Brad Keselowski got his 60th victory for Team Penske, breaking a tie with Mark Donohue for most all-time in the history of the organization. Elsewhere in the world, the 2019 World Superbike title might not be Jonathan Rea's after all. The Asian Le Mans Series closed its 2018-19 season at Sepang and crowded three new champions. Supercross had its second Triple Crown race of the season. Formula One and MotoGP have been testing. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Who Isn't Going to Have Ride Come May?
We are ending February and the IndyCar season is upon us.
Unlike previous years when it seemed the season was still an eternity away at this time of the year, we are less than two weeks away from the St. Petersburg season opener. We know what the grid will look like for that race and we can pencil in what the grid will be at the other 16 races. There are still a few openings. Carlin has a few races open in its second entry. We aren't sure how many races Juncos Racing will be participating in. Most of it is known. There is not going to be any major surprises. This feels a lot different then some of those years in Champ Car and the IRL when we would reach this time of the year and half the seats were unaccounted for.
With the full-time grid in good standing, we turn to the Indianapolis 500 and since the last time we took roll call, a few more drivers have confirmed their plans for May.
Conor Daly will drive a fifth Andretti Autosport entry. We got confirmation that Charlie Kimball will drive the second Carlin entry.
With March approaching, there are 28 confirmed and complete Indianapolis 500 entries and while Patricio O'Ward will not be full-time at Harding Steinbrenner Racing, he still has his scholarship money, which includes an Indianapolis 500 entry. Right there, we have 29 entries.
It has been quiet over the last month but the concern isn't about a full field. We are going to get 33 cars, we will likely equal last year's entry list of 35 and it cannot be ruled out there will be an additional entry or two to bring the total to three-dozen or more. If there are still possibly six spots up for grabs we have to start asking, who will not be entered this May?
There are going to be a lot of new faces at the Speedway this year. We already have six Indianapolis 500 rookies entered, from the full-time drivers Colton Herta, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Ericsson and Santino Ferrucci to two part-time Brits in Ben Hanley and Jordan King. Fernando Alonso is returning for his sophomore appearance after a year at Monaco. There were 35 drivers entered last year and they can't all return in 2019.
Jay Howard, Danica Patrick, Zachary Claman De Melo, Sage Karam, Stefan Wilson, Carlos Muñoz, Kyle Kaiser, James Davison, Pippa Mann, Oriol Servià, J.R. Hildebrand and Gabby Chaves are 12 entries from 2018 that have yet to announce a 2019 return. We know Patrick is retired but that still means there are 11 drivers competing for six or seven seats and those aren't the only drivers that have to mentioned for the remaining openings.
Aaron Telitz and Victor Franzoni are two Indy Lights drivers from 2018 that have not confirmed returns to the junior series in 2019. Santiago Urrutia had three successful seasons in Indy Lights but he didn't win the championship. Unfortunately, it appears Urrutia is moving on to touring cars, as he has announced a ride in the TCR Europe Series, although maybe he has a sock full of change set aside for an Indianapolis 500 attempt. Either way, those could be three additional names in the game of musical chairs.
Who should feel comfortable about getting a seat?
Sage Karam has a history with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and we have not heard about those two going in separate directions. It would be more of a surprise if Karam wasn't driving for D&R than if he were.
Juncos Racing is still piecing together its season and the only confirmed race is Austin of all races with Kyle Kaiser. Kaiser made his Indianapolis 500 debut with the team last year and he has a long history with the team. If Juncos Racing returns, which seems likely, Kaiser is the sensible choice and if Juncos has two cars then one of those would have to be Kaiser.
Let's pencil those two in and that gets us to 31 entries. Where else are rides going to come from?
Dreyer & Reinbold and Juncos would add two to the Chevrolet total and bring it to 14 with Honda responsible for another 16 and the one unknown being the landing place of O'Ward. Last year, Honda led the way with 19 entries to Chevrolet's 16.
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Dale Coyne Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing are the three Honda teams that have yet to announce an additional entry. SPM and DCR have a history of running an extra car. Ganassi doesn't. The one place where that 19th Honda could come from is Harding Steinbrenner Racing. While O'Ward will not be full-time there, it appears that could be a prime one-off seat with HSR in alliance with Andretti Autosport.
When it comes to Chevrolet, A.J. Foyt Racing always runs an additional car, even when it says it will not. Carlin is still a young team and an additional entry would be a new endeavor. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing ran two cars last year and that could not be ruled out for 2019 while Juncos Racing ran two cars in 2017 and the team has a second car that could be used for an additional entry.
I think we will see SPM, DCR and HSR rounding out the Honda camp and Chevrolet will have Foyt and D&R run an extra car. Whether or not the 103rd Indianapolis 500 will have 35 or 36 entries comes down Juncos running a second car.
One of those possible six entries will likely be where O'Ward lands behind the wheel of a race car and this is where it gets interesting.
It is hard to see O'Ward going back to HSR. That seems like a bridge burned after the failed execution of putting together a full-time program. The bad news for O'Ward is that seat could be the best of the open seats. It is going to be a seat with Andretti Autosport fingerprints all over it. DCR's third car is not known for being the most prepared entry. That historically is the pieced together program that doesn't get on track until Wednesday practice at the earliest. Sometimes that car has to wait until Thursday to hit the track. Foyt isn't much better. D&R could be good but one-off entries can be shaky. Juncos Racing is a good team and gets the job done but does it with limited resources. That could be a turn off for O'Ward but there is a feeling the best anyone could do with Juncos Racing is 15th.
The best landing spot for O'Ward would be SPM and Honda should want to keep O'Ward under its roof and not let him go to Chevrolet. The problem is SPM is team that will accept all suitors. It has options and it will not necessarily accommodate O'Ward for the sake of Honda.
At this point it would be easier to rule out who will likely not be back for 2019: Zachary Claman De Melo has returned to Indy Lights for 2019 with Belardi Auto Racing. Belardi partnered on Foyt's additional car in last year's race but I think Claman De Melo's focus will be on Indy Lights. Stefan Wilson's program was really two years in the making after Wilson step aside when Alonso and McLaren came knocking on Andretti Autosport's door in 2017. It was a great story and Wilson had a respectable sophomore run but it doesn't appear 2019 will be in the card. I am not sure Jay Howard can comeback for a third consecutive year, especially with the increased depth of the grid.
That leaves Muñoz, Davison, Mann, Servià, Hildebrand and Chaves and nothing much has been said from any of those six drivers. All six have been quiet. Servià has made the most noise and even that has been a whimper. He has been linked to running this year with former Conquest Racing owner Éric Bachelart looking to be a part of that program. Servià has raced everywhere. He has raced with either 15 or 16 teams, depending on how you look at his entry last year with the Scuderia Corsa-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing partnership. He has raced with SPM, DCR and D&R already. He might be 44 years old but Servià is still an openly sought driver and it is hard to see this being the year when the grid moves on from the Catalan driver.
The other five drivers are a mystery. Four of them were unemployed most of 2018 and Chaves was sidelined late in the IndyCar season. If a team has the money it should hire Muñoz. Of the drivers with at least five Indianapolis 500 starts, Muñoz has the sixth-best average finish all-time at 7.5, behind only Bill Holland, Ted Horn, Jimmy Murphy, Harry Hartz and Dan Wheldon. He has three top five finishes and five top ten finishes in six starts. With that second HSR seat open and with his ties to Andretti Autosport, I think Muñoz is the prime candidate for that ride.
Hildebrand had a good run with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing last year and he is another driver who runs well at Indianapolis. Similar to Karam, Hildebrand returning with D&R seems to make the most sense. It isn't set that D&R will run two cars but Chevrolet's additional entries have to come from somewhere and Penske isn't going to run five cars.
There would still be possibly two or three seats open with Davison, Mann and Chaves all available from the 2018 lot of drivers but it could be the case where time will not be on their side in 2019. Not everyone can return every year. There has to be some fluctuation. Davison seems to rise from the back of the room and get a seat every time he is in a seat for the Indianapolis 500 so he might come out of nowhere in April. Chaves is young and he is a smart driver. He doesn't have accidents and that would be a favorable trait for a team that doesn't want to repair a car that it otherwise would not run in any race other than the Indianapolis 500. Chaves would be a suitable candidate should Coyne run an extra car.
Unfortunately, Mann could be on the outside one year after failing to qualify for the race and missing one year could be the end for good. It is an unintended consequence of competition in motorsports and when each year is a roll of the dice for sponsors all it takes one year to go bust. Mann is a likable person and I am sure she will continue to be searching avenues to get back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to try and make the Indianapolis 500 for the seventh time in her career but the nature of motorsports could mean her career is over even if it isn't her time. (Update: Of course news comes out hours after posting that Mann is working with Clauson-Marshall Racing to field an entry in partnership with A.J. Foyt Racing).
Each year, there is a familiar face that we do not see in May. Ryan Briscoe has not been in the last three races and if James Hinchcliffe had not been injured it would have been four. Alex Tagliani was not in last year's race and he had led at least one lap in the six prior Indianapolis 500s. Juan Pablo Montoya was not in last year's race and he likely isn't going to be there this year even though we would pencil him in as one of the top five favorites if he were entered. Buddy Lazier has made 20 starts and yet we somehow went from comfortable with him being there to not comfortable when he wasn't and back to comfortable only to be wondering where he was in 2018 and somehow missing that scrappy team that really would not have had a chance against 35 other cars.
Drivers come and go and the race goes on. A day will come soon when neither Hélio Castroneves nor Tony Kanaan are in the Indianapolis 500 and we will be fine the same way the race still happened in 1995 despite that race not featuring A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al Unser and Rick Mears.
We are going to miss people and that is ok. It is part of life. Someone else will come in and it will never be the same but that doesn't mean it will be worse. We should cherish the time and savory the memories each May. The following year will be different.
Champions From the Weekend
The #22 United Autosport Ligier-Nissan of Paul di Resta and Philip Hanson clinched the Asian Le Mans Series LMP2 championship with a runner-up finish at Sepang.
The #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier-Nissan of Jakub Smiechowski and Martin Hippe clinched the Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 championship with a class victory at Sepang, the second of the season for the team.
The #11 CarGuy Racing Ferrari of James Calado, Kei Cozzolino and Takeshi Kimura clinched the Asian Le Mans Series GT championship with a class victory at Sepang and the #11 Ferrari swept the season winning all four races in the GT class.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Brad Keselowski and two of the three class winners from the 4 Hours of Sepang but did you know...
The #24 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier-Judd of Harrison Newey, Andrea Pizzitola and Ate de Jong won the 4 Hours of Sepang. It was Newey and Pizzitola's second victory of the season.
Christopher Bell won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Atlanta. Kyle Busch won the Truck race.
Álvaro Bautista swept the World Superbike races from Phillip Island with Jonathan Rea finishing second all three times. Randy Krummenacher won the Supersport race.
Eli Tomac won the second Supercross Triple Crown weekend of the season from Detroit. He won the first two races and finished sixth in the final race. His eight points was one better than Cooper Webb, who won the final race of the night.
Coming Up This Weekend
The newly renamed Blancpain GT World Challenge America starts its season at Austin.
Supercars opens another season in Adelaide.
One week after NASCAR was in town, Supercross will be in Atlanta.
NASCAR is back in Las Vegas.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
