In Mexico, the World Drivers' Championship was decided for the second consecutive year. Daniel Ricciardo cannot catch a break. Martin Truex, Jr. was not happy. Phillip Island had a few photo finishes. Moisture denied a chance at a record in World Superbike but the World Supersport title was decided on the final lap of the season. Speaking of titles, crowns were handed out in Portugal, Japan and the United States as well. An old face returned to the top step of the podium in the World Rally Championship. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
IndyCar Silly Season Catch Up
It is the end of October. The IndyCar season is six weeks behind us and a lot has happened in the days since Scott Dixon took his fifth title on a summer's evening in Sonoma.
A lot was already decided before the 2018 season ended and most of the few open seats have been filled. With the year almost 80% in the bag, let's look at where IndyCar stands with 132 days left in the offseason.
What did we know?
All four Andretti Autosport drivers are returning. Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti and Zach Veach are staying put.
Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato will remain at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Dale Coyne Racing will have Santino Ferrucci join Sébastien Bourdais.
Team Penske retains Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud.
A.J. Foyt Racing keeps the Brazilian duo of Tony Kanaan and Matheus Leist.
Harding Racing will expand to two cars and will have the top two drivers from Indy Lights, Patricio O'Ward and Colton Herta as its drivers.
Spencer Pigot, Max Chilton and James Hinchcliffe will be back at Ed Carpenter Racing, Carlin and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports respectively.
Oh... and Chip Ganassi Racing is giving that Scott Dixon guy another chance to prove himself.
Those were 19 confirmed seats. A few more have been filled.
Dixon will have the gem of free agents Felix Rosenqvist join him at Ganassi. The Swede has spent the last two seasons in Formula E but he also ran in Super Formula, Blancpain Sprint Series, Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters and Super GT.
Ed Carpenter will split the #20 Chevrolet with Ed Jones, who will drive in all the road and street course races in partnership with Scuderia Corsa and Jones will run the #64 Chevrolet for the team in the Indianapolis 500.
It is the end of October and 21 full-time seats have been announced. There are two notable openings, the second Carlin seat and the #6 Honda at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
With the releases from Robert Wickens last week it seems certain he will not be in the car next year and likely not the year after that with the Canadian hoping to regain enough strength over the next 24 months just to walk again.
Without a transition in mind it appears 23 full-time entries are on IndyCar's plate for 2019 but there will continue to be a revolving door of part-time entries.
Meyer Shank Racing is expected to expand its operation to ten races in 2019, four more than the team ran in 2018, and Jack Harvey will be back in the car. Like Meyer Shank Racing, Juncos Racing has purchased another DW12 chassis and will likely be a part-time entry but for how many races and with how many different drivers is another story.
Things have cooled on the expansion to three cars for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and not much has been heard from DragonSpeed about entering the series. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing returning to full-time competition has also gone quiet.
The top 16 drivers from the 2018 championship have a ride and the top championship driver on the outside is Charlie Kimball, with the second Carlin seat up in the air but it is not necessarily out of consideration that Kimball could return to the team.
Gabby Chaves has been sent to the unemployment line after spending majority of 2018 with Harding Racing. Jordan King is moving on from Ed Carpenter Racing, as the British driver looks for a full-time seat. Zachary Claman De Melo, Carlos Muñoz, Pietro Fittipaldi, René Binder, Conor Daly and Kyle Kaiser are the remaining drivers from the top 30 of the championship without rides.
From Indy Lights, there is Santiago Urrutia, who finished up his third season in the series and finished third in the championship after being the vice-champion the previous two years. Outside of the Road to Indy system, the most notable name snuggling up to IndyCar is current Sauber F1 driver Marcus Ericsson. Colin Braun finished runner-up in the IMSA Prototype championship and there were some rumblings he was on the IndyCar radar during the summer and those rumblings are still slightly active.
There are likely another handful of drivers on the outside in the ranks of Formula Two who are eyeing IndyCar but the gulf between the two series makes it difficult to see the connections.
One thing is clear in the late stages of silly season: A lot of people will end up not in a ride. There are at most two open full-time seats. Twelve drivers were named in three of the four paragraphs above. You do the math.
There is part of me that wonders if someone like Ericsson realizes how difficult it is to get a seat in IndyCar. Not that Ericsson doesn't have the talent to be in the series but there is a chance Ericsson could have the funding for a ride only to arrive at the party and find all the seats are taken. IndyCar isn't at a place where if you have enough money the seat will be appear for you. How many teams are willing to expand? How many engine leases are out there? Unless Ericsson has a fast track on the Carlin seat or has been on the phone with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, he might come and find there is no room at the inn for a driver looking for full-time work.
The length of the Formula One season and the amount of activity in IndyCar silly season makes it difficult for Ericsson to get on the grid. How seriously can he look for a ride when contracted to a Formula One team? Formula One teams demand undivided attentions... unless you are McLaren and Fernando Alonso needs to be kept happy. There are only two races left but I do not think Ericsson wants to be canned early because he announced an IndyCar seat and the team would have justified cause for replacing him with Antonio Giovinazzi.
It feels like these open seats will be for drivers we already know. The Carlin seat requires some money. The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports seat requires no money but I am sure additional funding would be appreciated. There are plenty drivers already within the IndyCar bubble that fit those requirements. A team could have their hearts set on Ericsson or another drivers from the European ladder system or from another international series but there are plenty of options already here that teams do not have to look far.
When will things be set? There will be a seat that drags into the New Year. Never is everything buttoned up before Christmas. Plus, there will be the part-time seats, Juncos Racing most notably, that will have an announcement or two to make and there will be Indianapolis 500 one-offs that will slowly come out during winter.
Champions From the Weekend
Lewis Hamilton clinched his fifth World Drivers' Championship with a fourth place finish in Mexico.
Sandro Cortese clinched the World Supersport championship with a second place finish at Losail.
The #15 RLR MSport Ligier-Nissan of Job van Uitert, John Farano and Rob Garofall clinched the European Le Mans Series LMP3 championship with a fifth-place finish at Portimão.
The #88 Proton Competition Porsche of Gianluca Roda and Giorgio Roda clinched theEuropean Le Mans Series GTE championship after finishing third.
Naoki Yamamoto won the Super Formula championship, the second of his career, after he won the race from Suzuka ahead of Nick Cassidy.
Tristan Vautier clinched the Intercontinental GT Challenge championship with a third place finish at Laguna Seca.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the slew of champions but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Mexican Grand Prix, his second victory of the season and his second consecutive Mexican Grand Prix victory.
Maverick Viñales won the MotoGP's Australian Grand Prix, Yamaha's first victory of the season. Brad Binder won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. Albert Arenas won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season, and less than a tenth of a second covered the top five riders.
Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup race from Martinsville. Johnny Sauter won theTruck race.
The #22 United Autosports Ligier-Gibson of Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson won the 4 Hours of Portimão, the second consecutive victory for the team. The #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier-Nissan of Jakub Smiechowski and Martin Hippe won the LMP3 class. The #77 Proton Competition Porsche of Christian Ried, Marvin Dienst and Dennis Olsen won the GTE class.
The #29 Land Motorsport Audi of Christopher Haase, Christopher Mies and Kelvin van der Linde won the California 8 Hours. The #626 Rearden Racing Audi of Vesko Kozarov, Max Faulkner and David Roberts won in the GT4 class. The #98 Bryan Herta Autosports Hyundai of Bryan Herta, Colton Herta and George Kurtz won in the TCR class.
Jonathan Rea won World Superbike race from Qatar. The second race was cancelled due to moisture. Lucas Mahias won the World Supersport race, his third of the season.
Kevin Ceccon, Robert Huff and Gabriele Tarquini split the three World Touring Car Cup races from Suzuka.
Sébastien Loeb won Rally de Catalunya, his first World Rally Championship victory in over five years.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP has its penultimate round of the season from Sepang.
Supercars has its penultimate round of the season from Pukekohe.
NASCAR will be in Texas.
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