 season. Let's get to 2020 and see how that season starts. Once we get to Richmond then we can start looking at 2021 and beyond.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Musings From the Weekend: We Can't All Avoid Football
We begin acknowledging the passing of Formula Two driver Anthoine Hubert after his accident in Saturday's Formula Two race from Spa-Francorchamps. Hubert was 22 years old and he won last year's GP3 Series championship. The French driver had two victories this season, in the sprint race at Monaco and the sprint race at Circuit Paul Ricard. American driver Juan Manuel Correa was also injured in the accident, sufferred fractures in both legs and a minor spinal injury. Correa is currently in stable condition and in intensive care in Liége and he will be transferred home to the United States once his conditions are more stable. I highly recommend BBC chief F1 writer Andrew Benson's sobering snapshot of the Spa-Francorchamps paddock in the aftermath of the accident and David Cameron's eulogy to Hubert. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
We Can't All Avoid Football
It is that time of the year again! September has come and with the end of summer fast approaching, the American public returns to its end of year weekly gatherings, football season is here!
Football is king. Close to a hundred million people are going to watch each week. Many are going to gamble. Many participate in fantasy football leagues. It has a hold on the attention of the American sports landscape and American public from now through the start of February. Based on time, football season is not that long. The regular season ends with the calendar year. It is really a four-month ride. Some teams know their season is over come November. The final month is a handful of games a weekend. It is not much but it takes over. No one is going to beat it.
With the arrival of football season, everyone knows what comes next in the American motorsports world: the decline. Ratings are going to drop. Attention is going to drop. Instead of ending on a high, the season ends with a lull.
There is nothing to stop it but increasingly series are trying to avoid it.
IndyCar made it know it wanted to end its season prior to the start of football season when Mark Miles took over as CEO of Hulman & Co. The last few seasons have ended in the early weeks of football season and this year will end on week three of the NFL season but one week against football is manageable.
NASCAR is another story. Darlington started 12 consecutive weeks of competition to end the season. NASCAR goes head-to-head with football into November, on the eve of Thanksgiving with the champions decided on week 11 of the NFL season. The 2019 season could be the last of such late season finales in NASCAR. The series is trying to end its season earlier and the 2020 season will conclude on November 8th, a week earlier with the 2021 season heralded as the great shakeup due to every track contract being up after 2020.
The length of NASCAR's season means it cannot completely avoid the NFL. It will always run into autumn. Even if the season was shortened to 30 or 32 races the season would still run into October. NASCAR is fine with that. The networks are fine with that. NBC needs something to fill NBCSN on Sundays, NASCAR has an audience, though not as big as it once was but big enough to put NBCSN at the head of the pack of the cable sports channels on a Sunday and NBC likes having NASCAR as a lead-in to Football Night in America and Sunday Night Football at times.
The problem is it is not just IndyCar and NASCAR that is trying to avoid football. On paper, it appears everyone is trying to avoid football.
Golf shook up its calendar in 2019. The PGA Championship moved to May from August. The Fedex Cup dropped a tournament, being made up of three events instead of four and it concluded on August 25th when the 2018 Fedex Cup did not begin until August 23rd.
The NBA is talking about schedule changes for the 2021-22 season. The NHL has 56 games scheduled on Sunday from October to December in 2019. From January to March, the NHL has 83 Sunday games scheduled. When January 1st falls on a Sunday, the NHL holds its Winter Classic on Monday January 2nd. Major League Soccer made a shift in its schedule this year, with MLS Cup taking place on November 10th a full month earlier than last year. Not all of those changes for MLS' schedule shift were done necessarily due to football but it surely factored into the decision. College basketball struggles to get noticed until football season ends and once football season ends we are a month away from March Madness, conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament.
If every sport tries to squeeze their seasons between February and Labor Day weekend, everyone is going to lose out. We will end up with a congested sports calendar and no one is going to stand out. The hope of getting attention is gone. The audience splinters more. You avoid football but still end up getting suffocated.
Even if you avoid football, football is talking about expanding. Every year an 18-game NFL season is brought up and while there are plenty of reasons why that should not occur, the over-arching reason as to why it will happen is money. Football is king. Two more weeks means more money and more money for everyone. It is more ticket revenue. It is higher salaries. It is more advertising dollars for television networks. It is larger television deals. It is more money going toward gambling. The rich win out. The rich are going to do what makes them richer.
If football expands, then what? What are IndyCar, NASCAR, golf, hockey, college basketball and so on going to do? Can these sports entities really afford to squeeze themselves into a tighter box?
A few years ago, when the NFL had a player lockout, NASCAR moved the Daytona 500 back a week preemptively in case the season was delayed and the Super Bowl was pushed back. There is a real chance that an expanding NFL season means the Super Bowl will permanently fall on what has customarily been Daytona 500 weekend. The NFL isn't going to stop out of courtesy to the Daytona 500. The NFL has an audience of over 110 million people in its favor and it can put the Super Bowl wherever it wants.
It is important for every series to maximize its potential. If IndyCar wants to end its season before football season began then it must start its season immediately after football season ends. It cannot waste a week and must maximize that window. There are even holes late in football season. Once you get to the weekend of the conference championship games that Saturday is open and there are two games on Sunday, the first of which starts at 3:30 p.m. ET. You could even run the Saturday before the Super Bowl.
However, an expanding football season also forces series to come to terms with their standings and act in their own interests. If football expands, these series have to still go out and do business. It is one thing to avoid going head-to-head with the Super Bowl, the opening weekend of the season, Thanksgiving and playoff games but there are times when you can run on a Sunday. There will be Sundays where there are only three games going on at 4:00 p.m. ET. There is competition but not much, not ten games like at 1:00 p.m. ET.
These series have to be smart and see that it could find success at events during football season. The weather is beautiful in late-September and early-October. People want to be outside as much as they can before it gets cold. If a track can draw its best crowd at the start of autumn then a series should consider that date over a summer weekend where over half that crowd stays home because of the heat.
IndyCar and NASCAR have to pick and choose their battles but it cannot completely shut down once football season gets started. Both series know that if it puts itself in a fight against the NFL it is not going to win but there are alternatives to fighting. A hell of a lot of people are going to watch football on a Sunday in September or October. It is reflex to them but there is an audience out there that will tune into a race whether it be because they are not into football or because their team has a bye week, played on Thursday night or plays on Sunday or Monday night or you will have people that choose to tune into something else because their team is getting blown out and they cannot bare it or their team is the team comfortably ahead with the backups in and a victory is a certainty.
There is no argument that avoiding football is a smart thing to do but a day may come soon where that will be unavoidable or where the congestion of sports leagues means it makes more sense to look for less crowded pastures.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Will Power but did you know...
Charles Leclerc won the Belgian Grand Prix, his first career grand prix victory.
Pedro Piquet and Marcus Armstrong split the Formula Three races from Spa-Francorchamps.
The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the FIA World Endurance Championship's 4 Hours of Silverstone. The #42 Cool Racing Oreca-Gibson of Nicolas Lapierre and Antonin Borga won in LMP2. The #91 Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz won in GTE-Pro. The #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Emmanuel Collard, Niklas Nielsen and François Perrodo won in GTE-Am.
The #28 IDEC Sport Oreca-Nissan of Memo Rojas, Paul-Loup Chatin and Patrice Lafargue won ELMS' 4 Hours of Silverstone. The #11 Eurointernational Ligier-Nissan of Mikkel Jensen and Jens Petersen won in the LMP3 class, its second victory of the season. The #88 Proton Competition Porsche of Thomas Preining, Gianluca Girauldi and Ricardo Sanchez won in GTE.
Erik Jones won the Southern 500. Cole Custer won the Grand National Series race after Denny Hamlin was disqualified.
Rinus VeeKay and Toby Sowery split the Indy Lights race from Portland. Kyle Kirkwood swept the Indy Pro 2000 races. Hunter McElrea swept the U.S. F2000 races.
The #61 R.Ferri Motorsport Ferrari of Daniel Serra and Toni Vilander swept the Blancpain World Challenge America races from Watkins Glen.
The #19 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW of Greg Liefooghe and Seain Quinlan and the #34 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Matt Fassnacht and Christia Szymczak split the GT4 America SprintX races from Watkins Glen. The #50 Panoz of Ian James and the #18 Andretti Autosport McLaren of Jarett Andretti split the GT4 America sprint races.
The #563 Orange1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli and the #76 R-Motorsport Aston Martin of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhöfer split the Blancpain World Challenge Europe races from Nürburgring.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Italian Grand Prix.
The Brickyard 400.
Super GT is at Autopolis.
World Superbike returns after two months off at Algarve.
The Blancpain World Challenge Europe season concludes at the Hungaroring.
We Can't All Avoid Football
It is that time of the year again! September has come and with the end of summer fast approaching, the American public returns to its end of year weekly gatherings, football season is here!
Football is king. Close to a hundred million people are going to watch each week. Many are going to gamble. Many participate in fantasy football leagues. It has a hold on the attention of the American sports landscape and American public from now through the start of February. Based on time, football season is not that long. The regular season ends with the calendar year. It is really a four-month ride. Some teams know their season is over come November. The final month is a handful of games a weekend. It is not much but it takes over. No one is going to beat it.
With the arrival of football season, everyone knows what comes next in the American motorsports world: the decline. Ratings are going to drop. Attention is going to drop. Instead of ending on a high, the season ends with a lull.
There is nothing to stop it but increasingly series are trying to avoid it.
IndyCar made it know it wanted to end its season prior to the start of football season when Mark Miles took over as CEO of Hulman & Co. The last few seasons have ended in the early weeks of football season and this year will end on week three of the NFL season but one week against football is manageable.
NASCAR is another story. Darlington started 12 consecutive weeks of competition to end the season. NASCAR goes head-to-head with football into November, on the eve of Thanksgiving with the champions decided on week 11 of the NFL season. The 2019 season could be the last of such late season finales in NASCAR. The series is trying to end its season earlier and the 2020 season will conclude on November 8th, a week earlier with the 2021 season heralded as the great shakeup due to every track contract being up after 2020.
The length of NASCAR's season means it cannot completely avoid the NFL. It will always run into autumn. Even if the season was shortened to 30 or 32 races the season would still run into October. NASCAR is fine with that. The networks are fine with that. NBC needs something to fill NBCSN on Sundays, NASCAR has an audience, though not as big as it once was but big enough to put NBCSN at the head of the pack of the cable sports channels on a Sunday and NBC likes having NASCAR as a lead-in to Football Night in America and Sunday Night Football at times.
The problem is it is not just IndyCar and NASCAR that is trying to avoid football. On paper, it appears everyone is trying to avoid football.
Golf shook up its calendar in 2019. The PGA Championship moved to May from August. The Fedex Cup dropped a tournament, being made up of three events instead of four and it concluded on August 25th when the 2018 Fedex Cup did not begin until August 23rd.
The NBA is talking about schedule changes for the 2021-22 season. The NHL has 56 games scheduled on Sunday from October to December in 2019. From January to March, the NHL has 83 Sunday games scheduled. When January 1st falls on a Sunday, the NHL holds its Winter Classic on Monday January 2nd. Major League Soccer made a shift in its schedule this year, with MLS Cup taking place on November 10th a full month earlier than last year. Not all of those changes for MLS' schedule shift were done necessarily due to football but it surely factored into the decision. College basketball struggles to get noticed until football season ends and once football season ends we are a month away from March Madness, conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament.
If every sport tries to squeeze their seasons between February and Labor Day weekend, everyone is going to lose out. We will end up with a congested sports calendar and no one is going to stand out. The hope of getting attention is gone. The audience splinters more. You avoid football but still end up getting suffocated.
Even if you avoid football, football is talking about expanding. Every year an 18-game NFL season is brought up and while there are plenty of reasons why that should not occur, the over-arching reason as to why it will happen is money. Football is king. Two more weeks means more money and more money for everyone. It is more ticket revenue. It is higher salaries. It is more advertising dollars for television networks. It is larger television deals. It is more money going toward gambling. The rich win out. The rich are going to do what makes them richer.
If football expands, then what? What are IndyCar, NASCAR, golf, hockey, college basketball and so on going to do? Can these sports entities really afford to squeeze themselves into a tighter box?
A few years ago, when the NFL had a player lockout, NASCAR moved the Daytona 500 back a week preemptively in case the season was delayed and the Super Bowl was pushed back. There is a real chance that an expanding NFL season means the Super Bowl will permanently fall on what has customarily been Daytona 500 weekend. The NFL isn't going to stop out of courtesy to the Daytona 500. The NFL has an audience of over 110 million people in its favor and it can put the Super Bowl wherever it wants.
It is important for every series to maximize its potential. If IndyCar wants to end its season before football season began then it must start its season immediately after football season ends. It cannot waste a week and must maximize that window. There are even holes late in football season. Once you get to the weekend of the conference championship games that Saturday is open and there are two games on Sunday, the first of which starts at 3:30 p.m. ET. You could even run the Saturday before the Super Bowl.
However, an expanding football season also forces series to come to terms with their standings and act in their own interests. If football expands, these series have to still go out and do business. It is one thing to avoid going head-to-head with the Super Bowl, the opening weekend of the season, Thanksgiving and playoff games but there are times when you can run on a Sunday. There will be Sundays where there are only three games going on at 4:00 p.m. ET. There is competition but not much, not ten games like at 1:00 p.m. ET.
These series have to be smart and see that it could find success at events during football season. The weather is beautiful in late-September and early-October. People want to be outside as much as they can before it gets cold. If a track can draw its best crowd at the start of autumn then a series should consider that date over a summer weekend where over half that crowd stays home because of the heat.
IndyCar and NASCAR have to pick and choose their battles but it cannot completely shut down once football season gets started. Both series know that if it puts itself in a fight against the NFL it is not going to win but there are alternatives to fighting. A hell of a lot of people are going to watch football on a Sunday in September or October. It is reflex to them but there is an audience out there that will tune into a race whether it be because they are not into football or because their team has a bye week, played on Thursday night or plays on Sunday or Monday night or you will have people that choose to tune into something else because their team is getting blown out and they cannot bare it or their team is the team comfortably ahead with the backups in and a victory is a certainty.
There is no argument that avoiding football is a smart thing to do but a day may come soon where that will be unavoidable or where the congestion of sports leagues means it makes more sense to look for less crowded pastures.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Will Power but did you know...
Charles Leclerc won the Belgian Grand Prix, his first career grand prix victory.
Pedro Piquet and Marcus Armstrong split the Formula Three races from Spa-Francorchamps.
The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the FIA World Endurance Championship's 4 Hours of Silverstone. The #42 Cool Racing Oreca-Gibson of Nicolas Lapierre and Antonin Borga won in LMP2. The #91 Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz won in GTE-Pro. The #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Emmanuel Collard, Niklas Nielsen and François Perrodo won in GTE-Am.
The #28 IDEC Sport Oreca-Nissan of Memo Rojas, Paul-Loup Chatin and Patrice Lafargue won ELMS' 4 Hours of Silverstone. The #11 Eurointernational Ligier-Nissan of Mikkel Jensen and Jens Petersen won in the LMP3 class, its second victory of the season. The #88 Proton Competition Porsche of Thomas Preining, Gianluca Girauldi and Ricardo Sanchez won in GTE.
Erik Jones won the Southern 500. Cole Custer won the Grand National Series race after Denny Hamlin was disqualified.
Rinus VeeKay and Toby Sowery split the Indy Lights race from Portland. Kyle Kirkwood swept the Indy Pro 2000 races. Hunter McElrea swept the U.S. F2000 races.
The #61 R.Ferri Motorsport Ferrari of Daniel Serra and Toni Vilander swept the Blancpain World Challenge America races from Watkins Glen.
The #19 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW of Greg Liefooghe and Seain Quinlan and the #34 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Matt Fassnacht and Christia Szymczak split the GT4 America SprintX races from Watkins Glen. The #50 Panoz of Ian James and the #18 Andretti Autosport McLaren of Jarett Andretti split the GT4 America sprint races.
The #563 Orange1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli and the #76 R-Motorsport Aston Martin of Ricky Collard and Marvin Kirchhöfer split the Blancpain World Challenge Europe races from Nürburgring.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Italian Grand Prix.
The Brickyard 400.
Super GT is at Autopolis.
World Superbike returns after two months off at Algarve.
The Blancpain World Challenge Europe season concludes at the Hungaroring.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
First Impressions: Portland 2019
1. For a driver that has had plenty of bad fortune this season, Will Power got a little bit of what comes around today. This might not have been Power's day but through mechanical problems for Scott Dixon and poor tire management for Colton Herta, Power ended up inheriting the lead. What also ended up in Power's favor is he used the alternate tire on the first stint, when the top five remained tightly packed together. On the second stint, Power had the primary tire and with Dixon out of his way he had clean racetrack to run away from the field.
Power went unchallenged for the second half of the race, outside of that final restart, but even then no one came close to touching Power. He picked up his second victory of 2019 and his 37th career victory, putting him in a tie with Sébastien Bourdais for sixth all-time. This was Power's first victory at Portland and his 21st different track where he has won, only Mario Andretti, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon have won at more.
Power can look back at a handful of races and missed opportunities and that is what is keeping him from being a championship contender heading to Laguna Seca. However, Power again is setting up a strong end to a season. He did the same thing at the end of 2013 and it led to a title the following year. Power still has the pace and 2020 will be another chance for him to claim the top spot.
This time next year we could be looking at today's result as the first domino to fall on a second title for Power.
2. Another road course race and another runner-up finish for Felix Rosenqvist. Rosenqvist has gotten the results this year. He has remained on the heels of Dixon and that has put him in a spot to pick up these type of results when Dixon falters.
Rosenqvist lost this race on the second stint when he took the alternate tire. Power had the advantage from there and it was going to take a monumental drive for Rosenqvist to flip that. Looking back at Mid-Ohio, maybe this could have been Rosenqvist's chance to jump to a three-stop strategy late, get off the alternate tire earlier than the two-stoppers and maybe he would have had a late charge on Power.
That is a hypothetical we will never get to see but Rosenqvist has shown he has the pace to keep up the front-runners. He will get one more chance as a victory in 2019 in three weeks at Laguna Seca but he is set up for an encouraging sophomore campaign.
3. Alexander Rossi took out points in the gap to Josef Newgarden but this was a weekend where he should have gotten more. Rossi had plenty of opportunities to cut this down to 20 points or 25 points. Newgarden didn't advance to round two in qualifying and had to start 13th. Rossi missed out on the Fast Six and had to start seventh. Rossi couldn't get to the front of the pack and all the pieces that started between him and Newgarden were mostly knocked out of the way in the first fifth of the race.
Rossi heads to Portland 41 points behind Newgarden. It is not insurmountable but he could have been a much smaller hill for Rossi to attack. The most important thing is he is still alive and after the blunder of cutting a tire in turn one last year at Sonoma Rossi knows how important it will be to take control of the weekend at Laguna Seca if he hopes to win the Astor Cup in 2019.
4. Colton Herta got bit when it came to the alternate tire. The team made him run as long as he could on the first stint, mostly to make each following stop shorter and to make sure he did not have to conserve fuel but he lost all the ground there and quickly fell out of race contention.
A similar thing happened at Road America. The team made the wrong tire strategy and it cost him late. This time it cost him early but the deficit was too much to make up. Herta had the pace this weekend to win. It is a shame he wasn't on the podium but at 19 years old he is at a competitive level that is far above most on the grid. He has made some mistakes this year but his cars have let him down as well, see Barber, Indianapolis and Iowa.
The pace isn't going to go away but if the reliability improves it would not be crazy to think Herta could head to Portland in 2020 as a 20 year old and a championship contender.
5. We touched upon Josef Newgarden above but when Graham Rahal barreled into Zach Veach and Conor Daly at the start, the 15th place starter took out the ninth place starter and the 11th place starter. The 13th place starter, Newgarden got through without being touched.
This will be one of these days where Newgarden can look at and say this is where he won the title. Pocono is another. In the big incidents where multiple cars were taken out, Newgarden avoided all of those incidents. This could have been a race where Newgarden started 13th and was stuck, not getting higher than ninth or tenth despite fighting his heart out. Newgarden keeps it clean and when you do that you get results like today.
The gap isn't large enough to say Newgarden has a hand on the Astor Cup. If Newgarden's worse day befalls him in Monterey then it is on the table for Rossi or Simon Pagenaud to snag but Newgarden has done everything right this season. It is Newgarden's for the taking.
6. Last year, Spencer Pigot had an inspiring drive at Portland. He did the same thing this year. Ed Carpenter Racing has been bipolar this year. The oval pace has been there but not at the level to win a race. The road course pace has been there at times. The team has made the second round of qualifying and looked like a sleeper for the race only for it not to come close to panning out. Today, Pigot was good even after being spun in that first corner accident. He was the only car to continue after the lap one turn one mess. Who knows what he could have done if it had not been for that early set back.
7. Simon Pagenaud comes home in seventh. He never really appeared to have the pace this weekend to fight at the front and seventh is a good day. It keeps him in the fight, 42 points behind Newgarden.
8. Attrition is how Matheus Leist got this eighth place finish. It should be noted Leist put on tires before that final restart and he made up two positions but Leist kept his nose clean and it got him his second best finish of his IndyCar career. Good for him!
9. Sébastien Bourdais' streak of podium finishes at Portland ends at five and this was a race where a long first stop cost him dearly. I don't know if he was going to challenge for the podium but he could have been up there fighting Newgarden for a top five.
10. Charlie Kimball gets another top ten finish without being flashy. This is whom Kimball is and a team should take a crack at him. He gets results and does not tear up a lot of equipment. There has to be someone interested in him. Shout out to Max Chilton who finished 11th! It was a result Chilton needed.
11. Quickly through the rest of the field: Tony Kanaan was 12th and it seems like pit strategy went against him, maybe tire strategy as well. Marco Andretti was in the top ten for most of this race but contact with Pagenaud damaged his wing and forced him to make an extra stop. Andretti was better than 13th today. Ed Jones did nothing and finished 14th. Takuma Sato had some damage at the start and the best he was going to do is 15th. Santino Ferrucci had a mechanical failure and that was his first retirement of the year.
12. Scott Dixon had the car slow while leading. This was appearing to be a day where Dixon would pull out a victory, take a chunk out of the championship lead and head to Laguna Seca about 55 points behind Newgarden, a scary gap knowing Dixon's late season heroic. That wasn't meant to be today but Dixon is still alive, 85 points behind Newgarden.
Dixon has left a lot of points on the table. Some of it has been out of his hands. There was no way he could have stopped debris from penetrating his radiator at Gateway or the electrical issues today. He was caught in a racing incident with Colton Herta at Texas and he got some damage in the Indianapolis 500 when other drivers got together ahead of him and he had nowhere to go. He made his share of mistakes, hitting the barrier at Belle Isle while in a podium position. Dixon has been great this year. Flip two or three of those races around and Dixon is still heading to Laguna Seca alive for the title but within serious striking distance.
It will take a colossal collapse or a colossal amount of misfortune on Newgarden's part for Dixon to take the title but it is Scott Dixon, do not rule him out.
13. Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal made poor decisions today. Hunter-Reay defended aggressively against his teammate Rossi for fifth early in the race. The distraction in Hunter-Reay's mirrors took his attention off his braking point and he slid into Jack Harvey, who was set to have another great day.
Nobody likes team orders but man team orders would have benefitted Rossi and Hunter-Reay today. It would have given Rossi a position and it would have kept Hunter-Reay and Harvey on the track, two drivers that could have finished between Rossi and Newgarden and they could have helped Rossi in terms of the deficit.
Rahal was never going to make the first corner. He hit Veach, Veach slid into James Hinchcliffe and Conor Daly was clipped when Rahal's car continued to skid. This is the second time in three races Hondas took out a slew of Hondas. It was five Hondas at Pocono and it was four today. These were four more cars that could have helped Rossi.
It was a shame Daly and Veach could not take advantage of great qualifying performances and Hinchcliffe and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports again find themselves in a late season nosedive. They will have one shot to end this season on a high note.
14. It was bad enough there was a four-car incident on lap one. It was worse that they had to tow Hinchcliffe and Veach's car all the way around the entire racetrack to get them back to pit lane. It was terrible that the officials had to organize the field before opening pit lane and that is how the first 12 laps were run under caution.
These long cautions are not as numerous as they once were in IndyCar but it is still frustrating. I know why Hinchcliffe and Veach had to be towed around the entire length of the circuit but there has to be a quicker way to get cars stopped in turn one back to the paddock or pit lane, especially on a road course.
Once again, not the end of the world, not ideal either but this is a rare occurrence and this could be something where changes are made to improve decrease caution length in the future.
15. Let's set up the championship picture: Josef Newgarden leads Alexander Rossi by 41 points, Simon Pagenaud by 42 points and Scott Dixon by 85 points. A top five finish at Laguna Seca can pretty much seal the title for him. That is not much wiggle room in case either Rossi or Pagenaud win. Rossi and Pagenaud are going to have to be superb. Dixon is going to need help. It is going to go down to the wire again.
16. We have two weekends off and then the season finale from Laguna Seca. For three weeks we will talk about these four drivers and go over every possible scenario for this championship. We will have plenty to keep us busy and distract us from the looming offseason. Enjoy these final days of summer and the season.
Power went unchallenged for the second half of the race, outside of that final restart, but even then no one came close to touching Power. He picked up his second victory of 2019 and his 37th career victory, putting him in a tie with Sébastien Bourdais for sixth all-time. This was Power's first victory at Portland and his 21st different track where he has won, only Mario Andretti, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon have won at more.
Power can look back at a handful of races and missed opportunities and that is what is keeping him from being a championship contender heading to Laguna Seca. However, Power again is setting up a strong end to a season. He did the same thing at the end of 2013 and it led to a title the following year. Power still has the pace and 2020 will be another chance for him to claim the top spot.
This time next year we could be looking at today's result as the first domino to fall on a second title for Power.
2. Another road course race and another runner-up finish for Felix Rosenqvist. Rosenqvist has gotten the results this year. He has remained on the heels of Dixon and that has put him in a spot to pick up these type of results when Dixon falters.
Rosenqvist lost this race on the second stint when he took the alternate tire. Power had the advantage from there and it was going to take a monumental drive for Rosenqvist to flip that. Looking back at Mid-Ohio, maybe this could have been Rosenqvist's chance to jump to a three-stop strategy late, get off the alternate tire earlier than the two-stoppers and maybe he would have had a late charge on Power.
That is a hypothetical we will never get to see but Rosenqvist has shown he has the pace to keep up the front-runners. He will get one more chance as a victory in 2019 in three weeks at Laguna Seca but he is set up for an encouraging sophomore campaign.
3. Alexander Rossi took out points in the gap to Josef Newgarden but this was a weekend where he should have gotten more. Rossi had plenty of opportunities to cut this down to 20 points or 25 points. Newgarden didn't advance to round two in qualifying and had to start 13th. Rossi missed out on the Fast Six and had to start seventh. Rossi couldn't get to the front of the pack and all the pieces that started between him and Newgarden were mostly knocked out of the way in the first fifth of the race.
Rossi heads to Portland 41 points behind Newgarden. It is not insurmountable but he could have been a much smaller hill for Rossi to attack. The most important thing is he is still alive and after the blunder of cutting a tire in turn one last year at Sonoma Rossi knows how important it will be to take control of the weekend at Laguna Seca if he hopes to win the Astor Cup in 2019.
4. Colton Herta got bit when it came to the alternate tire. The team made him run as long as he could on the first stint, mostly to make each following stop shorter and to make sure he did not have to conserve fuel but he lost all the ground there and quickly fell out of race contention.
A similar thing happened at Road America. The team made the wrong tire strategy and it cost him late. This time it cost him early but the deficit was too much to make up. Herta had the pace this weekend to win. It is a shame he wasn't on the podium but at 19 years old he is at a competitive level that is far above most on the grid. He has made some mistakes this year but his cars have let him down as well, see Barber, Indianapolis and Iowa.
The pace isn't going to go away but if the reliability improves it would not be crazy to think Herta could head to Portland in 2020 as a 20 year old and a championship contender.
5. We touched upon Josef Newgarden above but when Graham Rahal barreled into Zach Veach and Conor Daly at the start, the 15th place starter took out the ninth place starter and the 11th place starter. The 13th place starter, Newgarden got through without being touched.
This will be one of these days where Newgarden can look at and say this is where he won the title. Pocono is another. In the big incidents where multiple cars were taken out, Newgarden avoided all of those incidents. This could have been a race where Newgarden started 13th and was stuck, not getting higher than ninth or tenth despite fighting his heart out. Newgarden keeps it clean and when you do that you get results like today.
The gap isn't large enough to say Newgarden has a hand on the Astor Cup. If Newgarden's worse day befalls him in Monterey then it is on the table for Rossi or Simon Pagenaud to snag but Newgarden has done everything right this season. It is Newgarden's for the taking.
6. Last year, Spencer Pigot had an inspiring drive at Portland. He did the same thing this year. Ed Carpenter Racing has been bipolar this year. The oval pace has been there but not at the level to win a race. The road course pace has been there at times. The team has made the second round of qualifying and looked like a sleeper for the race only for it not to come close to panning out. Today, Pigot was good even after being spun in that first corner accident. He was the only car to continue after the lap one turn one mess. Who knows what he could have done if it had not been for that early set back.
7. Simon Pagenaud comes home in seventh. He never really appeared to have the pace this weekend to fight at the front and seventh is a good day. It keeps him in the fight, 42 points behind Newgarden.
8. Attrition is how Matheus Leist got this eighth place finish. It should be noted Leist put on tires before that final restart and he made up two positions but Leist kept his nose clean and it got him his second best finish of his IndyCar career. Good for him!
9. Sébastien Bourdais' streak of podium finishes at Portland ends at five and this was a race where a long first stop cost him dearly. I don't know if he was going to challenge for the podium but he could have been up there fighting Newgarden for a top five.
10. Charlie Kimball gets another top ten finish without being flashy. This is whom Kimball is and a team should take a crack at him. He gets results and does not tear up a lot of equipment. There has to be someone interested in him. Shout out to Max Chilton who finished 11th! It was a result Chilton needed.
11. Quickly through the rest of the field: Tony Kanaan was 12th and it seems like pit strategy went against him, maybe tire strategy as well. Marco Andretti was in the top ten for most of this race but contact with Pagenaud damaged his wing and forced him to make an extra stop. Andretti was better than 13th today. Ed Jones did nothing and finished 14th. Takuma Sato had some damage at the start and the best he was going to do is 15th. Santino Ferrucci had a mechanical failure and that was his first retirement of the year.
12. Scott Dixon had the car slow while leading. This was appearing to be a day where Dixon would pull out a victory, take a chunk out of the championship lead and head to Laguna Seca about 55 points behind Newgarden, a scary gap knowing Dixon's late season heroic. That wasn't meant to be today but Dixon is still alive, 85 points behind Newgarden.
Dixon has left a lot of points on the table. Some of it has been out of his hands. There was no way he could have stopped debris from penetrating his radiator at Gateway or the electrical issues today. He was caught in a racing incident with Colton Herta at Texas and he got some damage in the Indianapolis 500 when other drivers got together ahead of him and he had nowhere to go. He made his share of mistakes, hitting the barrier at Belle Isle while in a podium position. Dixon has been great this year. Flip two or three of those races around and Dixon is still heading to Laguna Seca alive for the title but within serious striking distance.
It will take a colossal collapse or a colossal amount of misfortune on Newgarden's part for Dixon to take the title but it is Scott Dixon, do not rule him out.
13. Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal made poor decisions today. Hunter-Reay defended aggressively against his teammate Rossi for fifth early in the race. The distraction in Hunter-Reay's mirrors took his attention off his braking point and he slid into Jack Harvey, who was set to have another great day.
Nobody likes team orders but man team orders would have benefitted Rossi and Hunter-Reay today. It would have given Rossi a position and it would have kept Hunter-Reay and Harvey on the track, two drivers that could have finished between Rossi and Newgarden and they could have helped Rossi in terms of the deficit.
Rahal was never going to make the first corner. He hit Veach, Veach slid into James Hinchcliffe and Conor Daly was clipped when Rahal's car continued to skid. This is the second time in three races Hondas took out a slew of Hondas. It was five Hondas at Pocono and it was four today. These were four more cars that could have helped Rossi.
It was a shame Daly and Veach could not take advantage of great qualifying performances and Hinchcliffe and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports again find themselves in a late season nosedive. They will have one shot to end this season on a high note.
14. It was bad enough there was a four-car incident on lap one. It was worse that they had to tow Hinchcliffe and Veach's car all the way around the entire racetrack to get them back to pit lane. It was terrible that the officials had to organize the field before opening pit lane and that is how the first 12 laps were run under caution.
These long cautions are not as numerous as they once were in IndyCar but it is still frustrating. I know why Hinchcliffe and Veach had to be towed around the entire length of the circuit but there has to be a quicker way to get cars stopped in turn one back to the paddock or pit lane, especially on a road course.
Once again, not the end of the world, not ideal either but this is a rare occurrence and this could be something where changes are made to improve decrease caution length in the future.
15. Let's set up the championship picture: Josef Newgarden leads Alexander Rossi by 41 points, Simon Pagenaud by 42 points and Scott Dixon by 85 points. A top five finish at Laguna Seca can pretty much seal the title for him. That is not much wiggle room in case either Rossi or Pagenaud win. Rossi and Pagenaud are going to have to be superb. Dixon is going to need help. It is going to go down to the wire again.
16. We have two weekends off and then the season finale from Laguna Seca. For three weeks we will talk about these four drivers and go over every possible scenario for this championship. We will have plenty to keep us busy and distract us from the looming offseason. Enjoy these final days of summer and the season.
Morning Warm-Up: Portland 2019
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| Colton Herta claimed another pole position |
Will Power will start second and Power was 0.0192 seconds off Herta. Only twice has Power won from second on the grid and both times came in Canada. He won from second starting position at Toronto in 2010 and he won from second at Edmonton in 2011. Power has not finished in the top five in the penultimate race of a season since he won at Houston in 2013. The only other times he has finished in the top five of the penultimate race of the season were in 2010 and 2011 when he finished third and second respectively at Motegi. The 2011 Motegi race was held on the road course after damage from the Tōhoku earthquake.
Scott Dixon will start in third position after he was 0.0244 seconds off Herta in the final round of qualifying. Dixon has won a race at 23 different tracks in his IndyCar career but he has never won at Portland. If Dixon were to win at Portland this weekend he would tie Dario Franchitti for second most different tracks won at. The last "new" track Dixon won at was Road America in 2017. Dixon has finished in the top ten in all three of his Portland starts with results of seventh, seventh and fifth. Dixon had never led a lap at Portland. The only other track where Dixon has made at least three starts and never led a lap is Baltimore, where he made three starts.
Jack Harvey falls one spot shy of matching his career best starting position but for the second time in 2019 he will start on the second row of the grid. Harvey has finished in the top fifteen of every natural-terrain road course this season and he has top ten finishes in three of five natural-terrain road course races in 2019. This will be Harvey's 18th career start. Four drivers have scored their first career victory in their 18th career start: Peter DePaolo, Rodger Ward, Paul Tracy and Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Felix Rosenqvist and Ryan Hunter-Reay will start on row three. Rosenqvist failed to get a top ten finish on an oval in his rookie year but he leads all rookies with four top five finishes, eight top ten finishes, five races led and this was his sixth Fast Six appearance in 2019. This is the tenth time Rosenqvist has started in the top ten this season. The only time he has started in the top ten and finished better than his starting position was when he went from sixth to second at Mid-Ohio and the only other time he didn't finish worse than his starting position was when he started and finished fourth in the first Belle Isle race. Hunter-Reay has finished in the top five of the penultimate race of the season for five consecutive years, including podium finishes in four of those five years. Prior to this stretch the only time Hunter-Reay had finished in the top five of the penultimate race was in 2004 when he was fifth at Surfers Paradise.
Alexander Rossi failed to advance to the Fast Six for the first time since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, failing to advance by 0.0227 seconds and he will start seventh at Portland, a position better than where Rossi finished in last year's Portland race. This is only the second time Rossi has started seventh in his IndyCar career. The other time was at Pocono in 2016. Rossi has finished outside the top ten in the last two races. It is the first time Rossi has had consecutive results outside the top ten since he had finishes of 22nd, 13th and 11th at Texas, Road America and Toronto respectively in 2017. Rossi has not had a podium in the last four races. In the last 38 races, the only other time Rossi has not had a podium in a stretch of four races or more was five races from Portland and Sonoma last year through St. Petersburg, Austin and Barber this season.
Substitute Conor Daly put the #7 Arrow Honda ninth on the grid. With Conor Daly taking over the #7 Arrow Honda for the absent Marcus Ericsson, this will be the tenth different number Daly has driven in his IndyCar career. Daly has run car #4, #5, #17, #18, #25, #41, #43, #59 and #88. According to the record book, this will be Daly's 49th career start. Car #7 has not won a race since Danica Patrick won at Motegi in 2008. Car #7 has won three times at Portland. Al Unser, Jr won the inaugural race, his first career victory, in 1984, Max Papis took victory here in 2001 and A.J. Allmendinger picked up his first career victory here in 2006.
Spencer Pigot rounds out the top ten. Pigot has been the top Ed Carpenter Racing finisher in seven of ten road and street course races this season but this was only the fifth time he has been the top ECR qualifier at a road course race. The only time Pigot has made the Fast Six in his IndyCar career was earlier this season at Barber, where he started sixth.
Zach Veach starts 11th and it was the first time Veach has made it to the second round of qualifying since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Veach has finished on the lead lap of four of ten road/street course races this season with those races being Barber, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the two Belle Isle races. Veach's average finish in those four races is tenth. His average finish in the ten races where he has finished a lap down is 19.3. Sébastien Bourdais joins Veach on row six. This is the tenth time Bourdais has started 12th in his IndyCar career. Bourdais has five consecutive podium finishes at Portland. Portland is tied with Toronto and Long Beach for location of most podium finishes for Bourdais. If Bourdais were to win at Portland this weekend he would not only tie Michael Andretti and Al Unser, Jr. for most victories at the track but Portland would join Long Beach as the only tracks where Bourdais has won three times at.
Josef Newgarden missed out on the second round of qualifying by 0.0163 seconds. This is Newgarden's worse starting position since he started 13th at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The only time Newgarden has won a race from outside the top ten was from 11th at Toronto in 2015. Newgarden has four fastest laps this season, taking the honor at St. Petersburg, the first Belle Isle race, Iowa and Gateway. The last driver to have fastest lap in consecutive races was Will Power at Iowa and Toronto last year. Newgarden has not had fastest lap on a natural-terrain road course since Road America in 2017. Regardless of what happens in the final two races, Newgarden will end the season with most laps led. Santino Ferrucci will start 14th after missing out on round two by 0.0986 seconds. Ferrucci will be making his second visit to Portland this weekend. Last year, he started 18th but had his race disrupted with a fuel pressure issue that knocked him off the lead lap. He would end up finishing 20th, four laps down.
Takuma Sato could become the first Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver to win consecutive races since Kenny Bräck won at Motegi and Milwaukee in 2001 but Sato will have to do it from 17th position. The good news for Sato is he won last year at Portland from 20th on the grid; the furthest back a Portland winner has started. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has not won at a track in consecutive years since Bryan Herta won at Laguna Seca in 1998 and 1999. Simon Pagenaud starts 18th, his second worst starting position of 2019. This is the eighth time in 11 road and street course races Pagenaud has started outside the top ten. Pagenaud enters Portland with consecutive top five finishes. He has not had three consecutive top five finishes since he has four consecutive top five finishes from Toronto to Gateway in 2017. Only twice has he had a top five finish in the penultimate race of a season. He had a fifth place finish at Surfers Paradise in 2007 and he was third at Baltimore in 2013.
Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton will start on row ten. Kanaan is coming off a third place finish at Portland, his best finish of the season and it was his first top five finish in over two years. The last time Kanaan had consecutive top five finishes was when he won the 2014 season finale at Fontana and finished third in the 2015 season opener at St. Petersburg. Chilton led ten laps in last year's Portland race after a caution came out before Chilton was able to make his final pit stop. Once Chilton made his final stop he came home in 18th position. That is the last time Chilton has led a lap in his IndyCar career. The only other time Chilton has led a lap on a road or street course was at Toronto in 2017 when he led one lap. He has led 65 laps in his career on ovals.
Ed Jones rounds out the starting grid in 23rd. Jones has averaged 17 points from 11 starts this season. Ed Carpenter averaged 32.2 points from his five starts in the #20 Chevrolet. Jones has scored more than 17 points in three races this season, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis 500 that paid double points and Toronto. At the Indianapolis 500, Jones finished 13th and scored 40 points, six points for qualifying fourth and 34 points for the 13th place finish. In a regular points race, 13th position pays 17 points.
When the green flag falls to start the Grand Prix of Portland, Newgarden's championship lead will decrease to 33 points over Rossi, Pagenaud will drop to 39 points behind Newgarden and Dixon will only be 48 points back heading into turn one.
NBC's coverage of the Grand Prix of Portland begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:40 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 105 laps.
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