Donny Schatz won the Knoxville Nationals for the tenth time and Kyle Larson finished second. It didn't rain in Austria, which meant Cal Crutchlow got to race. Two part-timers got victories this weekend in NASCAR-sanctioned races. Pirelli World Challenge ran the penultimate Sprint X round of the season at Utah Motorsports Campus. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Scripting 2017-18 IndyCar Silly Season
This is the third time I have done this. Every year we reach the point of IndyCar silly season where a handful of seats will be switching and now we are waiting to see where the pieces will fall. However, most of the time it feels like divine intervention should come into play and give a little direction over who goes where in IndyCar.
It seems every other year we say we are looking at a silly season that has never been seen before and then it ends up being a pretty tame period and the new season starts. This year feels different to the point it might make many uncomfortable. Currently, there are more open seats than filled seats and I doubt we will be opening presents on Christmas morning this year knowing the entire IndyCar grid is set for the upcoming season. This feels like it is going to be the year where at least one household name in IndyCar will be on the outside and perhaps it could be as many as two.
Here are the drivers we feel certain will still be in the same seat in 2018: Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti, Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal, Sébastien Bourdais and Ed Carpenter will have some type of seat within the Ed Carpenter Racing stable.
Other than that it is a game of musical chairs that is more of a race car driver battle royal with as many as three-dozen drivers from every corner of this godforsaken planet trying to fill at most 15 seats. Where do we begin when it comes to scripting an IndyCar Silly Season fantasy? Do we start at the top? Do we get the bottom out of the way? This whole process is absurd. Remember, this isn't fact. This isn't what is going to happen. This is a pure fanatical exercise to stretch the mind's creativity.
Let's start with someone who I think should stay put and that is James Hinchcliffe. The Canadian has a good thing going at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and I don't think there is another paying option out there better than the one he currently has. He and the team have won races together; let's not ruin a good thing. As for his teammate, if Arrow Electronics is serious and is going to step up to fund two cars than I think the best option would be to reunite the 2011 Newman-Haas Racing duo and bring in Oriol Servià to team with Hinchcliffe. Servià turned 43 years old in July so he has more days behind him than ahead but Servià will have valuable knowledge with the new universal aero kit as he is one of the two test drivers. I think Servià could be one of the top five available drivers this offseason because of that experience he brings to a team. As for more cars at SPM, let's stick at two for now and see where other pieces fall.
Let's shift to another Honda team, Dale Coyne Racing to be precise. Bourdais will return. After all this team went through to get the band back together from Bourdais' championship-winning days at Newman-Haas with engineer Craig Hampson and chief mechanic Todd Phillips joining the team, Bourdais isn't bolting and I bet he has something to prove after the very successful start to this season before his accident in Indianapolis 500 qualifying. His teammate is another story. Ed Jones was the darling of the first half of the season but ever since he finished third in the Indianapolis 500 he has fallen to back earth a bit and has looked like a rookie. Dale Coyne Racing isn't known for consistent driver lineups and keeping one driver for a second consecutive season is a feat in of itself. Keeping two drivers for another season would be astonishing. The problem for Jones is Coyne will hire anybody from anywhere. Jones doesn't have to try and only beat an Indy Lights driver hoping to breakthrough. He could lose out to a Danish F4 driver or a Japanese Formula Three driver.
I think it would be best for Coyne if he kept Jones for a second year and allowed him a full year of tutelage from Bourdais, something the young Emirati driver lost out on this year after the Frenchmen was hurt in May.
Two teams down and not much change. Maybe this silly season won't be so crazy after all but we are only getting started.
Let's jump over to a Chevrolet team and Ed Carpenter Racing to be specific. J.R. Hildebrand's first year with the team hasn't been great but the entire team was going through a shake up heading into 2017 as Newgarden left for Penske and engineer Jeremy Milless left for Andretti Autosport. I think Hildebrand, as well as everyone else on that team, deserves at least a second season. As for the #20 Chevrolet, Spencer Pigot got his second year of road/street course duty and he has been impressive even in races where the results haven't been there. Pigot has made passes most drivers don't even dare attempt and he is ready for a full season. That full season opportunity should come at Ed Carpenter Racing. I don't want to say Pigot is Josef Newgarden 2.0 but he is something special that the big dogs are not ready to embrace. That makes ECR the perfect place for Pigot to show what he has got.
As for Carpenter, this is the time to step aside and only attempt the Indianapolis 500 or try to put a program together for all the ovals. Having two cars going for the championship will be best for the team and perhaps it can get the team back to championship contention.
So three teams down and still not much change. Let's dive into the deep end then.
We all have heard the rumor by now that Andretti Autosport might be returning to Chevrolet for the 2018 season. I think the team has to make the move because Chevrolet is offering a favorable deal that would financially benefit the team. It can't turn that down. A switch to Chevrolet means Takuma Sato is out as well as Alexander Rossi, as he apparently is tied to Honda. Andretti Autosport won't be down to just Hunter-Reay and Andretti. The team will have three cars and this sets up nicely for a three-car lineup with Tony Kanaan returning to the team for one final go at it. All three were teammates in 2010 and they finished sixth, seventh and eighth in the championship with Kanaan leading Hunter-Reay and Andretti.
With Kanaan returning to Andretti Autosport, what does that mean for Chip Ganassi Racing? This is where I think things get interesting. Dixon will be there but Max Chilton will be walking. The Brit has ties to Carlin but more on that in a moment. If Chilton is going, Ganassi has to keep Kimball and not lose that money, even if it is less than Kimball has brought in past seasons. I don't think Ganassi would drop to two entries for 2018 and while it loses Chilton and Kanaan, Ganassi brings in Felix Rosenqvist. The Swede has won everywhere he has gone (he still has a half dozen races to get a win in Super Formula and he didn't win in DTM, but I digress). He is the future for Chip Ganassi Racing.
As for Chilton, he is going to be the one to bring Carlin to the big time that is IndyCar. How is he going to do that all on his own? He isn't going to do it by bringing Kimball along with him from Ganassi. Carlin is going to need an engine deal to get onto the grid and there is only one driver who swings a ball and chain that big. That is Takuma Sato. Carlin signs Sato, reuniting the pairing that won the 2001 British Formula Three championship and the 2001 Macau Grand Prix and Carlin has a Honda engine deal that allows it to enter IndyCar.
Quick recap: SPM keeps Hinchcliffe and adds Servià, no change at DCR, only change at ECR is Pigot full-time and Carpenter in a third part-time entry, Andretti Autosport to Chevrolet and Kanaan enters while the last two Indianapolis 500 winners leave, Ganassi keeps Dixon and Kimball and adds Rosenqvist, Carlin completes its rise to IndyCar with help from Chilton and Honda's boy Sato.
That leaves Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Team Penske and A.J. Foyt Racing.
With Andretti leaving Honda and Ganassi dropping a car, that leaves a few open Honda engine leases and it finally allows Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to expand its operation. With Rossi still hanging out there, an all-American two-car line up seems fitting for RLLR. A Rossi-Rahal partnership seems like a tag team capable of overthrowing the IndyCar overlords of Penske, Ganassi and Andretti.
This year has not been easy for A.J. Foyt Racing but after cleaning house coming into 2017, you can't expect cleaning house at the end of 2017 to be the answer to the problems. The team has two capable drivers in Carlos Muñoz and Conor Daly and both have got to get another season.
On to Penske. With the end to Hélio Castroneves' full-time IndyCar career seeming eminent, it appears Penske will be set to shrink to three cars with three strong drivers in Pagenaud, Power and Newgarden. The team is taking on Acura's DPi program. Those workers have to come from somewhere and shifting them over from an IndyCar program.
We have gone through all the existing IndyCar teams, plus one and let's take a look at the grid: 11 Honda, 10 Chevrolets full-time with another one possibly for all the oval, the only rookie would be Rosenqvist but we aren't done just yet. Carlin isn't the only team joining IndyCar in 2018 though there is a catch.
Juncos Racing will also join the IndyCar grid but it is dependent on Kyle Kaiser winning the Indy Lights title. Kaiser wins the Indy Lights title, he and Juncos will be full-time in IndyCar with a Chevrolet engine package. The team might need some additional funding for a second seat. While Sebastián Saavedra isn't the sexiest option, Gary Peterson for some reason funds him wherever he goes and a second car, even if it is Saavedra, would benefit Juncos Racing as it enters IndyCar full-time and Saavedra was respectable with Juncos Racing at Indianapolis in May.
This would see IndyCar up to ten teams, 23 full-time entries and with two rookies on the grid. Who is still on the outside? Harding Racing has done well in its first two races and might be back for Pocono but it is a new team and I am not sure if it is ready for the big time of a full-time IndyCar schedule. Unlike Carlin and Juncos, Harding Racing doesn't have years of operating as a racing team to fall back on. It is still learning and it doesn't need to be in IndyCar full-time in year two. It would be better to have a second year to stretch its legs and continue to learn how to walk than try to sprint with the big boys.
Besides Harding Racing and in all likelihood Gabby Chaves, also on the outside would be Mikhail Aleshin, Esteban Gutiérrez, Zach Veach, Jack Harvey, Tristan Vautier, Sage Karam, Santiago Urrutia, Matthew Brabham and a handful of drivers from international series that have yet to publicly throw their hat into the IndyCar ring. There are always more drivers than seats. It never seems fair. Even in a fantasy world I can't find places for them all and maybe I don't have the imagination I once had. I didn't include off the wall ideas like Kasey Kahne or Ricky Taylor entering IndyCar. Maybe I am too grounded in the real world.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Donny Schatz but did you know...
Andrea Dovizioso won MotoGP's Austrian Grand Prix, his third victory of the season. Franco Morbidelli won in Moto2, his seventh victory of the season. Joan Mir won in Moto3, his third consecutive victory and seventh of the season.
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Michigan. Sam Hornish, Jr. won the Grand National Series race from Mid-Ohio. Darrell Wallace, Jr. won the Truck race from Michigan.
The #93 Acura of Peter Kox and Mark Wilkins and the #31 TR3 Racing Ferrari of Daniel Mancinelli and Niccolò Schirò split the PWC Sprint X races. Rodrigo Baptiste and Ian James split the GTS races.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Pocono 500.
NASCAR will be at Bristol.
World Superbikes are back in action and they head to EuroSpeedway Lausitz one final time.
The DTM will be at Zandvoort.
Supercars head to Sydney Motorsports Park.
Super Formula is back for the first time in six weeks and is at Honda's backyard, Twin Ring Motegi.
The World Rally Championship contest Rally Deutschland.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Thursday, August 10, 2017
A Look Back: IndyCar at Gateway
We are in the middle of IndyCar's summer break and this break has given us some time to look back, which is important as IndyCar's return to Gateway in a few weeks away. The last time the series went to the track was in 2003 and a lot has changed since then. During the last few days I have gone back and watched the seven previous IndyCar races at Gateway.
The first reason I revisited these races was because it has been 14 years since IndyCar has been to Gateway and off the top of my head I couldn't recall what the races were like. The second reason was because I wanted to see what the racing was like to give me an idea of what to look forward to when IndyCar returns there at the end of the month. The one noticeable difference between this upcoming race and the previous seven races is this year's race will be at night while the other seven were day races but it will still give me an idea what to expect.
I started with the 1997 race and I was first taken aback that it has been 20 years since the first time Gateway hosted an IndyCar race. It doesn't feel like Gateway has been around that long. I know IndyCar spend almost a decade and a half away from the track and there were a few years during the recession where the track struggled, lost all its dates, saw a change of ownership and then got a NASCAR Truck race back in 2014 but I can't believe it has been 20 years. Twenty years have flown by.
Anyway, onto the race itself and the first thing I noticed was how much it looked like a race track that had just completed construction. Despite this, the front straightaway grandstand was packed with people and this isn't saying it was packed but the ends of the grandstand were empty. It looked like body on top of body from the top row down to the catch fence.
Once the race got started it was obvious the cars were downshifting into turn one and in some cases drivers were going down two gears into turn one. The first two corners looked tight and slow and it was difficult to pass. Passes could be made but a driver had to have set it up a half dozen laps prior and if it couldn't stick then it would take another half dozen laps to try it again. What made up for the lack of passing was the fuel strategy that shook up the end of the race with a rookie Dario Franchitti leading before the transmission broke and this handed the lead to rookie Patrick Carpentier. However, Carpentier would lose the lead with two laps to go as Paul Tracy passed him and took the victory while Carpentier came home in second.
The following year saw CART switch from high downforce aero package to low downforce aero package usually seen at the super speedways. There was slightly more passing than the year before but most of it came outside the top five. There were three lead changes the entire race. Jimmy Vasser led the first 42 laps, Michael Andretti led lap 43 to lap 175 and Alex Zanardi took the lead during pit stops under caution and led the final 61 laps on his way to victory. However, this race did see Scott Pruett go from 17th to fifth and a fair amount of those spots were made on the race track and Bobby Rahal went from 20th to eighth.
One thing that caught my eye was in the closing laps, with 16 to go to be specific, Zanardi and Andretti are picking through lapped traffic. Zanardi easily clears the lapped car of P.J. Jones on the front straightaway and Jones slows down significantly entering turn one, opening the door for Andretti but not enough for him to get by and Andretti locked up the left front and that pretty much killed his shot at victory. When was the last time we saw someone lock it up going into a corner on an oval? The crowd matched the 1997 crowd in terms of size.
By the time I got to the 1999 race I came to realize that a second groove never developed in either of the first three races and if two drivers went side-by-side into a corner it took a lot of bravery. Drivers were still downshifting as much as twice into turn one and there was more side-by-side racing in this race but it wasn't constant. It was sporadic and Juan Pablo Montoya made a handful of those passes as he was caught a lapped down and worked his way to the topped lapped car in the field.
The other guy who made passing look easy in this race was Hélio Castroneves. He worked his way up to second and he was on the back of Michael Andretti's car and threatened him for the victory. While these two battled and dealt with lapped traffic, Franchitti made it a three-horse race down the stretch and the Scotsman made an incredible save earlier in the race after he and his teammate Paul Tracy made contact entering turn three. Franchitti drifted the car for the duration of turn three and into turn four before sliding into the grass and straightening the car out and continuing with minimal damage. Andretti held on for the victory. The crowd was still really good but it was thinner from the first two years.
It appeared the 2000 race saw downforce added back to the cars as the cars clearly had larger rear wings but the front wings still appeared to be the low downforce, super speedway configuration. There was some more passing but it mostly came when lapped traffic got in a way and a faster car could make a run on the outside. We shouldn't get too picky about how we get passing. There was action. Cars weren't single-file for majority of the races. If it takes lapped traffic to break that up than I think we won't mind that.
Michael Andretti dominated this race. He lapped up to second place by lap 167. Then his engine blew up with 40 laps to go. And that didn't even bring out a caution. The first 210 laps were run under green flag conditions with Paul Tracy's bump into the wall in turn four while running second bringing out the first and only caution of the race for five laps. Montoya went on to comfortably win the race by over 11 seconds as he and Carpentier were the only two cars on the lead lap and Montoya restarted the race as the only car on the lead lap with Carpentier getting his lap back with just over 20 laps to go. The crowd mirrored the 1999 race but there were a few people scattered around the turn two grandstand, which I don't believe were complete for the race the year before.
While Montoya and Carpentier were the only two cars to finish on the lead lap, I would say the 2000 race was the best of the CART stint at Gateway ahead of 1999, 1997 and 1998. There was a fair amount of action for positions it was only between cars not on the lead lap.
The Indy Racing League took over at Gateway and the first thing you notice from the 2001 race is the cars are definitely running more downforce with larger rear and front wings. Passing once again seemed to only come when lapped traffic was in the way. There was a fair amount of drivers following another but not really having enough to get a draft and make a move into the corner. It was also tough to tell how much passing there was because the race seemed to focus on the leaders whether it was Sam Hornish, Jr. all by himself with a 9-second lead or Hornish, Jr. and Al Unser, Jr. running 1-2 with about a second between them but neither gaining ground on each other. Unser, Jr. won the race by stretching fuel while Hornish, Jr. stopped for a splash of fuel under caution with ten laps to go.
The 2002 race still featured high downforce and this race had much more passing than any of the prior five races and more passes were coming without the aid of lapped traffic. Alex Barron took the lead from Castroneves on the outside of turn four at one point. This race was the first Gateway race where the top four to six stayed in close proximity to one another throughout the race. The first five races either saw the leader pull away or the top two pull away. Cars still weren't running two distinct lanes but you could make a pass on the outside.
Castroneves had pulled away from his teammate Gil de Ferran and the rest of the field after the final restart with 50 laps to go but de Ferran would catch and pass Castroneves with 17 laps to go and he would go on to win the race. Barron challenged Castroneves for the lead on that final restart but went very high in turn two and dropped to fifth but recovered to finish third. Buddy Rice held off Hornish, Jr. in a battle for fourth.
The 2003 race felt like a mix of the first six races. Scott Dixon pulled away at one point but second through fourth or fifth stayed in the vicinity of one another and could make a few passes but then the race calmed down and everyone spread out after the halfway point in the race. Unfortunately for Dixon his gearbox broke with 42 laps to go after leading 78 consecutive laps and holding a sizable lead over Castroneves.
Despite having no electrical read out on his steering wheel for majority of this race, Castroneves held on to take the victory by over eight-tenths of a second to Tony Kanaan and de Ferran made it an all-Brazilian podium with Tomas Scheckter and Dan Wheldon rounding out the top five.
Where can IndyCar improve from the previous seven Gateway races? Hope two distinct lines can develop, especially in turns one and two. The first two turns are tight but the banking in the turns could be favorable to a car on the high side. What we need to see is Graham Rahal do what he did at Iowa a few weeks ago. If a car can enter turn one on the high side and carry it to the back straightaway then we could see passes not only in turns one or two but passes set up in the first two corners are then completed entering turn three.
Another hope would be for some tire degradation like we saw at Iowa. Unfortunately, the repave might make degradation non-existent, like we saw at Texas. Firestone was caught out on the tire selection at Texas and times didn't drop like we had seen in recent years, leading to a flat out race where the leader was safe as long as he stayed glued to the bottom of the race track because trailing cars couldn't carry the speed needed to make a pass on the high side. After IndyCar tested at the track last week drivers noted how they no longer had to downshift two gears into turn one like they were at the test on the older surface in the spring test and a handful of drivers were able to be flat out all the way around the 1.25-mile oval.
One question that occurred to me when watching all these races was are super speedways ruining how we view short ovals? We say we want oval races but I worry that because of the races put on at Indianapolis, Fontana, Pocono and Texas in the DW12-era that the bar is set way too high for short ovals to be deemed a success. The bigger tracks allow for drafting to be more of a factor and long straightaways allow for passing to happen multiple times a lap. Tracks like Gateway, Phoenix and Iowa aren't set up for that and passes won't happen every lap and leaders will get to break away a bit from the rest of the field.
I wonder if we are no longer able to accept that one driver might lead 45 to 60 laps before being challenged for the lead and that passes might be more nuanced and take five laps to set up and complete.
After watching all seven previous Gateway races, what should you expect for IndyCar's return to Gateway in a few weeks? First, I would tell you to keep the bar low. This won't be a super speedway race with 38 lead changes and a pass every other straightaway. We might see two lead changes on track all race and another seven to occur during a pit stop cycle. If you want to know which of the previous seven races this year's race should want to resemble it is 2002. I would say 2002 was the best Gateway race followed by 2000, 1999, 2003, 1997, 2001 and 1998. I think we all want to see at least that drivers can at least get a run on the car ahead into turn one and turn three and make a pass and occasionally see two cars being able to go completely through turns one and two side-by-side.
I have to applaud all the people for doing their best to make this event into a big deal and draw people out. No one can say Gateway isn't trying to promote this event. The track organized a weeklong automotive festival in St. Louis leading up to race day. The CART crowds looked really good but the final two IRL races were a fraction of what the track drew when it first hosted a race in 1997.
There seems to be a lot of positive momentum heading into Gateway. We can only hope everything from the crowd in the stands to the racing on track lives up to the hype.
The first reason I revisited these races was because it has been 14 years since IndyCar has been to Gateway and off the top of my head I couldn't recall what the races were like. The second reason was because I wanted to see what the racing was like to give me an idea of what to look forward to when IndyCar returns there at the end of the month. The one noticeable difference between this upcoming race and the previous seven races is this year's race will be at night while the other seven were day races but it will still give me an idea what to expect.
I started with the 1997 race and I was first taken aback that it has been 20 years since the first time Gateway hosted an IndyCar race. It doesn't feel like Gateway has been around that long. I know IndyCar spend almost a decade and a half away from the track and there were a few years during the recession where the track struggled, lost all its dates, saw a change of ownership and then got a NASCAR Truck race back in 2014 but I can't believe it has been 20 years. Twenty years have flown by.
Anyway, onto the race itself and the first thing I noticed was how much it looked like a race track that had just completed construction. Despite this, the front straightaway grandstand was packed with people and this isn't saying it was packed but the ends of the grandstand were empty. It looked like body on top of body from the top row down to the catch fence.
Once the race got started it was obvious the cars were downshifting into turn one and in some cases drivers were going down two gears into turn one. The first two corners looked tight and slow and it was difficult to pass. Passes could be made but a driver had to have set it up a half dozen laps prior and if it couldn't stick then it would take another half dozen laps to try it again. What made up for the lack of passing was the fuel strategy that shook up the end of the race with a rookie Dario Franchitti leading before the transmission broke and this handed the lead to rookie Patrick Carpentier. However, Carpentier would lose the lead with two laps to go as Paul Tracy passed him and took the victory while Carpentier came home in second.
The following year saw CART switch from high downforce aero package to low downforce aero package usually seen at the super speedways. There was slightly more passing than the year before but most of it came outside the top five. There were three lead changes the entire race. Jimmy Vasser led the first 42 laps, Michael Andretti led lap 43 to lap 175 and Alex Zanardi took the lead during pit stops under caution and led the final 61 laps on his way to victory. However, this race did see Scott Pruett go from 17th to fifth and a fair amount of those spots were made on the race track and Bobby Rahal went from 20th to eighth.
One thing that caught my eye was in the closing laps, with 16 to go to be specific, Zanardi and Andretti are picking through lapped traffic. Zanardi easily clears the lapped car of P.J. Jones on the front straightaway and Jones slows down significantly entering turn one, opening the door for Andretti but not enough for him to get by and Andretti locked up the left front and that pretty much killed his shot at victory. When was the last time we saw someone lock it up going into a corner on an oval? The crowd matched the 1997 crowd in terms of size.
By the time I got to the 1999 race I came to realize that a second groove never developed in either of the first three races and if two drivers went side-by-side into a corner it took a lot of bravery. Drivers were still downshifting as much as twice into turn one and there was more side-by-side racing in this race but it wasn't constant. It was sporadic and Juan Pablo Montoya made a handful of those passes as he was caught a lapped down and worked his way to the topped lapped car in the field.
The other guy who made passing look easy in this race was Hélio Castroneves. He worked his way up to second and he was on the back of Michael Andretti's car and threatened him for the victory. While these two battled and dealt with lapped traffic, Franchitti made it a three-horse race down the stretch and the Scotsman made an incredible save earlier in the race after he and his teammate Paul Tracy made contact entering turn three. Franchitti drifted the car for the duration of turn three and into turn four before sliding into the grass and straightening the car out and continuing with minimal damage. Andretti held on for the victory. The crowd was still really good but it was thinner from the first two years.
It appeared the 2000 race saw downforce added back to the cars as the cars clearly had larger rear wings but the front wings still appeared to be the low downforce, super speedway configuration. There was some more passing but it mostly came when lapped traffic got in a way and a faster car could make a run on the outside. We shouldn't get too picky about how we get passing. There was action. Cars weren't single-file for majority of the races. If it takes lapped traffic to break that up than I think we won't mind that.
Michael Andretti dominated this race. He lapped up to second place by lap 167. Then his engine blew up with 40 laps to go. And that didn't even bring out a caution. The first 210 laps were run under green flag conditions with Paul Tracy's bump into the wall in turn four while running second bringing out the first and only caution of the race for five laps. Montoya went on to comfortably win the race by over 11 seconds as he and Carpentier were the only two cars on the lead lap and Montoya restarted the race as the only car on the lead lap with Carpentier getting his lap back with just over 20 laps to go. The crowd mirrored the 1999 race but there were a few people scattered around the turn two grandstand, which I don't believe were complete for the race the year before.
While Montoya and Carpentier were the only two cars to finish on the lead lap, I would say the 2000 race was the best of the CART stint at Gateway ahead of 1999, 1997 and 1998. There was a fair amount of action for positions it was only between cars not on the lead lap.
The Indy Racing League took over at Gateway and the first thing you notice from the 2001 race is the cars are definitely running more downforce with larger rear and front wings. Passing once again seemed to only come when lapped traffic was in the way. There was a fair amount of drivers following another but not really having enough to get a draft and make a move into the corner. It was also tough to tell how much passing there was because the race seemed to focus on the leaders whether it was Sam Hornish, Jr. all by himself with a 9-second lead or Hornish, Jr. and Al Unser, Jr. running 1-2 with about a second between them but neither gaining ground on each other. Unser, Jr. won the race by stretching fuel while Hornish, Jr. stopped for a splash of fuel under caution with ten laps to go.
The 2002 race still featured high downforce and this race had much more passing than any of the prior five races and more passes were coming without the aid of lapped traffic. Alex Barron took the lead from Castroneves on the outside of turn four at one point. This race was the first Gateway race where the top four to six stayed in close proximity to one another throughout the race. The first five races either saw the leader pull away or the top two pull away. Cars still weren't running two distinct lanes but you could make a pass on the outside.
Castroneves had pulled away from his teammate Gil de Ferran and the rest of the field after the final restart with 50 laps to go but de Ferran would catch and pass Castroneves with 17 laps to go and he would go on to win the race. Barron challenged Castroneves for the lead on that final restart but went very high in turn two and dropped to fifth but recovered to finish third. Buddy Rice held off Hornish, Jr. in a battle for fourth.
The 2003 race felt like a mix of the first six races. Scott Dixon pulled away at one point but second through fourth or fifth stayed in the vicinity of one another and could make a few passes but then the race calmed down and everyone spread out after the halfway point in the race. Unfortunately for Dixon his gearbox broke with 42 laps to go after leading 78 consecutive laps and holding a sizable lead over Castroneves.
Despite having no electrical read out on his steering wheel for majority of this race, Castroneves held on to take the victory by over eight-tenths of a second to Tony Kanaan and de Ferran made it an all-Brazilian podium with Tomas Scheckter and Dan Wheldon rounding out the top five.
Where can IndyCar improve from the previous seven Gateway races? Hope two distinct lines can develop, especially in turns one and two. The first two turns are tight but the banking in the turns could be favorable to a car on the high side. What we need to see is Graham Rahal do what he did at Iowa a few weeks ago. If a car can enter turn one on the high side and carry it to the back straightaway then we could see passes not only in turns one or two but passes set up in the first two corners are then completed entering turn three.
Another hope would be for some tire degradation like we saw at Iowa. Unfortunately, the repave might make degradation non-existent, like we saw at Texas. Firestone was caught out on the tire selection at Texas and times didn't drop like we had seen in recent years, leading to a flat out race where the leader was safe as long as he stayed glued to the bottom of the race track because trailing cars couldn't carry the speed needed to make a pass on the high side. After IndyCar tested at the track last week drivers noted how they no longer had to downshift two gears into turn one like they were at the test on the older surface in the spring test and a handful of drivers were able to be flat out all the way around the 1.25-mile oval.
One question that occurred to me when watching all these races was are super speedways ruining how we view short ovals? We say we want oval races but I worry that because of the races put on at Indianapolis, Fontana, Pocono and Texas in the DW12-era that the bar is set way too high for short ovals to be deemed a success. The bigger tracks allow for drafting to be more of a factor and long straightaways allow for passing to happen multiple times a lap. Tracks like Gateway, Phoenix and Iowa aren't set up for that and passes won't happen every lap and leaders will get to break away a bit from the rest of the field.
I wonder if we are no longer able to accept that one driver might lead 45 to 60 laps before being challenged for the lead and that passes might be more nuanced and take five laps to set up and complete.
After watching all seven previous Gateway races, what should you expect for IndyCar's return to Gateway in a few weeks? First, I would tell you to keep the bar low. This won't be a super speedway race with 38 lead changes and a pass every other straightaway. We might see two lead changes on track all race and another seven to occur during a pit stop cycle. If you want to know which of the previous seven races this year's race should want to resemble it is 2002. I would say 2002 was the best Gateway race followed by 2000, 1999, 2003, 1997, 2001 and 1998. I think we all want to see at least that drivers can at least get a run on the car ahead into turn one and turn three and make a pass and occasionally see two cars being able to go completely through turns one and two side-by-side.
I have to applaud all the people for doing their best to make this event into a big deal and draw people out. No one can say Gateway isn't trying to promote this event. The track organized a weeklong automotive festival in St. Louis leading up to race day. The CART crowds looked really good but the final two IRL races were a fraction of what the track drew when it first hosted a race in 1997.
There seems to be a lot of positive momentum heading into Gateway. We can only hope everything from the crowd in the stands to the racing on track lives up to the hype.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Musings From the Weekend: What If IndyCar Had Stage Points?
It is August and MotoGP is back. Marc Márquez's mistake in tire selection at the start of the race ended up playing to his favor and he dominated the Czech Republic Grand Prix and extended his championship lead. NASCAR had a fuel mileage race at Watkins Glen. A new manufacture got a victory in IMSA while a championship has already been locked up and an undefeated season stays alive. Another Super GT race came down to the wire. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
What If IndyCar Had Stage Points?
It is summer. IndyCar is off. Why not visit a mythical world where a spineless IndyCar does exactly what NASCAR does and implements stage points just to see what the championship would look like with four races to go?
I have gone back and given out stage points for the results of the top ten at laps closest to the quarter-mark and halfway point in the first 12 races of the season. I considered altering it for IndyCar because NASCAR gives out stage points to about a quarter of its grid while the top ten in IndyCar is close to half the grid but to keep it easy and straightforward I left it as the top ten. I didn't calculate playoff points because that is too big of a hassle because IndyCar doesn't do a Chase. If you want playoff points, figure out it on your own.
Here is the paragraph you can skip if you wish because it tells you what lap I used for each of the mythical stages. St. Petersburg: Lap 25 and 50. Long Beach: Lap 21 and 42. Barber: Lap 20 and 40. Phoenix: Lap 60 and 120. Grand Prix of Indianapolis: Lap 21 and 42. Indianapolis 500: Lap 50 and 100. Both Belle Isle races: Lap 15 and 30. Texas: Lap 62 and 124. Road America: Lap 13 and 26. Iowa: Lap 75 and 150. Toronto: Lap 21 and 42. Mid-Ohio: Lap 22 and 44.
And now what the running order was at each of those laps with three-letter driver abbreviations to save you some time reading.
STP stage one: HIN, DIX, SAT, NEW, PIG, RSI, CHI, JON, PAG, BOU
Stage two: BOU, PAG, JON, AND, HCN, SAT, HIN, RHR, HIL, DAL
LB stage one: RHR, HIN, RSI, RAH, BOU, PIG, DIX, PAG, NEW, HCN
Stage two: RHR, HIN, RSI, BOU, DIX, RAH, PIG, NEW, PAG, HCN
BMP stage one: POW, HCN, DIX, HIN, SAT, BOU, CHI, PIG, HIL, PAG
Stage two: POW, NEW, DIX, HCN, PAG, HIN, KAN, BOU, PIG, SAT
PHX stage one: HCN, NEW, POW, PAG, HIL, KAN, DIX, HIN, RSI, KIM
Stage two: POW, HCN, PAG, HIL, NEW, HIN, DIX, KAN, RSI, RHR
GPI stage one: POW, HCN, DIX, NEW, RHR, PAG, KIM, RAH, RSI, JPM
Stage two: HCN, DIX, POW, NEW, RHR, RSI, JPM, RAH, PAG, CHI
"500" stage one: ALO, RSI, SAT, CAR, KAN, HIL, RHR, DIX, HCN, AND
Stage two: HCN, RHR, RSI, ALO, KAN, RAH, CHI, NEW, POW, JPM
DET1 stage one: RAH, RSI, DIX, POW, DAL, ALE, HIL, HIN, SAT, JON
Stage two: HCN, RAH, SAT, RSI, HIN, DIX, ALE, PAG, POW, CHI
DET2 stage one: SAT, RAH, POW, PAG, ALE, RSI, DAL, KIM, MUÑ, GUT
Stage two: RAH, SAT, POW, PAG, NEW, KAN, RSI, DAL, MUÑ, DIX
TEX stage one: POW, VAU, DIX, PAG, KAN, ALE, CAR, JON, HCN, MUÑ
Stage two: POW, PAG, KAN, VAU, DIX, ALE, JON, MUÑ, HIL, AND
ROA stage one: NEW, DIX, HCN, KIM, POW, PAG, CHI, HIN, JON, RHR
Stage two: NEW, HCN, DIX, PAG, POW, KIM, CHI, HIN, RHR, JON
IOW stage one: HCN, POW, CAR, HIL, RAH, RHR, PAG, NEW, SAT, HIN
Stage two: HCN, POW HIL, RAH, RHR, NEW, HIN, PAG, KAN, CAR
TOR stage one: HCN, PAG, RAH, NEW, HIN, PIG, SAT, KAN, JON, AND
Stage two: NEW, RSI, HIN, AND, RHR, CHI, SAA, PAG, HCN, RAH
MOH stage one: NEW, POW, RAH, PAG, RSI, DIX, HCN, SAT, AND, HIN
Stage two: NEW, POW, RAH, RSI, PAG, HCN, SAT, HIN, DIX, AND
Here is a table of who has scored the most mythical stage points:
And here is a table of what the top twenty-four in the championship would look like after adding mythical stage points with number of positions changed from actual championship position:
There are a bunch of positions swapping and the gaps are larger between drivers. Castroneves would not be trailing Newgarden by seven points but rather leading him by 20 points (Castroneves would have scored in 21 of 26 stages through the first 13 races) and the top four of Newgarden, Castroneves, Dixon and Pagenaud would not be covered by 17 points but by 40 points.
It is subjective to decide whether that is a good thing or not but what I have noticed with stage points is all it really does is inflate the numbers of the drivers on top. In IndyCar's case, nobody would make a massive jump in the championship because of stage points. Hunter-Reay would be the only new drivers in the top ten of the championship but he would be 222 points behind the championship, 66 points more than his current gap to Newgarden.
If you take away stage points from the NASCAR championship standings, only one driver is different in the top ten but a few things are noticeable when you strip away the stage points as shown in the table below (Note: I used championship points totals and stage points totals from after the July 30th Pocono race).
There are a few big movers when you take away stage points. Clint Bowyer jumps five spots; Daniel Suárez would have been tenth, up seven positions. The one thing to notice about Bowyer and Suárez are neither are near the top in stage points but both are near the top when it comes to bringing the car home in one piece. Boywer was 15th in stage points after Pocono on 66 points while Suárez was tied with Paul Menard for fewest stage points scored of those to have picked up stage points at four points. What stage points dilute is the fact that Suárez was running at the finish of 20 of the first 21 races, tied with Michael McDowell for the most, and his lone retirement was in the Daytona 500. Bowyer was running at the finish of 19 of the first 21 races. Bowyer was tied for second-most lead lap finishes with 17 and Suárez had 16 lead lap finishes as many as Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. Finally, of the drivers who started all of the first 21 races, Bowyer had the sixth-best average finish at 13.1 and Suárez had the tenth-best average finish at 15.1.
With a few bigger movers up, there are a few big movers down, including Brad Keselowski (-4) and Jimmie Johnson, -3 despite having three victories. Ryan Blaney would lose seven spots. Keselowski and Johnson both failed to finish five of the first 21 races, tied for the most of the drivers in the top twelve in the championship after Pocono and Blaney had only finished one more race than those two. Keselowski's average finish of 13.3, as well as his 11 top five finishes and 14 top ten finishes, would save him but Johnson and Blaney had average finishes of 16.9 and 19.4 respectively. Besides Blaney, only Kurt Busch had a worse average finish than Johnson in the top 15 and Blaney had the worst average finish of the top 20 after Pocono. Keselowski and Johnson had only 15 lead lap finishes from the first 21 races while Blaney only finished on the lead lap in ten of the first 21 races. Johnson and Blaney had as many top ten finishes as Suárez (7) through the first 21 races.
The other noticeable thing is how close things would be at the top without stage points. After Pocono, Truex, Jr. led the championship by 85 points over Kyle Larson, was 97 points ahead of Kevin Harvick and 298 points separate him from Joey Logano in 13th. Taking away the stage points, Truex, Jr. would be level with Harvick and 99 points would cover the top 13 in the championship.
Not that the driver standings matter. It is all washed away after Richmond in a few weeks time, but if all stage points are doing is spreading out the heard, than is it really an improvement? Stages have encouraged teams to try different strategies within a race but I don't think it does enough to justify its existence. The top five in stage points after Pocono were the top five in the championship at that time. The twelve drivers who have won a stage this season were all in the top 13 in the championship, the lone exception was Jamie McMurray in eighth. Eleven of the top 12 had scored stage points more than 20 times; the lone exception was Bowyer in tenth. Of the 28 drivers to score stage points from the first 21 races, 18 of the drivers had scored stage points at least ten times. Five of the 28 drivers scored stage points twice or fewer.
I don't know what the point of this was. This was a big tangent away from a mythical world where IndyCar had stage points. This turned more into a dissection of stage points more than anything else. I have not been particularly enamored with stage points and I still believe fewer points should be awarded than are now, not just in NASCAR but IndyCar as well. A championship should be about results and stage points have become a mask for poor results by rewarding a driver too often.
Champions From the Weekend
The #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca of Pato O'Ward and James French clinched the IMSA Prototype Challenge class championship at Road America as the Mexican-American duo won its seventh consecutive race this season with only Petit Le Mans in October remaining on the PC schedule.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez and what happened in PC from Elkhart Lake but did you know...
Thomas Lüthi won the Moto2 race from Brno. Joan Mir won in Moto3, his sixth victory of the season.
Martin Truex, Jr. won the NASCAR Cup race from Watkins Glen. Kyle Busch won the Grand National Series race.
The #22 Extreme Speed Motorsports Nissan Onroak DPi of Pipo Derani and Johannes van Overbeek won the IMSA race from Road America, ending Cadillac's seven race winning streak. The #66 Ford GT of Joey Hand and Dirk Müller won in GTLM. The #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Jens Klingman and Jesse Krohn won in GTD.
The #8 ARTA Honda NSX of Tomoki Nojiri and Takashi Kobayashi won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 of Sean Walkinshaw and Shinichi Takagi won in GT300.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP heads to Austria.
NASCAR returns to Michigan.
Pirelli World Challenge runs the penultimate SprintX weekend of the season at Utah Motorsports Campus.
What If IndyCar Had Stage Points?
It is summer. IndyCar is off. Why not visit a mythical world where a spineless IndyCar does exactly what NASCAR does and implements stage points just to see what the championship would look like with four races to go?
I have gone back and given out stage points for the results of the top ten at laps closest to the quarter-mark and halfway point in the first 12 races of the season. I considered altering it for IndyCar because NASCAR gives out stage points to about a quarter of its grid while the top ten in IndyCar is close to half the grid but to keep it easy and straightforward I left it as the top ten. I didn't calculate playoff points because that is too big of a hassle because IndyCar doesn't do a Chase. If you want playoff points, figure out it on your own.
Here is the paragraph you can skip if you wish because it tells you what lap I used for each of the mythical stages. St. Petersburg: Lap 25 and 50. Long Beach: Lap 21 and 42. Barber: Lap 20 and 40. Phoenix: Lap 60 and 120. Grand Prix of Indianapolis: Lap 21 and 42. Indianapolis 500: Lap 50 and 100. Both Belle Isle races: Lap 15 and 30. Texas: Lap 62 and 124. Road America: Lap 13 and 26. Iowa: Lap 75 and 150. Toronto: Lap 21 and 42. Mid-Ohio: Lap 22 and 44.
And now what the running order was at each of those laps with three-letter driver abbreviations to save you some time reading.
STP stage one: HIN, DIX, SAT, NEW, PIG, RSI, CHI, JON, PAG, BOU
Stage two: BOU, PAG, JON, AND, HCN, SAT, HIN, RHR, HIL, DAL
LB stage one: RHR, HIN, RSI, RAH, BOU, PIG, DIX, PAG, NEW, HCN
Stage two: RHR, HIN, RSI, BOU, DIX, RAH, PIG, NEW, PAG, HCN
BMP stage one: POW, HCN, DIX, HIN, SAT, BOU, CHI, PIG, HIL, PAG
Stage two: POW, NEW, DIX, HCN, PAG, HIN, KAN, BOU, PIG, SAT
PHX stage one: HCN, NEW, POW, PAG, HIL, KAN, DIX, HIN, RSI, KIM
Stage two: POW, HCN, PAG, HIL, NEW, HIN, DIX, KAN, RSI, RHR
GPI stage one: POW, HCN, DIX, NEW, RHR, PAG, KIM, RAH, RSI, JPM
Stage two: HCN, DIX, POW, NEW, RHR, RSI, JPM, RAH, PAG, CHI
"500" stage one: ALO, RSI, SAT, CAR, KAN, HIL, RHR, DIX, HCN, AND
Stage two: HCN, RHR, RSI, ALO, KAN, RAH, CHI, NEW, POW, JPM
DET1 stage one: RAH, RSI, DIX, POW, DAL, ALE, HIL, HIN, SAT, JON
Stage two: HCN, RAH, SAT, RSI, HIN, DIX, ALE, PAG, POW, CHI
DET2 stage one: SAT, RAH, POW, PAG, ALE, RSI, DAL, KIM, MUÑ, GUT
Stage two: RAH, SAT, POW, PAG, NEW, KAN, RSI, DAL, MUÑ, DIX
TEX stage one: POW, VAU, DIX, PAG, KAN, ALE, CAR, JON, HCN, MUÑ
Stage two: POW, PAG, KAN, VAU, DIX, ALE, JON, MUÑ, HIL, AND
ROA stage one: NEW, DIX, HCN, KIM, POW, PAG, CHI, HIN, JON, RHR
Stage two: NEW, HCN, DIX, PAG, POW, KIM, CHI, HIN, RHR, JON
IOW stage one: HCN, POW, CAR, HIL, RAH, RHR, PAG, NEW, SAT, HIN
Stage two: HCN, POW HIL, RAH, RHR, NEW, HIN, PAG, KAN, CAR
TOR stage one: HCN, PAG, RAH, NEW, HIN, PIG, SAT, KAN, JON, AND
Stage two: NEW, RSI, HIN, AND, RHR, CHI, SAA, PAG, HCN, RAH
MOH stage one: NEW, POW, RAH, PAG, RSI, DIX, HCN, SAT, AND, HIN
Stage two: NEW, POW, RAH, RSI, PAG, HCN, SAT, HIN, DIX, AND
Here is a table of who has scored the most mythical stage points:
| Driver | Stage Points |
|---|---|
| Castroneves | 144 |
| Power | 132 |
| Pagenaud | 123 |
| Newgarden | 117 |
| Dixon | 105 |
| Rahal | 96 |
| Rossi | 95 |
| Hinchcliffe | 80 |
| Hunter-Reay | 71 |
| Sato | 62 |
| Kanaan | 47 |
| Hildebrand | 41 |
| Daly | 34 |
| Bourdais | 31 |
| Chilton | 25 |
| Aleshin | 25 |
| Jones | 30 |
| Kimball | 20 |
| Carpenter | 20 |
| Andretti | 19 |
| Pigot | 19 |
| Alonso | 17 |
| Vautier | 16 |
| Muñoz | 7 |
| Saavedra | 4 |
| Montoya | 3 |
| Gutiérrez | 1 |
And here is a table of what the top twenty-four in the championship would look like after adding mythical stage points with number of positions changed from actual championship position:
| Driver | Championship Points | Change in Position |
|---|---|---|
| Castroneves | 590 | +1 |
| Newgarden | 570 | -1 |
| Pagenaud | 559 | +1 |
| Dixon | 550 | -1 |
| Power | 533 | 0 |
| Rahal | 491 | 0 |
| Rossi | 453 | +1 |
| Sato | 443 | -1 |
| Hinchcliffe | 396 | +1 |
| Hunter-Reay | 368 | +2 |
| Kanaan | 367 | -2 |
| Chilton | 335 | -1 |
| Hildebrand | 317 | +2 |
| Jones | 305 | 0 |
| Andretti | 305 | -2 |
| Aleshin | 262 | 0 |
| Kimball | 243 | +1 |
| Muñoz | 243 | -1 |
| Daly | 233 | 0 |
| Pigot | 184 | 0 |
| Bourdais | 167 | +1 |
| Carpenter | 162 | -1 |
| Montoya | 96 | 0 |
| Gutiérrez | 84 | +1 |
There are a bunch of positions swapping and the gaps are larger between drivers. Castroneves would not be trailing Newgarden by seven points but rather leading him by 20 points (Castroneves would have scored in 21 of 26 stages through the first 13 races) and the top four of Newgarden, Castroneves, Dixon and Pagenaud would not be covered by 17 points but by 40 points.
It is subjective to decide whether that is a good thing or not but what I have noticed with stage points is all it really does is inflate the numbers of the drivers on top. In IndyCar's case, nobody would make a massive jump in the championship because of stage points. Hunter-Reay would be the only new drivers in the top ten of the championship but he would be 222 points behind the championship, 66 points more than his current gap to Newgarden.
If you take away stage points from the NASCAR championship standings, only one driver is different in the top ten but a few things are noticeable when you strip away the stage points as shown in the table below (Note: I used championship points totals and stage points totals from after the July 30th Pocono race).
| Driver | Points w/o Stage Points | Change in Position |
|---|---|---|
| Truex | 546 | 0 |
| Harvick | 546 | +1 |
| Hamlin | 523 | +3 |
| Larson | 514 | -2 |
| Bowyer | 511 | +5 |
| Ky. Busch | 509 | -2 |
| Elliott | 500 | 0 |
| McMurray | 499 | 0 |
| Keselowski | 486 | -4 |
| Suárez | 460 | +7 |
| Kenseth | 456 | -2 |
| Newman | 452 | +2 |
| Stenhouse, Jr. | 447 | 3 |
| Johnson | 438 | -3 |
| Logano | 432 | -2 |
| Ku. Busch | 425 | -2 |
| Bayne | 388 | +3 |
| Kahne | 380 | +1 |
| Blaney | 377 | -7 |
| A. Dillon | 376 | +1 |
| Jones | 372 | -3 |
| Menard | 359 | +1 |
| T. Dillon | 355 | +1 |
| Earnhardt, Jr. | 342 | -2 |
| Buescher | 320 | +1 |
| McDowell | 319 | -2 |
| Allmendinger | 300 | 0 |
| Patrick | 292 | 0 |
There are a few big movers when you take away stage points. Clint Bowyer jumps five spots; Daniel Suárez would have been tenth, up seven positions. The one thing to notice about Bowyer and Suárez are neither are near the top in stage points but both are near the top when it comes to bringing the car home in one piece. Boywer was 15th in stage points after Pocono on 66 points while Suárez was tied with Paul Menard for fewest stage points scored of those to have picked up stage points at four points. What stage points dilute is the fact that Suárez was running at the finish of 20 of the first 21 races, tied with Michael McDowell for the most, and his lone retirement was in the Daytona 500. Bowyer was running at the finish of 19 of the first 21 races. Bowyer was tied for second-most lead lap finishes with 17 and Suárez had 16 lead lap finishes as many as Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. Finally, of the drivers who started all of the first 21 races, Bowyer had the sixth-best average finish at 13.1 and Suárez had the tenth-best average finish at 15.1.
With a few bigger movers up, there are a few big movers down, including Brad Keselowski (-4) and Jimmie Johnson, -3 despite having three victories. Ryan Blaney would lose seven spots. Keselowski and Johnson both failed to finish five of the first 21 races, tied for the most of the drivers in the top twelve in the championship after Pocono and Blaney had only finished one more race than those two. Keselowski's average finish of 13.3, as well as his 11 top five finishes and 14 top ten finishes, would save him but Johnson and Blaney had average finishes of 16.9 and 19.4 respectively. Besides Blaney, only Kurt Busch had a worse average finish than Johnson in the top 15 and Blaney had the worst average finish of the top 20 after Pocono. Keselowski and Johnson had only 15 lead lap finishes from the first 21 races while Blaney only finished on the lead lap in ten of the first 21 races. Johnson and Blaney had as many top ten finishes as Suárez (7) through the first 21 races.
The other noticeable thing is how close things would be at the top without stage points. After Pocono, Truex, Jr. led the championship by 85 points over Kyle Larson, was 97 points ahead of Kevin Harvick and 298 points separate him from Joey Logano in 13th. Taking away the stage points, Truex, Jr. would be level with Harvick and 99 points would cover the top 13 in the championship.
Not that the driver standings matter. It is all washed away after Richmond in a few weeks time, but if all stage points are doing is spreading out the heard, than is it really an improvement? Stages have encouraged teams to try different strategies within a race but I don't think it does enough to justify its existence. The top five in stage points after Pocono were the top five in the championship at that time. The twelve drivers who have won a stage this season were all in the top 13 in the championship, the lone exception was Jamie McMurray in eighth. Eleven of the top 12 had scored stage points more than 20 times; the lone exception was Bowyer in tenth. Of the 28 drivers to score stage points from the first 21 races, 18 of the drivers had scored stage points at least ten times. Five of the 28 drivers scored stage points twice or fewer.
I don't know what the point of this was. This was a big tangent away from a mythical world where IndyCar had stage points. This turned more into a dissection of stage points more than anything else. I have not been particularly enamored with stage points and I still believe fewer points should be awarded than are now, not just in NASCAR but IndyCar as well. A championship should be about results and stage points have become a mask for poor results by rewarding a driver too often.
Champions From the Weekend
The #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca of Pato O'Ward and James French clinched the IMSA Prototype Challenge class championship at Road America as the Mexican-American duo won its seventh consecutive race this season with only Petit Le Mans in October remaining on the PC schedule.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez and what happened in PC from Elkhart Lake but did you know...
Thomas Lüthi won the Moto2 race from Brno. Joan Mir won in Moto3, his sixth victory of the season.
Martin Truex, Jr. won the NASCAR Cup race from Watkins Glen. Kyle Busch won the Grand National Series race.
The #22 Extreme Speed Motorsports Nissan Onroak DPi of Pipo Derani and Johannes van Overbeek won the IMSA race from Road America, ending Cadillac's seven race winning streak. The #66 Ford GT of Joey Hand and Dirk Müller won in GTLM. The #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Jens Klingman and Jesse Krohn won in GTD.
The #8 ARTA Honda NSX of Tomoki Nojiri and Takashi Kobayashi won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #55 ARTA BMW M6 GT3 of Sean Walkinshaw and Shinichi Takagi won in GT300.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP heads to Austria.
NASCAR returns to Michigan.
Pirelli World Challenge runs the penultimate SprintX weekend of the season at Utah Motorsports Campus.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
1000 Words: Irish Hills of Yesteryear
We have reached August and another IndyCar season is nearing its end. We are in the middle of a two-week summer break for the series and only four races remain. The season flies by and the next round is a 500-miler at Pocono. Just over a month ago I wrote about how it had been ten years since the final Grand Prix of Cleveland and Saturday marks another ten-year anniversary for the most recent time IndyCar went to a famed track. This one was known for its 500-mile shows. It is Michigan International Speedway.
Michigan got caught up in the CART/IRL War and it was one of the tracks that jumped sides as teams and manufactures started flipping sides. It started out with CART and is remembered for the infamous U.S. 500 held the same day as the 1996 Indianapolis 500 to rival the event and prove the driver and team line-up of CART could succeed without having to be at the Indianapolis 500 and Indianapolis Motor Speedway come the month of May. Within a decade, despite great races by CART, the series would leave the track and the IRL would step in. The 500-mile race was shortened to 400 miles.
While being a point of contention during the gruesome decade that was the 1990s into the 2000s, Michigan's history with IndyCar went much further back than that. The first race was held on October 13, 1968. Ronnie Bucknum took the victory, the only victory of his IndyCar career, by a lap over Mario Andretti in a 250-mile event.
After a year off, IndyCar returned on July 4, 1970, Roger Penske purchased the track in 1972 and by 1973 the track would host IndyCar twice a year with a second race weekend added in mid-September. The first 12 Michigan races were won by 12 different winners and after Bucknum won the inaugural race the next six winners were Gary Bettenhausen, Mark Donohue, Joe Leonard, Roger McCluskey, Billy Vukovich II and Johnny Rutherford. For Donohue and Leonard, it would be the penultimate victories of their careers respectively. It was McCluskey's final victory and Vukovich II's only victory. It was Rutherford's third career victory and earlier that season Rutherford had picked up his second career victory at Ontario in one of the heats for the California 500, his first victory in over eight years.
While consistently hosting two races (and some years three because of Twin 125s), Michigan's first 500-mile race wasn't until 1981. Of the twenty-two 500-mile races run at Michigan, only two drivers won the Michigan 500 more than once. Michael Andretti won it in 1987 and 1989 and Scott Goodyear in 1992 and 1994.
It was a site of unpredictable results, as the track's high speeds were known for creating high attrition races with countless engine failures, transmissions seizing and clutches burning up with the occasional driver running a tank dry and coasting back to the pit lane shaking up a race. A grand total of 12 drivers picked up their first career victory at Michigan. Beside Bucknum and Vukovich II; Tom Sneva, Danny Ongais, Pancho Carter, John Paul, Jr. Emerson Fittipaldi, Scott Goodyear, Scott Pruett, Tony Kanaan, Patrick Carpentier and Tomas Scheckter all had their maiden trip to victory lane at Michigan.
Eight different drivers from seven different teams won the last eight Michigan races. I know those races span both CART and the IRL but Michigan became a place where nobody knew what was going to happen even as the final lap began. The 1998 race saw the lead change each of the last five laps with Greg Moore coming out on top and Jimmy Vasser nipping his teammate Alex Zanardi for second as the Italian drove the final three laps with whisks of smoke trailing his car as his engine was letting go. Max Papis seemed to have had his first career victory locked up when he took the white flag with a three-second lead in 1999 but the Italian ran out of fuel entering turn three and Tony Kanaan flew by with Juan Pablo Montoya get a massive draft off the Brazilian. Kanaan held on to get his first career victory by 0.032 seconds. Montoya would come out on top the following year but not before a twenty-lap battle and a drag race to the line with Michael Andretti. The final CART and 500-mile race featured Dario Franchitti, Michel Jourdain, Jr. and Patrick Carpentier dicing for the lead with Carpentier benefitting from the presences of his lapped teammate Alex Tagliani in the lead group to allow him to pass both Franchitti and Jourdain, Jr. on the outside in turn three and then draft off his teammate to pull away and seal the victory for the Canadian.
Even those that hated the IRL probably watched the 400-mile races from 2002-07 and had to think they were pretty good. Tomas Scheckter and Buddy Rice, who was making his debut, worked their way from the back half of the top ten to a 1-2 finish for Team Cheever in the final 30 laps during what was a contentious time between Scheckter and the team. Alex Barron spun and clipped the infield grass with less than 40 laps to go in 2003 after battling for the lead with Sam Hornish, Jr. and Scheckter. Barron escaped any damage and he was able to keep the car running. He was able to get back into contention within ten laps of that spin and he was stuck to Hornish, Jr.'s gearbox for the final five laps before he made his move on the outside into turn three and he would beat Hornish, Jr. by 0.0121 seconds, the 11th-closest finish in IndyCar history.
IndyCar's time at Michigan did not end on a good note. The final two races were delayed by rain. It was a two-hour delay in 2006 and a four-hour delay in 2007. The latter race got bumped from ESPN2 to ESPN Classic. Though the racing wasn't bad, the draw wasn't there. The 2007 race had a pretty good battle between Franchitti and Dan Wheldon. Then there was the infamous accident that turned Franchitti's car into a kite and took out four of the top five cars. Once that accident was cleaned up the race did end with a five-car, 30-lap fight for the victory between Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, Scott Sharp and Kosuka Matsuura. Patrick's shot at victory was dashed when she had to pit for a tire puncture. Kanaan proved to have the best car of those five and led the final 27 laps and he held off Andretti at the line by 0.0595 seconds.
After going back and watching pieces of those Michigan races, part of me feels like going to Michigan would benefit IndyCar. I have said before the current IndyCar schedule is at a good place with its arrangement of road courses, street courses and ovals but the speed and spectacle of big ovals is what gets the attention of people. The Indianapolis 500 has been great in the DW12-era and Fontana put on really great races every year it hosted a race in the DW12-era. The 2015 Fontana race might be one of the ten greatest IndyCar races of all-time. Why wouldn't IndyCar want to have two or three 220 MPH chess matches over 500 miles instead of just one at the end of May? Some might want to keep the Indianapolis 500 sacred but having a few breathtaking races a season wouldn't be a bad thing. It isn't realistic to have eight or ten or 12 races like that every season in IndyCar but three wouldn't be asking for much.
There isn't really a place for Michigan on the current IndyCar schedule. The series is in the midst of a two-week summer break but NASCAR is heading to the track in ten days and it wouldn't make sense to host IndyCar one week and NASCAR the next. July is already packed for IndyCar and the first NASCAR race at Michigan is Father's Day weekend. After the summer break IndyCar runs three consecutive weeks before ending the season on the third Sunday in September at Sonoma. I am not sure the series could go to Michigan for the season finale on the final weekend of September or in early October and draw a crowd. It is hard to compete during football season. Tracks struggle to get people through the turnstiles and the networks struggle to get people to tune into a race when football is in action.
Next year, Michigan International Speedway celebrates its 50th anniversary and it doesn't appear IndyCar will be on the guest list for the celebration but that doesn't mean IndyCar will never return. I am more optimistic about IndyCar one day returning to Michigan than I am Cleveland. For starters, Michigan is a permanent track and has two NASCAR dates keeping the doors open. Chevrolet is invested in the doubleheader at Belle Isle, which seems to suggest that it wouldn't want a race at Michigan but maybe IndyCar continues to grow a bit and the manufacture decides it is worth it to support a second outing down the road at the two-mile oval along with the street course event. Until that day comes, if it ever does, we at least have plenty of videos of slingshot passes aided by the Hanford device to keep us satisfied.
Michigan got caught up in the CART/IRL War and it was one of the tracks that jumped sides as teams and manufactures started flipping sides. It started out with CART and is remembered for the infamous U.S. 500 held the same day as the 1996 Indianapolis 500 to rival the event and prove the driver and team line-up of CART could succeed without having to be at the Indianapolis 500 and Indianapolis Motor Speedway come the month of May. Within a decade, despite great races by CART, the series would leave the track and the IRL would step in. The 500-mile race was shortened to 400 miles.
While being a point of contention during the gruesome decade that was the 1990s into the 2000s, Michigan's history with IndyCar went much further back than that. The first race was held on October 13, 1968. Ronnie Bucknum took the victory, the only victory of his IndyCar career, by a lap over Mario Andretti in a 250-mile event.
After a year off, IndyCar returned on July 4, 1970, Roger Penske purchased the track in 1972 and by 1973 the track would host IndyCar twice a year with a second race weekend added in mid-September. The first 12 Michigan races were won by 12 different winners and after Bucknum won the inaugural race the next six winners were Gary Bettenhausen, Mark Donohue, Joe Leonard, Roger McCluskey, Billy Vukovich II and Johnny Rutherford. For Donohue and Leonard, it would be the penultimate victories of their careers respectively. It was McCluskey's final victory and Vukovich II's only victory. It was Rutherford's third career victory and earlier that season Rutherford had picked up his second career victory at Ontario in one of the heats for the California 500, his first victory in over eight years.
While consistently hosting two races (and some years three because of Twin 125s), Michigan's first 500-mile race wasn't until 1981. Of the twenty-two 500-mile races run at Michigan, only two drivers won the Michigan 500 more than once. Michael Andretti won it in 1987 and 1989 and Scott Goodyear in 1992 and 1994.
It was a site of unpredictable results, as the track's high speeds were known for creating high attrition races with countless engine failures, transmissions seizing and clutches burning up with the occasional driver running a tank dry and coasting back to the pit lane shaking up a race. A grand total of 12 drivers picked up their first career victory at Michigan. Beside Bucknum and Vukovich II; Tom Sneva, Danny Ongais, Pancho Carter, John Paul, Jr. Emerson Fittipaldi, Scott Goodyear, Scott Pruett, Tony Kanaan, Patrick Carpentier and Tomas Scheckter all had their maiden trip to victory lane at Michigan.
Eight different drivers from seven different teams won the last eight Michigan races. I know those races span both CART and the IRL but Michigan became a place where nobody knew what was going to happen even as the final lap began. The 1998 race saw the lead change each of the last five laps with Greg Moore coming out on top and Jimmy Vasser nipping his teammate Alex Zanardi for second as the Italian drove the final three laps with whisks of smoke trailing his car as his engine was letting go. Max Papis seemed to have had his first career victory locked up when he took the white flag with a three-second lead in 1999 but the Italian ran out of fuel entering turn three and Tony Kanaan flew by with Juan Pablo Montoya get a massive draft off the Brazilian. Kanaan held on to get his first career victory by 0.032 seconds. Montoya would come out on top the following year but not before a twenty-lap battle and a drag race to the line with Michael Andretti. The final CART and 500-mile race featured Dario Franchitti, Michel Jourdain, Jr. and Patrick Carpentier dicing for the lead with Carpentier benefitting from the presences of his lapped teammate Alex Tagliani in the lead group to allow him to pass both Franchitti and Jourdain, Jr. on the outside in turn three and then draft off his teammate to pull away and seal the victory for the Canadian.
Even those that hated the IRL probably watched the 400-mile races from 2002-07 and had to think they were pretty good. Tomas Scheckter and Buddy Rice, who was making his debut, worked their way from the back half of the top ten to a 1-2 finish for Team Cheever in the final 30 laps during what was a contentious time between Scheckter and the team. Alex Barron spun and clipped the infield grass with less than 40 laps to go in 2003 after battling for the lead with Sam Hornish, Jr. and Scheckter. Barron escaped any damage and he was able to keep the car running. He was able to get back into contention within ten laps of that spin and he was stuck to Hornish, Jr.'s gearbox for the final five laps before he made his move on the outside into turn three and he would beat Hornish, Jr. by 0.0121 seconds, the 11th-closest finish in IndyCar history.
IndyCar's time at Michigan did not end on a good note. The final two races were delayed by rain. It was a two-hour delay in 2006 and a four-hour delay in 2007. The latter race got bumped from ESPN2 to ESPN Classic. Though the racing wasn't bad, the draw wasn't there. The 2007 race had a pretty good battle between Franchitti and Dan Wheldon. Then there was the infamous accident that turned Franchitti's car into a kite and took out four of the top five cars. Once that accident was cleaned up the race did end with a five-car, 30-lap fight for the victory between Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, Scott Sharp and Kosuka Matsuura. Patrick's shot at victory was dashed when she had to pit for a tire puncture. Kanaan proved to have the best car of those five and led the final 27 laps and he held off Andretti at the line by 0.0595 seconds.
After going back and watching pieces of those Michigan races, part of me feels like going to Michigan would benefit IndyCar. I have said before the current IndyCar schedule is at a good place with its arrangement of road courses, street courses and ovals but the speed and spectacle of big ovals is what gets the attention of people. The Indianapolis 500 has been great in the DW12-era and Fontana put on really great races every year it hosted a race in the DW12-era. The 2015 Fontana race might be one of the ten greatest IndyCar races of all-time. Why wouldn't IndyCar want to have two or three 220 MPH chess matches over 500 miles instead of just one at the end of May? Some might want to keep the Indianapolis 500 sacred but having a few breathtaking races a season wouldn't be a bad thing. It isn't realistic to have eight or ten or 12 races like that every season in IndyCar but three wouldn't be asking for much.
There isn't really a place for Michigan on the current IndyCar schedule. The series is in the midst of a two-week summer break but NASCAR is heading to the track in ten days and it wouldn't make sense to host IndyCar one week and NASCAR the next. July is already packed for IndyCar and the first NASCAR race at Michigan is Father's Day weekend. After the summer break IndyCar runs three consecutive weeks before ending the season on the third Sunday in September at Sonoma. I am not sure the series could go to Michigan for the season finale on the final weekend of September or in early October and draw a crowd. It is hard to compete during football season. Tracks struggle to get people through the turnstiles and the networks struggle to get people to tune into a race when football is in action.
Next year, Michigan International Speedway celebrates its 50th anniversary and it doesn't appear IndyCar will be on the guest list for the celebration but that doesn't mean IndyCar will never return. I am more optimistic about IndyCar one day returning to Michigan than I am Cleveland. For starters, Michigan is a permanent track and has two NASCAR dates keeping the doors open. Chevrolet is invested in the doubleheader at Belle Isle, which seems to suggest that it wouldn't want a race at Michigan but maybe IndyCar continues to grow a bit and the manufacture decides it is worth it to support a second outing down the road at the two-mile oval along with the street course event. Until that day comes, if it ever does, we at least have plenty of videos of slingshot passes aided by the Hanford device to keep us satisfied.
Monday, July 31, 2017
Musings From the Weekend: Can Kubica Return to Formula One?
Josef Newgarden made it two consecutive victories for himself in IndyCar. Team Penske also continues its world takeover in Australia. Teammates continue to run into each other in Formula One. The second-best American driver in GP3 made his Formula Two debut and scored points while the best American driver in GP3 finished on the podium. Audi continues to win endurance, races as does Yamaha. There was a NASCAR race. There were first-time winners in the World Rally Championship and Formula E and Formula E concluded its third season. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Can Kubica Return to Formula One?
Wednesday will be a blast from the past. Formula One teams will be on track testing at the Hungaroring for two days and there will be a fair share of young drivers hoping to impress someone enough to overlook the fact they are short a couple million Euros of budget and keep their number in the cell phone and maybe in the near future give them a call for a race seat because of talent and not bank account. One of those driver proved he had what it took to be in Formula One and he win races. Now he has to do it all over again.
It is somewhat fitting Robert Kubica's first time in a current Formula One car since early 2011 comes at the Hungaroring, the site where he made a somewhat surprise debut in 2006. Jacques Villeneuve had been sidelined after an accident at Hockenheim but he was already on the outs with BMW Sauber and the Pole, fresh off the 2005 Formula Renault 3.5 Series championship and 12 races running free practice one, slid right in and was fit for the job.
He made the final round of qualifying on his debut and held his own in the race, running in the points for most of the day and crossing the line in seventh position, one lap down. However, excess tire wear caused Kubica's car to weigh in two kilograms below the minimum weight and he was disqualified. Kubica's first career points wouldn't be that far off. He finished third two races later at Monza. He wouldn't score again in 2006 but for the entire 2007 season it felt BMW Sauber had found someone special.
Victory was a matter of when by the time the 2008 season started. He finished second at Malaysia and picked up his first career pole position at Bahrain. Felipe Massa beat him to turn one on the start and Kimi Räikkönen passed him on lap three but Kubica held on for third. A second at Monaco made it three podiums from the first six races and he was fourth in the championship, six points behind Lewis Hamilton.
The next race was Montreal. He started second to Hamilton. When Adrian Sutil broke down and caused a safety car Kubica and the rest of the leaders dived into the pit lane. Kubica came out ahead of Hamilton and he and Räikkönen were side-by-side at the end of the pit lane waiting for the red light to go green to release the cars back onto the race track. Hamilton, not anticipating stationary vehicles swerved to his left as he braked and ran into the back of Räikkönen's Ferrari. Kubica drove away unscathed. This left no real challengers for Kubica and while a handful of drivers cycled through the lead during pit stops, the race was all Kubica's for the final 28 laps as he took not only his first career grand prix victory but the World Drivers' Championship lead as well.
Kubica couldn't remain in the championship fight and he would eventually come home in fourth but he picked up three more podium finishes before the year was out. The underdog spirit wasn't enough in 2009. He had only two points from the first ten races and BMW announced its withdrawal from Formula One just after the tenth round at the Hungaroring. The tide turned for the second half of the season and he picked up 15 points in the final seven races with his best outing being a second-place finish at Interlagos.
Free agency came at the worst time for Kubica. He was free to go anywhere but he was not the top choice for any of the top teams. Mercedes took over Brawn GP and brought Michael Schumacher out of retirement and brought in Nico Rosberg from Williams. This left the reigning World Drivers' Champion Jenson Button without a ride and McLaren quickly snatched him up. Fernando Alonso replaced Räikkönen at Ferrari. Red Bull was set with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
His only option was Renault, a team a half a decade removed from world championship success but blackballed by the embarrassment of telling one of its drivers to crash on purpose during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Renault's future in Formula One was still in question. Despite all the uncertainty, Kubica finished second in his second start with the team at Melbourne and he would score points in the next seven races after that, which included a third-place finish at Monaco. He would finish third at Spa-Francorchamps later that season and end the year with 15 points finishes from 19 races and eighth in the championship.
Things were looking up for Kubica and 2011 started on a good note as he topped the final day of testing from Valencia. Then there is the turn in the story that we all know: A rally, an accident with a guard rail, severe damage to his right arm and for the last six years a Formula One career that appeared to have ended too soon. He was able to return to competition in the World Rally Championship and he won the WRC-2 championship in 2013. He started 2014 with a victory in the first round of the European Rally Championship. He was ready to take on the WRC big boys of Sébastien Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. He was competitive. He won his fair share of stages, he might have won a rally or two if he hadn't had so many accidents, a few so violent you wondered why a man who frisked by death once would continue on. The victory never came and his final WRC start came at Monte-Carlo last year.
The last couple years were hard to watch. It is tough to watch a man you thought was good enough to win the World Drivers' Championship constantly be told he should give up competing altogether. Even the failed attempt to driver for ByKolles in the WEC was just another disappointing blow for a driver who had already suffered enough. I couldn't help but think in 30 years the youths learning about Formula One would look at Robert Kubica and only think of this mystery man who shined when it seemed he shouldn't have and won one race and led the championship after one race and not know the talent he actually had. He could have been world champion. I can't be the only one who watched from 2006 to 2011 and thought he was better than Rosberg.
Wednesday is a day we been waiting six and a half years for. Most of us probably thought it would never come. What comes after this test still remains unknown. We all know Renault isn't too particularly attached to Jolyon Palmer but has it been too long of a hiatus for Kubica to be anymore competitive than Palmer in the final nine races of this year? And if Kubica isn't a midseason replacement but rather the option for that second seat in 2018, how long would he have in Formula One? He will be 33 years old at the start of next season. How long of a leash would he be given before he is tossed aside? Is it all worth it if it only last a year? What about two years? I can't imagine it is realistic to expect him to stay in a Formula One race seat for three years or more if he can only bring the car home in eighth or ninth on a good day.
You just want to see a happy ending at this point. For six years, Kubica has tried to continue to be a world-class race car driver and he has accomplished quite a bit despite his physical limitations. He deserves an ending that encapsulates his perseverance. I find it fitting this test will happen at the Hungaroring, where he first stepped into the spotlight. This will either be the start of Kubica's second Formula One career or the ribbon to bring closure to a career interrupted when things were starting to swing in the right direction.
Champions From the Weekend
Lucas di Grassi won the 2016-17 Formula E Drivers' Championship after winning race one from Montreal and finishing seventh in race two while Sébastien Buemi was disqualified from race one for his car being underweight and failed to score any points in race two.
Renault e.dams picked up its third consecutive Formula E Teams' Championship.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Josef Newgarden but did you know...
Sebastian Vettel won the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Jean-Éric Vergne won the second race of the Montreal ePrix. It was Vergne's first Formula E victory in 31st Formula E start, the most starts before a first victory in series history. It was also Vergne's first victory since September 17, 2011 when he won at Circuit Paul Ricard in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series.
The #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 LMS of Christopher Haase, Markus Winkelhock and Jules Gounon won the 24 Hours of Spa.
The #21 Yamaha Factory Racing Team of Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark won the Suzuka 8 Hours. It is Nakasuga's third consecutive Suzuka 8 Hours victory, van der Mark's third career Suzuka 8 Hours victory and Lowes' second consecutive Suzuka 8 Hours victory.
Santiago Urrutia and Nico Jamin split the Indy Lights races from Mid-Ohio. Anthony Martin won the first and third Pro Mazda races and Victor Franzoni took the second race. Oliver Askew and Parker Thompson split the U.S. F2000 races.
Álvaro Parente swept the Pirelli World Challenge GT races from Mid-Ohio. Lawson Aschenbach and Ian James split the GTS races.
Oliver Rowland and Nobuharu Matsushita split the Formula 2 races from the Hungaroring. American and Connecticut's own Santino Ferrucci finished ninth in the first race of the weekend, scoring himself two points on his debut. Jack Aitken and Giuliano Alesi split the GP3 races. American and New York-native Ryan Tveter finished second to Alesi in the sprint race.
Kyle Busch won the NASCAR race from Pocono. Ryan Preece won the Grand National Series race from Iowa. Christopher Bell won the Truck race from Pocono.
Steve McLaughlin and Chaz Mostert split the Supercars races from Queensland Raceway.
Esapekka Lappi won Rally Finland, his first career WRC victory. With Sébastien Ogier retiring from the rally and Thierry Neuville finishing sixth and picking up three points from the power stage, the two drivers are tied on 160 points for the championship lead with four races remaining in 2017. Neuville holds the tiebreaker with three victories to Ogier's two.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP is back! And that two-wheel circus will be at Brno.
NASCAR will be at Watkins Glen.
IMSA heads to Road America with all four classes in tow.
Fuji hosts Super GT.
Can Kubica Return to Formula One?
Wednesday will be a blast from the past. Formula One teams will be on track testing at the Hungaroring for two days and there will be a fair share of young drivers hoping to impress someone enough to overlook the fact they are short a couple million Euros of budget and keep their number in the cell phone and maybe in the near future give them a call for a race seat because of talent and not bank account. One of those driver proved he had what it took to be in Formula One and he win races. Now he has to do it all over again.
It is somewhat fitting Robert Kubica's first time in a current Formula One car since early 2011 comes at the Hungaroring, the site where he made a somewhat surprise debut in 2006. Jacques Villeneuve had been sidelined after an accident at Hockenheim but he was already on the outs with BMW Sauber and the Pole, fresh off the 2005 Formula Renault 3.5 Series championship and 12 races running free practice one, slid right in and was fit for the job.
He made the final round of qualifying on his debut and held his own in the race, running in the points for most of the day and crossing the line in seventh position, one lap down. However, excess tire wear caused Kubica's car to weigh in two kilograms below the minimum weight and he was disqualified. Kubica's first career points wouldn't be that far off. He finished third two races later at Monza. He wouldn't score again in 2006 but for the entire 2007 season it felt BMW Sauber had found someone special.
Victory was a matter of when by the time the 2008 season started. He finished second at Malaysia and picked up his first career pole position at Bahrain. Felipe Massa beat him to turn one on the start and Kimi Räikkönen passed him on lap three but Kubica held on for third. A second at Monaco made it three podiums from the first six races and he was fourth in the championship, six points behind Lewis Hamilton.
The next race was Montreal. He started second to Hamilton. When Adrian Sutil broke down and caused a safety car Kubica and the rest of the leaders dived into the pit lane. Kubica came out ahead of Hamilton and he and Räikkönen were side-by-side at the end of the pit lane waiting for the red light to go green to release the cars back onto the race track. Hamilton, not anticipating stationary vehicles swerved to his left as he braked and ran into the back of Räikkönen's Ferrari. Kubica drove away unscathed. This left no real challengers for Kubica and while a handful of drivers cycled through the lead during pit stops, the race was all Kubica's for the final 28 laps as he took not only his first career grand prix victory but the World Drivers' Championship lead as well.
Kubica couldn't remain in the championship fight and he would eventually come home in fourth but he picked up three more podium finishes before the year was out. The underdog spirit wasn't enough in 2009. He had only two points from the first ten races and BMW announced its withdrawal from Formula One just after the tenth round at the Hungaroring. The tide turned for the second half of the season and he picked up 15 points in the final seven races with his best outing being a second-place finish at Interlagos.
Free agency came at the worst time for Kubica. He was free to go anywhere but he was not the top choice for any of the top teams. Mercedes took over Brawn GP and brought Michael Schumacher out of retirement and brought in Nico Rosberg from Williams. This left the reigning World Drivers' Champion Jenson Button without a ride and McLaren quickly snatched him up. Fernando Alonso replaced Räikkönen at Ferrari. Red Bull was set with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
His only option was Renault, a team a half a decade removed from world championship success but blackballed by the embarrassment of telling one of its drivers to crash on purpose during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Renault's future in Formula One was still in question. Despite all the uncertainty, Kubica finished second in his second start with the team at Melbourne and he would score points in the next seven races after that, which included a third-place finish at Monaco. He would finish third at Spa-Francorchamps later that season and end the year with 15 points finishes from 19 races and eighth in the championship.
Things were looking up for Kubica and 2011 started on a good note as he topped the final day of testing from Valencia. Then there is the turn in the story that we all know: A rally, an accident with a guard rail, severe damage to his right arm and for the last six years a Formula One career that appeared to have ended too soon. He was able to return to competition in the World Rally Championship and he won the WRC-2 championship in 2013. He started 2014 with a victory in the first round of the European Rally Championship. He was ready to take on the WRC big boys of Sébastien Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. He was competitive. He won his fair share of stages, he might have won a rally or two if he hadn't had so many accidents, a few so violent you wondered why a man who frisked by death once would continue on. The victory never came and his final WRC start came at Monte-Carlo last year.
The last couple years were hard to watch. It is tough to watch a man you thought was good enough to win the World Drivers' Championship constantly be told he should give up competing altogether. Even the failed attempt to driver for ByKolles in the WEC was just another disappointing blow for a driver who had already suffered enough. I couldn't help but think in 30 years the youths learning about Formula One would look at Robert Kubica and only think of this mystery man who shined when it seemed he shouldn't have and won one race and led the championship after one race and not know the talent he actually had. He could have been world champion. I can't be the only one who watched from 2006 to 2011 and thought he was better than Rosberg.
Wednesday is a day we been waiting six and a half years for. Most of us probably thought it would never come. What comes after this test still remains unknown. We all know Renault isn't too particularly attached to Jolyon Palmer but has it been too long of a hiatus for Kubica to be anymore competitive than Palmer in the final nine races of this year? And if Kubica isn't a midseason replacement but rather the option for that second seat in 2018, how long would he have in Formula One? He will be 33 years old at the start of next season. How long of a leash would he be given before he is tossed aside? Is it all worth it if it only last a year? What about two years? I can't imagine it is realistic to expect him to stay in a Formula One race seat for three years or more if he can only bring the car home in eighth or ninth on a good day.
You just want to see a happy ending at this point. For six years, Kubica has tried to continue to be a world-class race car driver and he has accomplished quite a bit despite his physical limitations. He deserves an ending that encapsulates his perseverance. I find it fitting this test will happen at the Hungaroring, where he first stepped into the spotlight. This will either be the start of Kubica's second Formula One career or the ribbon to bring closure to a career interrupted when things were starting to swing in the right direction.
Champions From the Weekend
Lucas di Grassi won the 2016-17 Formula E Drivers' Championship after winning race one from Montreal and finishing seventh in race two while Sébastien Buemi was disqualified from race one for his car being underweight and failed to score any points in race two.
Renault e.dams picked up its third consecutive Formula E Teams' Championship.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Josef Newgarden but did you know...
Sebastian Vettel won the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Jean-Éric Vergne won the second race of the Montreal ePrix. It was Vergne's first Formula E victory in 31st Formula E start, the most starts before a first victory in series history. It was also Vergne's first victory since September 17, 2011 when he won at Circuit Paul Ricard in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series.
The #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 LMS of Christopher Haase, Markus Winkelhock and Jules Gounon won the 24 Hours of Spa.
The #21 Yamaha Factory Racing Team of Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark won the Suzuka 8 Hours. It is Nakasuga's third consecutive Suzuka 8 Hours victory, van der Mark's third career Suzuka 8 Hours victory and Lowes' second consecutive Suzuka 8 Hours victory.
Santiago Urrutia and Nico Jamin split the Indy Lights races from Mid-Ohio. Anthony Martin won the first and third Pro Mazda races and Victor Franzoni took the second race. Oliver Askew and Parker Thompson split the U.S. F2000 races.
Álvaro Parente swept the Pirelli World Challenge GT races from Mid-Ohio. Lawson Aschenbach and Ian James split the GTS races.
Oliver Rowland and Nobuharu Matsushita split the Formula 2 races from the Hungaroring. American and Connecticut's own Santino Ferrucci finished ninth in the first race of the weekend, scoring himself two points on his debut. Jack Aitken and Giuliano Alesi split the GP3 races. American and New York-native Ryan Tveter finished second to Alesi in the sprint race.
Kyle Busch won the NASCAR race from Pocono. Ryan Preece won the Grand National Series race from Iowa. Christopher Bell won the Truck race from Pocono.
Steve McLaughlin and Chaz Mostert split the Supercars races from Queensland Raceway.
Esapekka Lappi won Rally Finland, his first career WRC victory. With Sébastien Ogier retiring from the rally and Thierry Neuville finishing sixth and picking up three points from the power stage, the two drivers are tied on 160 points for the championship lead with four races remaining in 2017. Neuville holds the tiebreaker with three victories to Ogier's two.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP is back! And that two-wheel circus will be at Brno.
NASCAR will be at Watkins Glen.
IMSA heads to Road America with all four classes in tow.
Fuji hosts Super GT.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
First Impressions: Mid-Ohio 2017
1. Josef Newgarden is up for it at Team Penske. He has the most victories in 2017 as he picked up his third victory of the season and now he leads the championship. This was a master class performance by Newgarden. He caught a break two weeks ago but today he was head, neck and shoulders above the competition today. He made a bold move on Will Power early and never looked back. This victory comes after a string of poor results at Mid-Ohio, most weren't of his doing. He could have won in 2014 if it wasn't for one poor pit stop. There are still four races to go but he hasn't been spooked yet this season. Everything he has faced in his first season at Team Penske he has been able to handle. Four races to go but I don't think he is going to blink at what is in front of him.
2. Will Power was second-best all day. He started on pole position and led a few laps but never had anything for his teammate. It is a good day, it is another 1-2 finish for Team Penske and it is another second-place finish for Power at Mid-Ohio. Surprisingly, he has yet to win at this track. He will have to wait until 2018 to get that elusive victory.
3. Graham Rahal gave it his all to finish second but third is a respectable result for the Ohioan at his home race. Rahal has consistently been the best Honda driver in the last three seasons in this aero kit-era. He has been able to go toe-to-toe with Team Penske as a single-car effort. It is absolutely impressive what he is doing and he is still in the title fight. He is going to have to probably win one of the final four races if not two but don't count him out.
4. Simon Pagenaud finished fourth and this is the fourth time he has finished fourth after starting seventh in his career. He had a good start and made up a few positions but he really had nothing for the top three. Minus winning three consecutive races, this year mirrors what Pagenaud did last year. He is constantly finishing at the front. He has ten top five finishes in 13 races. Any other year he would be leading the championship.
5. Takuma Sato finished fifth and I think he over-performed his car today. He didn't really have the best car. He was really holding on to stay in sixth or seventh but the only caution bunched the field up and he made up two spots immediately on the restart. This was a good day in what has really been an impressive season for Sato and that isn't even taking into consideration his Indianapolis 500 victory.
6. Alexander Rossi looked like he would have a shot at the podium but his middle stint on the alternate tire did not go to plan. He set the fastest lap of the race but he was over two seconds off the rest of the field at the end of that stint. He probably should have finished ahead of Sato but sixth isn't a bad day.
7. Hélio Castroneves finished seventh in what was a Castroneves-esque day. He really didn't have a car to finish in the top five. He gets points and he remains second in the championship, seven points behind Newgarden.
8. Ryan Hunter-Reay is probably counting his lucky stars that he finished eighth. He had a spin early after a battle with his teammate Rossi for fifth. He got back going immediately and rejoined the race in 12th. He made a handful of passes and came home in eighth. After the rough start to his season, Hunter-Reay should be happy with an eighth-place finish. He is clawing his way back into the top ten of the championship.
9. Scott Dixon finished ninth in what was a rough day for him. He couldn't get the handling of his car to his liking and he was fighting the car for most of the race. Add on top of that a botched pit stop where the left rear changer had an issue with the air gun and the fact he came home ninth is amazing. He dropped to third in the championship from the championship lead but he only trails Newgarden by eight points. He isn't out of this at all.
10. Conor Daly finally had a good weekend. He started 11th, he finished tenth and it has to be a good boost for the team. He is changing his diet in hopes of improving his driving and I am not sure the vegan diet is 100% responsible for this result nor do I think he is going to end the season with a string of top ten finishes but it is a good day and something to build on for the final four races.
11. James Hinchcliffe was passed late by Daly and he finished 11th. He was stuck behind Sato for most of this race and he probably should have finished sixth or seventh but he got shuffled back during pit stops and he didn't have the best car in the final stint.
12. Marco Andretti finished 12th after starting 14th and Charlie Kimball started and finished 13th in two days that could have been better but could have been worse as well.
13. Mikhail Aleshin had a quiet day and finished 14th and that is a good thing. After he spun and hit the barrier in the final practice on Saturday, I was starting to think he was going to be fired come Monday. I am not sure he salvaged his career today but he isn't confirmed for the final four races. Keeping all four wheels on it today bodes well for him but the ice remains thin for the Russian.
14. Quickly through the rest of the field: Max Chilton and Tony Kanaan were lost all day. J.R. Hildebrand may have had a chance for a top ten had he not been caught out by the only caution in this race. Carlos Muñoz proved that not everything is swell for A.J. Foyt Racing. Spencer Pigot couldn't overcome the hard accident in the warm-up session and finished 19th. This was a bad day for Dale Coyne Racing. Esteban Gutiérrez damaged his front wing in the opening laps and was a lap down most of this race and Ed Jones spun exiting turn nine for the only caution in this race and finished two laps down.
15. The one sore eye from today and it is one of the few areas IndyCar has to improve on in terms of on-track competition is blue flag enforcement. We had two incidents today. The first was Carlos Muñoz. He had to make an unscheduled pit stop and came out between Power and Rahal in second and third. Rahal couldn't get by for a handful of laps and the gap between him and Power went from just over a second to over seven seconds.
Then there was Esteban Gutiérrez. He was between Newgarden and Power on the restart, which is legal, but after a few corners he still held up Power and the rest of the cars on the lead lap. Gutiérrez eventually pulled down the pit lane but at that point Newgarden's lead was over three seconds.
I didn't see blue flags being waved once and I question whether there were any present at Mid-Ohio this weekend. Neither driver had any reason to be holding up lead lap cars. I understand Gutiérrez was trying to fight to get his lap back but it was clear he wasn't and he had over 11 seconds between him and Muñoz, the next car on the lead lap.
IndyCar needs to work on blue flag enforcement and I think all the drivers would agree, including Muñoz and Gutiérrez. I am sure if the roles were reversed and Muñoz and Gutiérrez were second and third they would not want a lapped car holding them up and allowing the leader to pull away. I hope IndyCar works on it immediately but realistically I hope it is amended for 2018.
16. Mid-Ohio has a problem and that is it is running out of room to put people. Good lord, there was people lined all along the fence down the straightaway from the keyhole to turn four. This has to be the largest crowd Mid-Ohio has seen since the IRL first went there in 2007 and it has to challenge for one of the largest crowds all-time for a Mid-Ohio IndyCar race. This is what a decade of running the last weekend in July/first weekend in August does. People know when it is and they make it a yearly summer trip. It is exciting to see and you can only hope Pocono, Phoenix, Gateway and Watkins Glen are allowed to follow in the footsteps of Mid-Ohio and growth happens at those places as well.
17. We get a little summer break now for IndyCar. I like the two weeks off. It isn't a massive amount of down time but it is just enough. Besides, IndyCar will run three consecutive weeks once the series gets back to work at Pocono on August 20th.
2. Will Power was second-best all day. He started on pole position and led a few laps but never had anything for his teammate. It is a good day, it is another 1-2 finish for Team Penske and it is another second-place finish for Power at Mid-Ohio. Surprisingly, he has yet to win at this track. He will have to wait until 2018 to get that elusive victory.
3. Graham Rahal gave it his all to finish second but third is a respectable result for the Ohioan at his home race. Rahal has consistently been the best Honda driver in the last three seasons in this aero kit-era. He has been able to go toe-to-toe with Team Penske as a single-car effort. It is absolutely impressive what he is doing and he is still in the title fight. He is going to have to probably win one of the final four races if not two but don't count him out.
4. Simon Pagenaud finished fourth and this is the fourth time he has finished fourth after starting seventh in his career. He had a good start and made up a few positions but he really had nothing for the top three. Minus winning three consecutive races, this year mirrors what Pagenaud did last year. He is constantly finishing at the front. He has ten top five finishes in 13 races. Any other year he would be leading the championship.
5. Takuma Sato finished fifth and I think he over-performed his car today. He didn't really have the best car. He was really holding on to stay in sixth or seventh but the only caution bunched the field up and he made up two spots immediately on the restart. This was a good day in what has really been an impressive season for Sato and that isn't even taking into consideration his Indianapolis 500 victory.
6. Alexander Rossi looked like he would have a shot at the podium but his middle stint on the alternate tire did not go to plan. He set the fastest lap of the race but he was over two seconds off the rest of the field at the end of that stint. He probably should have finished ahead of Sato but sixth isn't a bad day.
7. Hélio Castroneves finished seventh in what was a Castroneves-esque day. He really didn't have a car to finish in the top five. He gets points and he remains second in the championship, seven points behind Newgarden.
8. Ryan Hunter-Reay is probably counting his lucky stars that he finished eighth. He had a spin early after a battle with his teammate Rossi for fifth. He got back going immediately and rejoined the race in 12th. He made a handful of passes and came home in eighth. After the rough start to his season, Hunter-Reay should be happy with an eighth-place finish. He is clawing his way back into the top ten of the championship.
9. Scott Dixon finished ninth in what was a rough day for him. He couldn't get the handling of his car to his liking and he was fighting the car for most of the race. Add on top of that a botched pit stop where the left rear changer had an issue with the air gun and the fact he came home ninth is amazing. He dropped to third in the championship from the championship lead but he only trails Newgarden by eight points. He isn't out of this at all.
10. Conor Daly finally had a good weekend. He started 11th, he finished tenth and it has to be a good boost for the team. He is changing his diet in hopes of improving his driving and I am not sure the vegan diet is 100% responsible for this result nor do I think he is going to end the season with a string of top ten finishes but it is a good day and something to build on for the final four races.
11. James Hinchcliffe was passed late by Daly and he finished 11th. He was stuck behind Sato for most of this race and he probably should have finished sixth or seventh but he got shuffled back during pit stops and he didn't have the best car in the final stint.
12. Marco Andretti finished 12th after starting 14th and Charlie Kimball started and finished 13th in two days that could have been better but could have been worse as well.
13. Mikhail Aleshin had a quiet day and finished 14th and that is a good thing. After he spun and hit the barrier in the final practice on Saturday, I was starting to think he was going to be fired come Monday. I am not sure he salvaged his career today but he isn't confirmed for the final four races. Keeping all four wheels on it today bodes well for him but the ice remains thin for the Russian.
14. Quickly through the rest of the field: Max Chilton and Tony Kanaan were lost all day. J.R. Hildebrand may have had a chance for a top ten had he not been caught out by the only caution in this race. Carlos Muñoz proved that not everything is swell for A.J. Foyt Racing. Spencer Pigot couldn't overcome the hard accident in the warm-up session and finished 19th. This was a bad day for Dale Coyne Racing. Esteban Gutiérrez damaged his front wing in the opening laps and was a lap down most of this race and Ed Jones spun exiting turn nine for the only caution in this race and finished two laps down.
15. The one sore eye from today and it is one of the few areas IndyCar has to improve on in terms of on-track competition is blue flag enforcement. We had two incidents today. The first was Carlos Muñoz. He had to make an unscheduled pit stop and came out between Power and Rahal in second and third. Rahal couldn't get by for a handful of laps and the gap between him and Power went from just over a second to over seven seconds.
Then there was Esteban Gutiérrez. He was between Newgarden and Power on the restart, which is legal, but after a few corners he still held up Power and the rest of the cars on the lead lap. Gutiérrez eventually pulled down the pit lane but at that point Newgarden's lead was over three seconds.
I didn't see blue flags being waved once and I question whether there were any present at Mid-Ohio this weekend. Neither driver had any reason to be holding up lead lap cars. I understand Gutiérrez was trying to fight to get his lap back but it was clear he wasn't and he had over 11 seconds between him and Muñoz, the next car on the lead lap.
IndyCar needs to work on blue flag enforcement and I think all the drivers would agree, including Muñoz and Gutiérrez. I am sure if the roles were reversed and Muñoz and Gutiérrez were second and third they would not want a lapped car holding them up and allowing the leader to pull away. I hope IndyCar works on it immediately but realistically I hope it is amended for 2018.
16. Mid-Ohio has a problem and that is it is running out of room to put people. Good lord, there was people lined all along the fence down the straightaway from the keyhole to turn four. This has to be the largest crowd Mid-Ohio has seen since the IRL first went there in 2007 and it has to challenge for one of the largest crowds all-time for a Mid-Ohio IndyCar race. This is what a decade of running the last weekend in July/first weekend in August does. People know when it is and they make it a yearly summer trip. It is exciting to see and you can only hope Pocono, Phoenix, Gateway and Watkins Glen are allowed to follow in the footsteps of Mid-Ohio and growth happens at those places as well.
17. We get a little summer break now for IndyCar. I like the two weeks off. It isn't a massive amount of down time but it is just enough. Besides, IndyCar will run three consecutive weeks once the series gets back to work at Pocono on August 20th.
Morning Warm-Up: Mid-Ohio 2017
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| Will Power will try to make it three consecutive victories for Team Penske with three different drivers |
Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal make it an all-Honda row two. This was only the second time Sato had made the final round of qualifying at Mid-Ohio. He started third in his first visit to the track in 2010 but finished 25th after an accident in turn four. This matches Rahal's best career starting position at his home race. He stared fourth in 2009 and finished eighth. Rahal finished fourth in last year's Mid-Ohio race. He is looking for his seven consecutive top ten finish. Championship rivals Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon will start on row three. This is Castroneves' worst start on a road/street circuit since he started 16th in the season opener at St. Petersburg. Castroneves has won three times from fifth on the grid but all three of those victories came on temporary circuits. He did it twice at St. Petersburg and once at Edmonton. Dixon's first Mid-Ohio victory came from sixth on the grid in 2007. All five of Dixon's Mid-Ohio victories have come from a different position on the starting grid.
Simon Pagenaud missed out on the final round of qualifying by 0.0448 seconds and this is the third time he has started seventh this season. His best finish from seventh on the grid in his career is fourth, which has happened on three occasions, most recently at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May and the other two times were in 2007 at Mont-Tremblant and Edmonton. James Hinchcliffe will join the Frenchman on row four. Hinchcliffe has started in the top ten for every road and street course race this season but this is his first time starting on row four in 2017. Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay make it an all-Andretti Autosport row five. Rossi finished second at Toronto two weeks ago and he is looking for consecutive top five finishes for the first time in his career. Hunter-Reay is looking for his third consecutive top ten finish. Three of his four top ten finishes in 2017 came with him starting outside the top ten including his last two top ten finishes.
Conor Daly advanced to the second round of qualifying for the first time this season and for the first time since Toronto last year. This was only the second time A.J. Foyt Racing made the second round of qualifying in 2017. Carlos Muñoz started 11th in the season opener at St. Petersburg. Esteban Gutiérrez made the second round of qualifying for the first time in his IndyCar career. Today's race comes five years and one day since Gutiérrez's most recent victory, a GP2 sprint race win at the Hungaroring. Gutiérrez has finished ahead of his teammate Ed Jones in three of his five starts including the last two races. Charlie Kimball missed out on advancing to the second round of qualifying by 0.0303 seconds while Marco Andretti missed round two by 0.1297 seconds and both drivers make up row seven. Kimball has been running at the finish of the last three races, his longest streak of the season. Andretti is coming off his first top five finish in over two years after he finished fourth at Toronto. He has yet to finish in the top five at Mid-Ohio.
Ed Jones will start in 15th position for the second consecutive race. Since completing 886 of 890 laps in the first seven races, Jones has completed 638 of 758 laps run in the last five races with his only lead lap finish being at Road America. Three of those five results have been retirements for Jones. Spencer Pigot joins Jones on row eight. He started 16th at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May and finished ninth. He finished seventh at Mid-Ohio last year after starting 19th. Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton make it an all-Ganassi row nine. Kanaan was set to advance to the second round of qualifying but he had his fastest lap rescinded after he caused a local yellow for a spin in the keyhole in the final minutes of his qualifying group. Not only is this Kanaan's worst starting position of the season but also it was the sixth time in the last eight Mid-Ohio races he has not advanced to round two in qualifying. Chilton had advanced to the second round of qualifying at every permanent road course this season prior to Mid-Ohio.
J.R. Hildebrand and Carlos Muñoz round out the top twenty. This is Hildebrand's worst career starting position at Mid-Ohio. Hildebrand's best career finish in his prior four times starting 19th was seventh at Motegi in 2011. This is the third consecutive year Muñoz has started outside the top ten at Mid-Ohio. He went from 23rd to ninth in 2015 and from 15th to third last year. Mikhail Aleshin rounds out the grid in 21st position in his return race after being bench for Toronto. Aleshin did hit the barrier after a spin in the final practice session on Saturday morning. This is Aleshin's worst starting position of the season and this is only the third time he has started outside the top twenty in his career. He failed to finish on the lead lap and in the top fifteen in those prior two starts outside the top twenty.
CNBC's coverage of the Honda Indy 200 from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:37 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
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