2018 Dale Coyne Racing Review
Wins: 1 (St. Petersburg)
Poles: 1 (Phoenix)
Championship Finishes: 7th (Sébastien Bourdais). 23rd (Zachary Claman De Melo), 26th (Pietro Fittipaldi), 27th (Santino Ferrucci)
Sébastien Bourdais - #18 Seal Masters Honda
It was a new year but same result when it came to St. Petersburg. While it was not the thrashing Bourdais put on in 2017, he did have to fight from behind, this year from 14th on the grid. He set himself up to be third on the final restart and when Robert Wickens and Alexander Rossi came together, the door opened for Bourdais to take the victory. The momentum continued into Phoenix where he took a surprise pole position. The race started well but on his first pit stop he slid into a crew member and left him with a penalty he could not over come. At Long Beach, Bourdais was in the top five and when his teammate Claman De Melo got into the barrier, Bourdais tried to dive into the pit lane but he missed making it before the pit lane was closed and his service forced him to serve another penalty, dropping him to a 13th place finish.
He had a hard fought battle at Barber for fifth in the closing laps with Scott Dixon and he beat the New Zealander to the line. A fourth place finish followed in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and one year after an accident while setting the fastest time for the first qualifying day, Bourdais qualified fifth for the Indianapolis 500. Unfortunately, in the race Bourdais had an accident end his day and begin a rough summer. His only top ten finish over the seven races from Indianapolis to Toronto was eighth at Texas.
It appeared Bourdais was not going to get out of his funk at Mid-Ohio. He started 24th after bringing out a red flag on his first lap of the qualifying session. There were no cautions in the race but that did not stop from going from 24th to sixth in one of the best performances of the 2018 season. He followed this with a fourth place finish at Pocono and another battle with Dixon, this one going to the New Zealander. He spun out on lap one at Gateway. Wing damage at the start of Portland shuffled him back but every caution went in his favor and he finished third. The year closed with a sixth place finish at Sonoma.
Numbers to Remember:
108: Laps led in 2018, only the second time Bourdais has led over 100 laps in a season since returning to IndyCar in 2011.
0: Laps led in the final 11 races of 2018.
23: The most consecutive starts without a lap led in Bourdais' career from Barber 2011 to São Paulo 2013.
Predictions/Goals:
We have heralded Bourdais and Coyne for shooting above their combined weight the last two seasons and after coming off seventh in the championship, the best non-big three team, there is only one way to go but entering that mighty title fight is not for the faint of heart. It is difficult and we see very infrequent non-big three teams fighting for the title.
Bourdais can do it with Coyne but as I said last year it means Bourdais and the team has to be perfect in every race. The Frenchman has to win three to four times, have eight to ten podium finishes and cannot afford to have more than two results outside the top ten. That cannot be the expectation. That is not realistic. We know bad days happen and we know Coyne is a few steps behind the likes of Penske, Ganassi and Andretti.
If there is one thing that cost Bourdais a title shot last year was the imbalance of his season. He started on fire but a bobble and collision with the barrier in the Indianapolis 500 started the rough patch to his season. He had one top ten finish in seven races from Indianapolis to Toronto. In that span he dropped from third to 11th in the championship and right when it seemed the slide would continue at Mid-Ohio when he started 24th out of 24 cars he put on one of the performances of the season and drove to sixth in a caution-free race. He ended the year with four top ten finishes from the final five races.
Bourdais cannot have that kind of slide again. He pretty much needs to start every road and street course race in the top ten or at least make it out of the first round of qualifying. The team carried over its oval prowess from 2017 to 2018 but the poor results came from self-inflicted wounds and those have to be limited. The team did not make many mistakes in 2018 and a few were solely on the shoulders of Bourdais. He has to hit his marks and not his crew members when it comes to pit stops especially when he is leading a race or in the top five.
A top ten championship finish is likely but it will be difficult to ascend higher than seventh when you have three Penskes, four Andrettis, Scott Dixon with the anticipated arrival of Felix Rosenqvist at Ganassi and then the likes of Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe all out on track as well. Bourdais could finish behind all those drivers above and that would put him 12th in the championship. The middle is tight in IndyCar and one or two bad results can swing you from a push for a top five spot to outside the top ten.
Santino Ferrucci - #19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda
Ferrucci started the 2018 season in Formula Two with Trident Racing. He did not score any points in his first three races but went on to finish sixth in the sprint race from Baku. He would not score any points in the next six races but he would score points in both races from the Red Bull Ring with a tenth in the feature race and seventh in the sprint.
The next round would be Ferrucci's last in Formula Two. At Silverstone, he finished 16th in the feature race and was disqualified from the sprint race after being deemed to have deliberately forced teammate Arjun Maini off track. He also made contact with Maini's car on the cool down lap and was found to have been driving whilst texting in the paddock. On top of all this, Ferrucci missed a mandatory FIA drug test. Ferrucci was fired from Trident after the incident and ordered to pay €502,000 to the team after failed payments.
Ferrucci did make his IndyCar debut at Belle Isle in-between the Monaco and France Formula Two rounds. He was running well in the first race before Charlie Kimball made contact with him in turn seven. He qualified ahead of Bourdais in the second Belle Isle race and the race was going better but Ferrucci spun on cold tires exiting the pit lane. He kept the car going but a possible top ten finish was only a 20th place result.
After his unceremonious Formula Two exit, he returned for the final two IndyCar races. He was holding his own at Portland before fuel pressure issues ruined his race. In the Sonoma finale, he ran respectable on his way to an 11th place finish.
Numbers to Remember:
16: Retirements out of 100 starts between European Formula 3, GP3 and Formula Two.
11.566: Average finish over the 83 races finished in Ferrucci's European junior formula career.
1,484: Days between Ferrucci's most recent victory, a Toyota Racing Series race at Manfeild Autocourse on February 15, 2015 and the St. Petersburg season opener.
Predictions/Goals:
In his few appearances during the 2019 season, Ferrucci showed flashes of promise. He stepped into the car at Belle Isle, one of the roughest circuits on the schedule with a draining doubleheader format to boot, and his debut weekend went respectably well. He qualified next to Bourdais on row nine and was three positions ahead of him on the grid for race two. At Portland, Ferrucci was keeping up with Bouradis and Pietro Fittipaldi and was on the cusp of the top ten when a fuel pressure issue derailed his race. In the finale, Ferrucci went from 20th to 11th.
Robert Wickens has set the benchmark for rookies for the next three or four seasons especially for drivers coming from European backgrounds. Wickens didn't just hop into an IndyCar and light the world on fire. Remember when he was sitting in for Mikhail Aleshin during Friday at Road America in 2017? Wickens was toward the bottom of the timesheet and it makes sense for a guy whose only laps in the car was in a less than competitive ride swap with James Hinchcliffe. However, after he was formally given the ride, spent time with the team and got testing miles, he rose to the top.
I am not saying Ferrucci is going to be regularly in the top ten after limited testing but this will be his seat and he will get more time in the car. Ferrucci held his own with a physically battered Pietro Fittipaldi in the final two rounds of 2018 and Fittipaldi had a few tests under his belt but likely less seat time than originally planned before his injury.
This is going to be a fascinating rookie class with the likes of Ferrucci, Rosenqvist and Marcus Ericsson all entered with lengthy stints in Europe and other international series while Patricio O'Ward and Colton Herta enter fresh off the Road to Indy.
Fittipaldi averaged 15.1667 points a race last year while Claman De Melo averaged 13.555 points. In Ferrucci's four starts he averaged 16.5 points. The double points from the Sonoma race significantly bumps that number as 38 of Ferrucci's 66 points came from the finale and he averaged 9.333 points through his first three starts. I think Ferrucci has to be shooting to get around 19 points a race, similar to the pace Zach Veach posted last year and he should aim to be in the top three of the rookies. There is no shame if Rosenqvist tops him. Many think Rosenqvist could very well mirror Wickens' 2018 season but if Ferrucci can top both Road to Indy graduates and possibly even the Formula One veteran in Ericsson then that should quiet many critics.
Dale Coyne Racing has taken on the underdog role quite well and it will continue to be trying to punch above its weight in 2019. Bourdais will continue fighting with the big boys and Ferrucci may surprise some people. Nothing will come easy for this team and it has nothing to hang its head about if it gets the most it can out of its resources.
The 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 10th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBCSN's coverage will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET.
