This Month in Motorsports Headlines: March 2018

We are back for the second edition of This Month in Motorsports Headlines and this month had a bit more variety. More series are in action in March. IndyCar, MotoGP and Formula One seasons all started this month, there was a rally in Mexico and a few more series are preparing for upcoming season openers.

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

We have seven headlines to look at this month and we will start with NASCAR.

Brett Moffitt: "I would go race for free" to be in winning equipment
No you wouldn't. People love the sentiment of a driver who would race for nothing and would do whatever it took to win a race and would race hard for nothing but let's be realistic. Winning equipment doesn't pay the bill and while the information has been kept secret the last few seasons all signs point to purses being lower than the last time the information was public, which means a drivers' percentage of the winning is less than it was three of four years ago.

I am sure a driver could still make rent just on winnings but you need a base to start with because if Moffitt has three or four consecutive races where he retires early or gets in accidents and finishes outside the top 24 that would net him a fraction of what he would make if he was consistently finishing eighth to 12th.

Let's see how long a driver could go racing for free and there is nothing to gain by racing for free. That shouldn't make you more desirable to a future team owner. All it says is you are cheap. Put a price on yourself and demand you get paid. The team owners aren't going to look out for a driver. Moffitt and all drivers should get as much as they can as soon as they can.

At 250 Starts, Almirola feels like a rookie again
Since when did joining a new team make you feel like a rookie again?

Think about what a rookie goes through: New team, unknown car, possibly new tracks, longer races, more sponsorship commitments and higher expectations. It is quite a bit and that isn't considering all the off-track stuff a driver has to balance.

Almirola has been a frequent Cup driver since 2008 and he has been full-time since 2012. He spent the 2011 season in NASCAR's second division with JR Motorsports when he couldn't find a Cup ride. Stewart-Haas Racing is his sixth Cup team. His last 220 Cup starts have been with Ford. The tracks haven't changed, the races are the same length, one of his sponsors followed him from Richard Petty Motorsports and no one is expecting the world from him. The bar is low for Almirola.

There is no reason he should feel like a rookie. He switched teams and unless Stewart-Haas Racing has some really odd dress code or makes everyone come in a 4:00 a.m. for work or has a pet goat that everyone has to take care of and everyone has to bring it home one night a month, Almirola's routine should not have changed that much from the previous six years of his career. It should be a similar culture to what he is used to. If anything, it should be easier for Almirola because he has gone from being the only driver at Richard Petty Motorsports to the fourth of four Stewart-Haas drivers. While all eyes are on Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch get attention a fair amount of the time, Almirola is in a position where if he does well everyone is excited and if he does mediocre it was probably better than what he did at RPM and people are still happy for him. He is in a win-win situation. Most rookies don't get that.

Edwards: No rethink on retirement
Is this going to be a quarterly article? Someone calls Carl Edwards on his Missouri farm (I am guessing he lives on a farm and takes advantage of a tax break) and asks him if he wants to comeback to NASCAR and every time the answer is no?

Why do people think he will come back? His age?

Edwards would not get the same salary he did when he retired. Look at how NASCAR has changed in the year-plus since he stepped away. Matt Kenseth is gone and it wasn't because he wanted out. It is cheaper to put a Daniel Suárez, William Byron, Erik Jones, Alex Bowman or Darrell Wallace, Jr. in a car than a Kenseth or an Edwards. Jimmie Johnson is in the sponsorship hunting business now and he may be disappointed in how difficult it will be.

Edwards is gone but get ready for another article with Edwards once again saying he isn't coming back sometime in July.

Moving on to Formula One...

MIDLAND: Fourth is the new first
Nope, it is still fourth.

I understand the sentiment. The Formula One grid has been split into two packs, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull vs. Everybody else.

No one is going to break up the top three this year. There might be a few races where Haas gets a car in the top five or Renault or McLaren does the same but unless your name is Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel, Räikkönen, Ricciardo or Verstappen you probably will not win a race this year and there is a slim percentage you will be on the podium at some point in 2018.

While this divide could be seen as Formula One being too predictable, it does allow for an interesting competition. At Australia, Haas looked strong and was running fourth and sixth with Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean before the team botched two consecutive pit stops and took both cars out of the race. Who stepped up and was the best of rest? Fernando Alonso and McLaren with the Spaniard finishing fifth and Stoffel Vandoorne's ninth place finish has McLaren fourth in the Constructors' Championship on 12 points after one race, five points ahead of Renault and the other five teams have zero points after one race.

It will be an interesting battle and one that could swing back and forth all year but let's be clear, fourth is fourth. Just because more teams have a realistic shot of obtaining it doesn't make it first. These teams have a long way to go.

Brown to skip Japanese GP for the Bathurst 1000
Is Zak Brown bringing Fernando Alonso along with him?

While Brown is in charge of McLaren, it isn't a big deal he will not be at a Formula One race. He has multiple teams in multiple corners of the earth and Bathurst is the biggest event for his team, Walkinshaw Andretti United, a team that Brown is the minority owner. It would be a slightly bigger deal if Honda was still partnered with McLaren and Brown was skipping Japan. That could be seen as disrespectful. The only race in your engine manufactures' country and you choose not to go would be a bad look for Brown but that isn't the case.

Motorsports is a diverse sport and there are many stellar events. Roger Penske is in a similar boat. It wouldn't be news if he skipped an IndyCar race to attend a massive sports car race or skips a NASCAR race because the IndyCar title is on the line. You got to pick and choose and in Brown's case his first trip to Bathurst as a car owner, with potentially a shot at victory, is a big deal.

On to rally...

Loeb "sorry" to be replacing Breen in Mexico
I call bullshit. Come on, Sébastien Loeb. If it bothered you that much you wouldn't be doing it all. You had been happily retired from World Rally Championship competition for four years but after a few years and a fair amount of success in sports cars, touring cars, rallycross and the Dakar Rally you needed to return to your domain and Citroën wasn't going to say no to its favorite son.

Craig Breen has been a very good driver but Loeb is the greatest of all-time. Someone had to make room for the Frenchman and Breen got the short straw.

Let's end with IndyCar...

IndyCar owner Chip Ganassi in favor of stricter Indy 500 rookie orientation
I got to admit I read this article before writing but it seems in line with something Ganassi would say. Of course, in the article he goes on to say it was tougher when he was a driver, everything was tougher back in the day and today's drivers are spoiled brats with everything handed to them. I think I covered all the bases there.

I have argued in the past that rookie orientation is a session that could disappear from the Indianapolis 500 schedule and I doubt anyone would miss it. It is not like unqualified drivers are being allowed to compete. I think it is an arbitrary session in this era of racing and the drivers unprepared for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be found out immediately and struggle to make the race. Drivers have other tools to get ready for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and because of Indy Lights and the Freedom 100 drivers have experience on the track before ever getting into an IndyCar, something that is different from Ganassi's time as a driver. I am sure rookies appreciate the extra time on the track and it is probably beneficial to those drivers but this isn't 1964 and the first time a driver has been on a large, paved oval.

Ganassi is still angry about Scott Dixon being in the wrong place when Jay Howard hit the wall and Dixon's race ended after colliding with the past Indy Lights champion. Howard wasn't a rookie but needed to go through a refresher but a tougher rookie orientation program or refresher program would not have changed what would have happened in that incident. Howard got into the marbles, brushed the wall, had suspension damage and unfortunately slid into the way of Dixon. It was an unfortunate accident. Make rookie orientation harder for all I care. The same drivers are still going to get rides and be allowed to compete.

That was March. Let's see what April brings as more seasons firmly get into the 2018 season and we will have the starts of the FIA World Endurance Championship and Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters seasons approaching.