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| IndyCar's final night in the Midwest takes place at Gateway |
Coverage:
Time: Coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday August 24th with green flag scheduled for 8:45 p.m. ET.
TV Channel: NBCSN
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy will be in the booth. Kevin Lee, Kelli Stavast and Robin Miller will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Practice: 2:00 p.m. ET (60-minute session)*
Qualifying: 6:00 p.m. ET (NBCSN will have live coverage of this session)*
Second Practice: 9:15 p.m. ET (60-minute session)*
Saturday:
Race: 8:45 p.m. ET (248 laps)
* - All practice and qualifying sessions are available live with the NBC Sports Gold IndyCar pass.
With four oval races down and one to go, only two drivers could end up with the unofficial oval championship in 2019 and it will either be Team Penske driver Simon Pagenaud or Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden.
Pagenaud sits on 212 points with 112 of those points coming from his Indianapolis 500 victory. Pagenaud has finished in the top ten of all four oval races this season with two podium finishes and three top five finishes. His third place finish at Pocono is the fifth different oval where Pagenaud has picked up a podium finish. The only other season where Pagenaud has had multiple podium finishes on ovals was 2017 where he won at Phoenix, was third at Texas and was third at Gateway.
Newgardan is only ten points behind Pagenaud in the oval points standings. Newgarden has finished in the top five of all four oval races this season with two victories. Newgarden's average finish on ovals this season is 2.75. Newgarden could become the first driver with three oval victories in a season since 2009 when Scott Dixon won four oval races that season at Kansas, Milwaukee, Richmond and Motegi. Newgarden has led a lap in every oval race this season and the only other driver to lead a lap in every oval race this season is Dixon.
This will be the seventh consecutive season where a Team Penske driver will be the top oval driver in a season and Pagenaud could become the fifth different driver to top the oval standings in the last five season. Since IndyCar first recognized the discipline championships in 2010, only twice has the top oval driver won the overall championship. Dario Franchitti was the top oval driver and champion in 2010 and Ryan Hunter-Reay also accomplished the feat in 2012.
The average championship finish for the last nine oval champions is 2.667 with all nine oval champions since 2010 having finished in the top four of the overall championship. Interestingly, six of the nine oval champions since 2010 only won one oval race that season with the three oval champions with multiple oval victories being Franchitti, Hunter-Reay and Will Power, who won at Indianapolis and Gateway last year.
Team Penske's Perfect Oval Season
Entering Gateway, Team Penske has won all four oval races this season and the team has won five consecutive oval races dating back to last season. The team is looking to sweep the oval races in 2019 after Will Power picked up his first victory of the season in a rain-shortened Pocono race.
Adding to Penske's favor is the team has won four consecutive Gateway races and the team has won five of nine races held at the 1.25-mile oval.
While Penske has been outstanding in 2019, this level of oval dominance is different from recent seasons. Last season had four different teams win an oval race. In 2016, a different team won all five oval races and in 2015, five different teams won the six oval races. Every season in the DW12-era but 2017 and now 2019 has had four different teams win an oval race.
Rossi's Mountain to Climb
After his retirement on lap one at Pocono, Alexander Rossi finds himself just outside being eligible for the oval championship and his gap to Newgarden in the overall championship has increased to 35 points with three races remaining.
Rossi has been second in the champion after seven consecutive races with the closest he has been to the championship lead being four points after Toronto with his 35-point deficit entering Gateway being his largest gap to the championship lead since he was 41 points back of Newgarden after Barber.
The only oval race Rossi has outscored Newgarden at this season is the Indianapolis 500, where Rossi's runner-up finish combined with a bonus point for leading a lap and a bonus point for qualifying ninth gave him 82 points while Newgarden scored 67 points for his fourth place finish combined with a bonus point for leading a lap and two bonus points for qualifying eighth.
Since Rossi came to IndyCar in 2016, there have been 21 oval races. In those 21 oval races, Newgarden has finished ahead of Rossi in 12 of those races including the last three oval races. In those 21 races, Newgarden has the advantage with an average finish of 6.42 to Rossi's 7.9. Prior to Pocono, Rossi had 11 consecutive top ten finishes on ovals while Newgarden enters Gateway with seven consecutive top ten finishes on ovals and Newgarden has finished in the top ten in 13 consecutive short oval races with his last short oval result outside the top ten being 15th at Iowa in 2013. Ten of those 13 results have been top five finishes.
SPM Looking For a Rebound
It has been another rough end to summer for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Both James Hinchcliffe and Marcus Ericsson finished outside the top twenty at Mid-Ohio and neither driver picked up a top ten finish at Pocono.
These poor results are not new for SPM and this is a continuing trend of disappointing ends to seasons for the team.
Last season, SPM failed to get a top ten finish in the final four races. In 2017, SPM had one top ten finish in the final four races with the team's best finish being eighth in those final four races. The team has not had a top five finish in one of the final four races of a season since Mikhail Aleshin and Hinchcliffe had runner-up finishes in consecutive races at Pocono and Texas.
Hinchcliffe has fallen to 11th in the championship. This is the first time he has been outside the top ten of the championship since after Road America last year. For the third consecutive season, Hinchcliffe is coming off a 20th place finish at Pocono. Ericsson is coming off a 12th place finish at Pocono and he has finished outside the top ten in the last five races.
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports is on pace to match its fewest podium finishes in a season. In 2015, the team's only two podium finishes came at NOLA Motorsports Park where Hinchcliffe won the race and James Jakes finished third.
Last Chance For Oval Results
Gateway is the final oval race of 2019 and some drivers could get a victory while others are looking to end the oval portion of the schedule on the right note.
While Rossi is the top driver in the championship without an oval victory, Scott Dixon sits fourth in the championship and he has scored the sixth most oval points this season with 123 points. Dixon has only won four oval races in the DW12-era, at Pocono in 2013, Texas in 2015, Phoenix in 2016 and Texas again in 2018. In fact, this will be the ninth consecutive season in which Dixon will not have won multiple oval races in a season.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is sixth in the championship but his finishes of 17th and 19th in the last two oval races has Hunter-Reay ninth in oval points. Last season, Hunter-Reay finished outside the top fifteen in the final three oval races of 2018 with a mechanical failure being what led to a retirement at Gateway.
Graham Rahal heads to Gateway with eight consecutive top ten finishes and he could set a personal best streak of nine consecutive top ten finishes. In the 16 oval races since Rahal won at Texas in 2016, he has only three top five finishes but he has 12 top ten finishes.
Takuma Sato heads to Gateway with his last four results being finishes of 22nd, 20th, 19th and 21st. Sato has scored 107 points on ovals this season but only 36 points have come in the last three oval races. Sato's only top five finish on a short oval in his IndyCar career came last year when he finished third at Iowa.
Felix Rosenqvist is the top rookie in the championship entering Gateway with 304 points and ninth in the championship. However, Rosenqvist has yet to finish on the lead lap in an oval race. His four oval starts have resulted in finishes of 28th, 12th, 14th and 22nd.
Sébastien Bourdais sits tenth in the championship on 300 points. Bourdais heads to Gateway with top ten finishes in the last three oval races. Bourdais has not had four consecutive top ten finishes in oval races since he finished in the top ten in all five oval races in 2016.
Santino Ferrucci has been the top rookie in all four oval races this season and he has three top ten finishes on ovals. Ferrucci's oval results has him fifth in oval points with 135 points. He has been the top finishing Coyne driver in three of the four oval races with the one exception being Iowa, where he finished 12th.
Spencer Pigot had a fifth place finish at Iowa but he has finished outside the top ten in the other three oval races. Last year, Pigot had only two top ten finishes on ovals with a second at Iowa and a sixth at Gateway.
Colton Herta has retired from all four oval races this season and these results have left Herta with only 53 oval points this season, tied with Felix Rosenqvist and Marco Andretti for 19th in oval points this season.
Road To Indy
After a month off, the Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 are back for their final oval races in 2019 with each series having five races remaining.
Oliver Askew heads to Gateway with three consecutive victories and the Andretti Autosport driver carries a 45-point lead over Juncos Racing's Rinus VeeKay heading into Gateway. VeeKay has finished third in three of the last four races but he has finished behind Askew in all four of those races and he has finished behind Askew in ten of 13 races this season.
Ryan Norman is third in the championship on 266 points, 83 points behind his teammate. Askew and Norman were 1-2 in the Freedom 100. Toby Sowery sits on 250 points in fourth and Sowery was fastest at the Indy Lights test at Gateway last week. Robert Megennis is fifth in the championship, a point behind Sowey and Megennis was third fastest at the Gateway test.
David Malukas was second fastest to Sowery in the Gateway test and he is sixth in the championship on 209 points. Dalton Kellett is seventh on 190 points with Lucas Kohl eighth on 179 points. The top eight in the championship are all still mathematically alive for the championship.
The 75-lap Indy Lights race will take place at 4:25 p.m. ET on Saturday August 24th.
The Indy Pro 2000 championship has tightened up in recent races with Kyle Kirkwood having won three consecutive races and Rasmus Lindh's championship lead has been decreased to 13 points over Kirkwood. Lindh has five consecutive podium finishes and he has finished in the top four of every race this season.
Parker Thompson has dropped to third in the championship, 48 points behind Lindh. Indianapolis Raceway Park winner Daniel Frost is 59 points behind Lindh with Sting Ray Robb rounding out the top five on 215 points, 69 points behind his Juncos Racing teammate Lindh.
Kirkwood topped the Gateway test at 31.6365 seconds, 0.0278 seconds ahead of Lindh with Kory Enders third fastest, 0.1763 seconds back. Enders' DEForce Racing teammate Moisés de la Vara was fourth, 0.1873 second back and Robb rounded out the top five, 0.2331 seconds off Kirkwood.
Kirkwood will have a new teammate this weekend with RP Motorsport bringing in Artem Petrov. Petrov contested the Toyota Racing Series earlier this year and he won a race. Petrov also ran the opening weekend of the FIA Formula 3 Championship at Barcelona. Petrov was 0.722 seconds off his teammate's top time from last week's test at Gateway.
Juncos Racing has won the previous two years in Indy Pro 2000 at Gateway.
The Indy Pro 2000 race will be 55 laps and it is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. ET on Saturday August 24th.
Fast Facts
This will be the 13th IndyCar race to take place on August 24th and it is the first race on August 24th since Scott Dixon won at Sonoma in 2014.
This is the first IndyCar race to take place on an oval on August 24th since Hélio Castroneves won at Nazareth in 2003.
Rex Mays, Ted Horn and Castroneves each won two races held on August 24th and each driver won at two different tracks. Mays won at Springfield and Milwaukee. Horn won at Hamburg and Milwaukee. Castroneves won at Nazareth and Sonoma.
There have been nine different winners in nine Gateway races.
The average starting position for a Gateway winner is 4.555 with a median of second.
The winner has started on the front row in five of nine Gateway races.
The Gateway winner has started 11th twice.
On only two occasions has the Gateway winner gone on and won the championship. Alex Zanardi did it in 1998 and Josef Newgarden did it in 2017.
Seven of nine Gateway winners went on to finish in the top five of the championship that season. The two exceptions are Juan Pablo Montoya, who won at Gateway and finished ninth in the championship in 2000, and Al Unser, Jr., who won at Gateway and was seventh in the championship in 2001.
Seven different manufactures have won at Gateway and Chevrolet has the most Gateway victories having won at the track three times. Toyota has the second most Gateway victories with two
Honda's only Gateway victory came with Alex Zanardi in 1998.
Seven different nationalities have won at Gateway.
The nine different Gateway winners have come from five different continents.
Three different American drivers have won at Gateway (Michael Andretti, Unser, Jr. and Newgarden).
Two different Brazilian drivers have won at Gateway (Gil de Ferran and Castroneves).
The average number of lead changes in a Gateway race is 8.555 with a median of ten. Six of nine Gateway races have had ten lead changes or more including the last two years.
The average number of cautions in a Gateway race is 4.667 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 42.555 with a median of 35.
Possible Milestones:
Will Power is one podium finishes away from 75 podium finishes.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is one top ten finish away from 125 top ten finishes.
Sébastien Bourdais needs to lead 48 laps to reach the 2,700 laps led milestone.
Josef Newgarden needs to lead six laps to reach the 2,000 laps led milestone.
Ryan Hunter-Reay needs to lead 55 laps to reach the 1,600 laps led milestone.
James Hinchcliffe needs to lead 44 laps to reach the 800 laps led milestone.
Takuma Sato needs to lead 53 laps to reach the 700 laps led milestone.
Ed Carpenter needs to lead 16 laps to reach the 400 laps led milestone.
Graham Rahal needs to lead 12 laps to reach the 400 laps led milestone.
Predictions
Josef Newgarden makes it a perfect season for Team Penske, extending his championship lead and putting one hand on the Astor Cup. Santino Ferrucci is not the top finishing rookie. There will not be an accident on the first green flag lap of the race. Qualifying will not be rained out. A Carlin car will finish in the top ten. Newgarden defeats James Hinchcliffe head-to-head, Scott Dixon defeats Will Power, Alexander Rossi defeats Ed Carpenter and Ryan Hunter-Reay defeats Simon Pagenaud. Sleeper: Zach Veach.
