Nick Heidfeld has made 225 single-seater starts since his most recent single-seater victory. Andrea Dovizioso won the MotoGP season opener and once again did it by letting Marc Márquez lunge up the inside of the final corner only to overcook it enough for the Italian to have the advantage on the run to the line. The final margin of victory between Dovizioso and Márquez was 0.027 seconds and that wasn't even the closest finish at Losail. Kevin Harvick's winning streak came to an end. Formula E returned to Uruguay. Add Paul di Resta to the list of drivers pissed off about Balance of Performance. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
The Popularity Contest
There is something juvenile about popularity. Yet it is valued. It is powerful. In motorsports, it can make or break a career. The more followers you have the more attractive you become to sponsors. The more sponsors you have the easier it is to find a ride and not only find a ride but get to select which team to pony up with.
So why was IndyCar's most popular driver from 2017 on the sidelines for the 2018 season opener and he didn't announce retirement like Dale Earnhardt, Jr.? One, because of timing of the online voting process. IndyCar decided the 2017 most popular driver on the eve of the 2018 season starting, over two months into the calendar year of 2018 nearly five months after the final round of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season.
Second, it was a bit of a protest vote. Conor Daly was out of ride. Many aren't happy about it, especially after Daly represented IndyCar on the CBS show The Amazing Race with Alexander Rossi only for him to find out A.J. Foyt Racing would not be retaining the American shortly after he returned to the States after the show concluded. Daly is beloved in IndyCar circles and it is a shame he is without a ride. The timing of the vote allowed fans to voice its displeasure in the form of a digital middle finger to the rest of the IndyCar grid.
If the voting had been held within a week after the season had concluded, I don't think Daly comes close to winning most popular driver. He wouldn't have even been the most popular American driver in IndyCar. Josef Newgarden took a popular championship victory and the murmuring about whether Newgarden could be the personality that would lift IndyCar to national attention had already started. If it wasn't Newgarden's to win then perhaps it would have been Hélio Castroneves, as the Brazilian would get recognized for two decades of IndyCar dedication on his way out to sports cars. Daly might not have been in the top three or top five if the vote had been held in a more timely fashion after the season. He is a nice guy and ended the season on a good note but 18th in the championship, worst of the drivers to start all 17 races, takes a while for people to get over.
Daly won fair and square and he will hold the distinction of the quickly forgotten title of IndyCar's most popular driver for 2017.
But it did get me thinking, in this analytical era, where numbers are being digested in more nuanced ways than ever before, there has to be a more scientific way for most popular driver to be decided than a self-selected online poll on IndyCar's website. What year is this, 2004? We are more developed than that.
Between social media, merchandise sales, commercial spots and at-track fan interaction, IndyCar should take a step in revolutionizing how most popular driver is selected and perhaps make it an interesting metric to follow. It would be interesting to see which drivers are garnering the most traffic from social media and how they are doing it and it could create a competition off the racetrack, leading to drivers try more stuff to get attention and get more people exposed to the series. In turn, we could see if the drivers who are doing the best on social media are the ones that are leading to people purchasing their merchandise, whether it be hats, t-shirts or die-cast cars or if the social media noise is not producing results.
Too often the most popular driver selection process has become a routine. Was Dale Earnhardt, Jr., really the most popular driver every single year from 2003 to 2017? Was he still the most popular driver in 2007 when the castle was crumbling at Dale Earnhardt, Inc.? Was he the most popular driver in 2010 when he had not won a race in two years and ended up missing the Chase for the second consecutive season? He unquestionably was loved and sponsors didn't leave him even in that rough period but at a time when Tony Stewart bucked the trend and became an owner-driver and Mark Martin returned to full-time competition and nearly won a championship there were definitely more popular stories than that of Earnhardt, Jr. at the time. Everyone is allowed to have an off year but when it comes to sports people vote with their hearts and won't put those they love the most down.
Since people are biased we should look at the numbers and objectively decide who is the most popular. What does it say to a sponsor that IndyCar's most popular driver is unemployed? There is more to it than that but a more sophisticated way of deciding most popular driver can only help the series. We can keep track of followers on Twitter and Facebook, we can watch YouTube views of videos that include certain drivers increase and it is easy to see who is moving t-shirts. Those things should decide who the most popular driver is and the results may surprise us one year. An unexpected face could find himself or herself on top and the crowd might not even realize it.
If anything, making most popular driver an active competition could be the best for IndyCar. It could get a shy driver out of his or her shell and in his or her own way. In doing so, it could possibly bring people to the series who otherwise would not have been exposed to it. If a driver is making waves talking about his or her bracket for the NCAA Tournament, terrific. If another driver posts a dynamite peach cobbler recipe and it is shared amongst people who care more about Le Creuset than Le Mans and leads to that driver getting invited onto Food Network shows, phenomenal. After all, most popular driver should not be about who is most popular in the already small IndyCar circle but who is growing the circle and bringing more people into the conversation.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Andrea Dovizioso but did you know...
The #22 Extreme Speed Motorsports Nissan Onroak DPi of Pipo Derani, Nicolas Lapierre and Johannes van Overbeek won the 12 Hours of Sebring. The #911 Porsche of Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet and Frédéric Makowiecki won in GTLM. The #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini of Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Corey Lewis won in GTD.
Francesco Bagnaia won the Moto2 race from Qatar. Jorge Martin won the Moto3 race over Arón Canet by 0.023 seconds.
Martin Truex, Jr. won the NASCAR Cup race from Fontana. Joey Logano won the Grand National Series race.
Eli Tomac won the Supercross race from St. Louis, his fifth victory of the season.
Jean-Éric Vergne won the Punta del Este ePrix, extending his championship lead to 30 points over Felix Rosenqvist.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Formula One season starts in Melbourne.
Supercars will run four championship races this year at Albert Park in conjunction with the grand prix.
Pirelli World Challenge has its second round of the season and first SprintX round of the season at Austin.
World Superbikes has its second round of the season at Buriram.
NASCAR returns to Martinsville.
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