The seventh 2020 IndyCar team preview is Dale Coyne Racing and the team is shaking it up.
After having three seasons with Sébastien Bourdais leading the charge the team has let the Frenchman go and sophomore Santino Ferrucci will inherit the team leader role. His new teammate comes from Japan and had years of experience in Europe. Dale Coyne Racing tested this driver last year at Mid-Ohio and he put up impressive speeds, faster than Felipe Nasr, who was testing with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
The team not only experienced a driver change. Engineers Craig Hampson and Michael Cannon have left the team to join Arrow McLaren SP and Chip Ganassi Racing respectively.
2019 Dale Coyne Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Barber)
Poles: 0
Championship Finishes: 11th (Sébastien Bourdais), 13th (Santino Ferrucci)
2020 Drivers:
Santino Ferrucci - #18 SealMasters Honda
After a handful of cameo appearances in 2018, Ferrucci joined the IndyCar cast in 2019 and his season started with an off in qualifying, dropping him to 23rd on the grid at St. Petersburg but he kept in on the road in the race and with a few passes and some help from cautions he ended up ninth.
At Austin, he qualified 11th but some damage dropped him to 20th. He qualified 10th at Barber but dropped to 15th. He went off in turn one at Long Beach, stalled the car, lost two laps and ended up 21st. In changing conditions in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis he ended up tenth.
Ferrucci started 23rd for his first Indianapolis 500 and moved forward during the race. The final accident took out five cars and Ferrucci made a save in grass to avoid the accident. This put him in contention for a top ten result and he ended up seventh, the 2019 Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year. He was 19th in the first Belle Isle race and strategy in the second race led him to lead 20 laps but he finished tenth. Texas was going to be another top ten finish but with attrition and restarts he ended up finishing fourth.
The team attempted a four-stop race at Road America and it did not work out, leading to a 19th place finish, one-lap down. An 11th at Toronto followed but he stood out at Iowa with aggressive moves early. However, those early moves did not translate to a result, he took the checkered flag in 12th. Another 12th followed at Mid-Ohio. Pococno saw Ferrucci jump into the top ten early and he worked his way to another fourth place finish.
At Gateway, Ferrucci started sixth and went to the front, leading a race-high 97 laps. Victory escaped him when the final caution mixed up the field but he made a charge back up to fourth. His season ended with electrical issues ending his race at Portland and an accident at Laguna Seca.
Numbers to Remember:
6.2: Ferrucci's average finish in oval races in 2019.
15.5833: Ferrucci's average finish on road and street courses in 2019.
20.64: Points per race in 2019.
2,037: Laps completed in 2019. The only drivers to complete more were Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden. The only other driver to complete over 2,000 laps was Tony Kanaan.
97.4: Percentage of laps completed in 2019
Predictions/Goals:
Improve on road and street courses.
As much as Ferrucci was applauded for his oval prowess off the bat, his road and street course form left little to be desired. He did have three top ten finishes on road and street courses but his best finish was ninth at St. Petersburg. He made it out of the first round of qualifying on only three occasions. He started outside the top fifteen on five occasions on road and street courses and he had only two top ten starts over the course of the entire season. All in all, Sébastien Bourdais won the intrateam battle 11-6 in the 17 races and Bourdais won the qualifying battle 11-5.
When 70% of the races are road and street courses you are going to have to get some top ten and top five finishes in those races if you want a great championship finish. After Gateway, everyone had Ferrucci locked in for rookie of the year. He was ninth in the championship, top rookie, two points ahead of Felix Rosenqvist and 44 points ahead of Colton Herta in 14th. The season ended with Rosenqvist in sixth, Herta in seventh and Ferrucci 74 points behind Rosenqvist and 69 points off Herta.
His average finish on road and street courses has to improve by at least five positions. He needs to get at least five top ten finishes on road and street courses and maybe pull out a top five finish. His average starting position has to improve by at least three spots as well from 15.375.
As for ovals, I think his results are a little skewed. While he deserves all the credit for not tearing up equipment and making it through the mess, I am not sure he will be as fortunate the second time around. Three top ten finishes would be a good showing in his second year on ovals.
DCR lost Hampson, who brought the oval results with him when he came in 2017. Coyne is going to lose all its oval pace in 2019 just because Hampson is gone but it is going to take a step back. Add to it Ferrucci has lost Cannon as his lead engineer and Ferrucci no longer has Bourdais to lean on, and he is starting all over in year two. He fell into a good groove for his rookie season. His sophomore season has seen a complete flip of all the pieces around him.
This is going to be a big year for Ferrucci. He has to show he can handle the switch and he cannot let frustration get the best of him. This season is going to be a lot different from 2019 and we are going to get a clearer picture of who Ferrucci come September.
Álex Palou - #55 Dale Coyne Racing w/ Team Goh Honda
Palou spent the 2019 season in Japan in the Super Formula championship and in the GT300 category in the Super GT championship.
His Super Formula campaign began with a retirement at Suzuka but he picked up fastest lap. He rebounded with a sixth at Autopolis after starting 15th but a 13th place finish followed at Sportsland SUGO after qualifying eighth.
At Fuji, Palou took pole position and in a race in a torrential downpour, he drove a flawless race to take his first victory in the series, 13 seconds clear of Sho Tsuboi. Another pole position came at Motegi but Ryō Hirakawa overtook him for the lead just before halfway through the race. Palou would lose two positions during the pit cycle and finish fourth.
He went from eighth to fourth in the penultimate race of the season at Okayama and it kept him alive for the championship at the Suzuka season finale. He was third in the championship on 25 points, four off of championship leader Naoki Yamamoto. The weekend started with Palou picking up his third pole position of the season with Yamamoto starting fifth and other championship rival Nick Cassidy in sixth. Palou was the top of the championship runners for much of the race but a loose cooling wire wrapped around the rear suspension and forced an extra pit stop, ending his championship hopes.
In Super GT, Palou completed for McLaren Customer Racing Team, which Team Goh operated. Seija Ara, 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, was his co-driver. The season started with finishes of 19th, 14th and 13th at Okayama, Fuji and Suzuka. The team skipped the Buriram round and retired from the second Fuji race. The pairing picked up a runner-up finish at Autopolis but finished the season with 12th at Sportsland SUGO but won pole position at Motegi and finished seventh.
Numbers to Remember:
3: Palou was third in the 2019 Super Formula Championship with 26 points, one victory at Fuji and ten points off the champion Nick Cassidy.
3: Palou had three pole positions in Super Formula in 2019, the only driver with multiple pole positions.
36: Palou made 36 starts in the GP3 Series and his one victory cane in the 2015 season finale at Abu Dhabi, where Antonio Fuoco was second and Esteban Ocon was third.
1: Palou had raced at one track on the 2020 IndyCar schedule. He ran at Austin in the 2017 World Series Formula V8 3.5 Series and he had finishes of finish and second. He started on pole position for the second race.
Predictions/Goals:
Rookie of the year is always the goal for rookies but I think for Palou he should be shooting for at least splitting the two other rookies from Indy Lights, Oliver Askew and Rinus VeeKay, and shoot for being the best at Dale Coyne Racing.
Palau is coming over with inspiring results in Japan and a memorable test with Coyne at Mid-Ohio, where he was reportedly six-tenths faster than Felipe Nasr, who was driving for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
Everything but Austin is going to be new for Palou. We do not know how he will adapt to ovals but h seemed to enjoy the rookie test at Texas last week. Craig Hampson is gone. Mike Cannon is gone. This is a very different team than the one he tested with last summer. His results may surprise him after how well things went when he first ran with the team.
While Palou was third as a rookie in Super Formula, he did spend a year in Japanese Formula Three. He knew the tracks. He was driving for Nakajima Racing, whose owner is former Formula One driver Satoru Nakajima, but it was a team that had not had great results in recent seasons.
I think Palou could be the shocker and not only be rookie of the year but be top Dale Coyne Racing driver and be 11th to 14th in the championship. I think there are going to be rough days and it will come down to whether or not Palou loses confidence. Based on what he has done in Japan this is not someone who is going to be hanging at the bottom of the time sheets.
This could be a case where Palou gets the better results on the road and street courses and his lack of oval experience will lead to the two DCR drivers being almost level in the championship. Palou's goal should be to be the top DCR finishers more than his teammate and get at least seven top ten finishes.
The 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season opens on Sunday March 15th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBCSN's coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET
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