There was plenty of good news and bad news this month. Some was expected, some was disappointing and other news was surprising. Many series were on track testing ahead of a 2020 season and most of these headlines focus on what is occurring off track.
Once again, this is just for fun. In case you are new, this is my gut reaction to headlines without reading the article. Of course, the gripes I have may be answered in the article.
Schmidt: Fans deserve to see Alonso in the Indy 500 again
Deserves got nothing to do with it.
Sam Schmidt and his Arrow McLaren SP operation have stepped up and given Fernando Alonso a ride for the 2020 Indianapolis 500 after a period of uncertainty. Alonso had ended his ambassadorial role with McLaren. Alonso had a deal done with Andretti Autosport only for Honda's headquarters in Japan to veto a deal on the precipice of it being announced. There were no other big suitors out there for Alonso and he wasn't going to step down for a ride with a smaller operation.
As for deserves, it would be great to see a driver who wants to be at the Indianapolis 500 get a ride for the Indianapolis 500 but there are plenty of drivers that want to be at the Indianapolis 500 that do not end up on the entry list. Do you really think Gabby Chaves, Carlos Muñoz, Sébastien Bourdais, Juan Pablo Montoya and Pippa Mann want to be on the sidelines come May? No, but there are always more drivers than there are available entries. That sucks but it is reality.
Quick sidebar, I am fascinated with the Alonso kickback. People longed for the biggest names to come to the Indianapolis 500, they longed for driver competing in multiple disciplines and we got that. Alonso skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to run the Indianapolis 500, ran Formula One and the FIA World Endurance Championship simultaneously, still has a desire to run the Indianapolis 500 and even added the Dakar Rally to his plate and people pushback against his participation? Come on people, you are getting what you want and now you are rejecting it? That is on you.
Jimmie Johnson confirms IndyCar, Rolex 24, Le Mans on wish list
So Johnson confirmed he has a wish list. For someone who has a wish list, has seven NASCAR championships and is probably good with Chevrolet from now until the day he dies, commit to a few things.
The problem with any driver and an event that is outside of that driver's full-time series it is always "I would like to" or "I want to," how about "I am" and "I will." These are drivers that have talent and more importantly do no have financial insecurity. Just say you are going to do it.
We get too accustomed to wish lists only for a driver to do one or two things after they retire and never see them again (hi Jeff Gordon). These drivers talk a big game but their retirements end up just like 98% of our grandparents, mostly staying at home for 360 of 365 days of the year and eating ice cream on the couch.
Now, let's slide fully into NASCAR...
Kyle Busch has done it all -- except win the Daytona 500
And the Truck championship, and the Charlotte roval race, and the Eldora truck race, and he has never won pole position for the Daytona 500...
And there are a load of events he has never competed in such as the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, both of which he has expressed interest in doing, he has never run the Chili Bowl or the Knoxville Nationals, he has never raced the 12 Hours of Sebring or 24 Hours Nürburgring, and he has never driven a Formula One car although a decade ago Toyota nearly made that happen only for the manufacture to pull out of the series effectively killing any reason to have such a test...
Other than those items, and a couple hundred others that could be listed but weren't for the sake of time, Kyle Busch has done it all.
Why Vegas is 'The Race of Champions'
Many times during the NASCAR season I hear "look at how many champions have won at this track" when the series is going to say Bristol, Darlington, Daytona, Dover, etc.
Guess what? Champions win races. Name the tracks champions don't win at? You can take any racetrack and pick out the champions that have won there. For the most part, it is going to be the same everywhere... which brings me to what I did over the weekend...
We can look up how many races champions have won at each track. It is simple research. What tracks have a disproportion of champions as race winners and vice versa, what tracks have a disproportion of non-champions as race winners?
Through the second race of the 2020 NASCAR season, the track with the highest percentage of races with champions as race winners is... Kentucky?
Kentucky has had nine Cup races and all nine races had a champion win the race. Nine is small sample size compared to other tracks on the schedule. The next track with the fewest Cup races is Chicagoland with only 19 races.
But let's run with this, in nine years Kentucky has only had Cup champions win its race. What track is next?
Indianapolis. Only five Brickyard 400s out of 26 have had a non-champion win, meaning 19.23% of its winners are non-champions. Bristol is next at 22.88% (27/118) and the site of this weekend's NASCAR race Fontana is fourth at 23.333% (7/30). With Joey Logano's victory at Las Vegas only 24% of races at that track have had a non-champion be the race winner (6/25). Richmond and Kansas are the other two tracks that have had less than 30% of its winners are non-champions at 28.34% and 28.57% respectively.
What tracks have a disproportional number of non-champion winners?
Watkins Glen has hosted 37 Cup races and 21 of those races had a non-champion win. That is 56.75%. No other track has seen majority of its races not won by a champion. Next highest is Talladega at 47.52% (48/101) with Charlotte next at 46.666% (56/120) and Daytona, just including the Daytona 500 and the 400-mile race and not counting the Daytona 500 qualifying races when they counted as championship events, is fourth-highest at 46.34% (57/123). Loudon and Texas are the only other tracks above 40% non-champion winners at 45.83% and 44.73% respectively.
The average percentage of non-champion race winners across the 23 tracks on the Cup schedule is 33.97%. The ten tracks that fall between 30% and 40% non-champion winners are Dover, Chicagoland, Atlanta, Homestead, Michigan, Pocono, Martinsville, Phoenix, Sonoma and Darlington.
Moving to Formula One...
Brawn wants F1 to ditch "gin palace" motorhomes
Tell that to the gin palace owners.
There are a lot of other things that need to be fixed in Formula One before we get to the gin palaces. If you think the gin palaces are the first things that have to go you cannot see the forest through the trees.
Getting rid of the gin palaces would save the teams a good sum of money. I was astounded at how much hospitality suites cost for each team and they set those things up and breaking them down for every race. That is a crap-load of money for something that has nothing to do with how the car is performing on track.
Even if Formula One ditched the gin palaces, tickets would not get more affordable for fans, fans would not get better access to the drivers and people could not get any closer to the cars. If Brawn wanted to proposed better fan access, have more fan walks and such than great but getting rid of the gin palaces, even if they are excessive and should probably go
STRAW: Can Vettel save his career?
Yes... by leaving Ferrari...
No, I kid, he could save his career but it looks like Mercedes-Benz (more on Mercedes in a moment) is going to wipe the floor this year and even if Vettel is third driving for Ferrari I think his days are numbered. Charles Leclerc is the future and soon Ferrari will be looking for a number two to accompany the Monegasque driver.
And, does Vettel's career need saving? The man has four World Drivers' Championships. He has the third-most grand prix victories. I think he has had a great career. It just so happens his career runs parallel with Lewis Hamilton's and after winning four consecutive world titles Vettel finds himself two titles and over 30 victories behind Hamilton after having the upper hand for the first half of the 2010s.
If Vettel's career is remember negatively it is because of what Hamilton accomplished and Vettel failed to accomplish in the second half of his career despite being dominant for the first half of his career.
DAS already banned by 2021 technical regulations
That did not take long.
Mercedes-Benz rolled out its Dual Axis Steering in the first Barcelona test and while it was within the regulations the FIA made sure such a system could not live beyond the 2020 season.
When I first saw the DAS in action I was giddy. We have gotten little tricks like this before, double-diffusers, F-Ducts, etc. but this was something meant to trick the eye. We have all seen steering wheels be used ten billion times before but never look this. A wheel is something you pull left or right for directional purposes. To pull it out and push it in to adjust the toe of the car is remarkable. It is something so simple and yet something we have never seen before and something the commoner could not have considered. This is why commoners are not hired to work on Formula One cars.
Mercedes smacked the field at the first test and it seems a seventh consecutive World Constructors' Championship is inevitable.
We will end with another world championship...
Aston Martin won't race WEC hypercar in 2020/21
Congratulations to Toyota on its 2020-21 championship and its 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans victory.
Just like that the entire hypercar ball of yarn has begun to unravel.
WEC: Aston hypercar postponement "not unexpected"
At least they were ready for it.
At the start of the year it seemed we were in a good place. It seemed like hypercar was going to slowly grow with Toyota and Aston Martin in year one, Glickenhaus possibly coming the year after that and Peugeot joining the series in 2022. Along with hypercar, the FIA, ACO and IMSA were working on convergence for the Daytona Prototype international class and it could allow a handful more teams and manufactures to go to Le Mans.
Now it appears hypercar is close to dead and the LMDh class is not coming until start of the 2021-22 WEC season. Back to the drawing board on this one.
February is nearly over. We have one extra day this year and that allows for one extra of racing. While World Superbike and Formula E are in competition, ahead of us is the start to the MotoGP, IndyCar and Formula One seasons. We have another Sebring doubleheader with IMSA and WEC and plenty of more racing is to come.
