First Impressions: IndyCar iRacing Indianapolis 2020

1. Scott McLaughlin took victory from pole position in IndyCar's First Responders 175 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but this victory was unlike that could possibly happen.

There were four different leaders on the final lap of the race. Arrow McLaren SP held the top two positions with Oliver Askew leading Patricio O'Ward after teammate Lando Norris collided with the lapped car of Simon Pagenaud while leading. On the final lap, Askew and O'Ward were side-by-side with Marcus Ericsson making it three-wide entering turn three.

Ericsson came out with the lead but heading into turn four O'Ward rammed into the back of the Swede, taking both cars out of contention.

Askew re-inherited the lead with Santino Ferrucci on his rear, Ferrucci moved out of the slipstream to Askew's right but halfway down the straightaway he turned into the McLaren car, sending both cars tumbling toward the finish line.

With carnage unfolding to his right, McLaughlin buzzed through and took his second victory of this six-race series.

McLaughlin was the best driver in this series and perhaps should have already had a second victory under his belt. He had finishes of fourth, first, second, 24th at Motegi after being taken out while second and fourth prior to this result.

He was not mixing it at the front from the start but he ran a patient race and stayed out of the mess. It paid off.

2. Conor Daly was second! I feel like every iRacing event had two or three drivers that finished about eight to 14 spots better than they should have. Daly wasn't even close to the top five until the end where the leaders kept dropping like flies. However, like all video games, sometimes you just got to keep running. I know there have been plenty of Mario Kart races I have won or finished on the podium where I was fifth or sixth, miles in the distance at the start of the final lap only to have a string of blue shells, timely bananas and mushrooms play into my favor. Pagenaud was the blue shell, O'Ward was a green shell and Ferrucci was the banana.

3. Speaking of Ferrucci, his little stunt still got him third. It is a video game but it was a low-blow move to turn right into Askew in the middle of the straightaway. Call it desperation, call it stupidity, it was a spineless move, one suggesting if Ferrucci wasn't going to win than Askew wasn't going to win either.

4. Askew deserved better. Askew had a few rough races in this series. He has always shown speed but had trouble putting together a complete race outside of Watkins Glen. His mistake cost McLaughlin and Will Power at Motegi so he is not perfect but he had a clear shot at victory only to lose it because of a sucker punch from behind. He still finished fourth, his best result of the series.

5. O'Ward rounded out the top five but his move was marginally better than Ferrucci's. O'Ward barreled into the rear of Ericsson, purely a dump job in turn four. He wasn't even going to wait for the slipstream on the straightaway. He was looking for the easy way out and it cost him because he slid up the track following the path of the pirouetting Ericsson. His clear shot to the finish line gone. Good.

6. Every finisher from sixth on down, outside of Ericsson in 11th, I am not sure how they got there. I am going to do basic notes on them.

Sébastien Bourdais got to the front through strategy after the second caution of the race for Scott Speed turning Stefan Wilson into James Davison. Bourdais made a late stop for tires and through all the ruckus got sixth. Great for him.

Ryan Hunter-Reay and Zach Veach were not in the top ten at all until probably that final lap and were seventh and eighth, respectively. Andretti Autosport needed to end with good results.

Felix Rosenqvist benefitted from the second caution and moved up to second but got shuffled back and I am pretty sure he took tires late as well. It got him a ninth-place finish.

Scott Dixon rounded out the top ten and he wasn't mentioned once today.

Sadly, despite how well Ericsson drove and he made a phenomenal move to take the lead into turn three, he is the worst Ganassi finisher. It is 11th but it was shaping up to be significantly better.

Oh, and Alexander Rossi was 12th.

7. Graham Rahal was 13th and his race went pear-shaped when Lando Norris and Simon Pagenaud got together while battling for the lead. Norris nudged Pagenaud, Pagenaud spun, Rahal was third and had nowhere to go, suffered some damage and slid back. Rahal was competitive from the start in this one and it appeared it was going to be him and Pagenaud down the stretch before the cautions started coming.

8. Now it is time for the Norris-Pagenaud incident. It was a McLaren 1-2-3 with eight laps to go and they seemed to have a firm grasp on the top three. Norris led the way and, while both Askew and O'Ward attempted to wrestle the lead from the guest driver, Norris held on. Norris pulled away after Ericsson entered the battle with Askew and O'Ward and unless the trailing drivers could get organized Norris was set to go 2-for-2 in iRacing events.

However, the attack was not from behind but from ahead and in the middle of turn four, coming to two laps to go, Norris collided with a slow Pagenaud. Pagenaud said he was trying to make it to pit lane and did not mean it.

I don't believe Pagenaud.

After everything I saw today, I don't believe what anyone says their intentions were. There were cowardly moves made all over the place at the end of the race. There was a wide-open apron to get out of the way and make it to pit lane. There were also only two laps to go. No repairs were going to make a difference for Pagenaud at that time. By the time he would have exited pit lane the final lap would have started and he wasn't going to gain any positions. At that point in the race, Pagenaud should have stayed high in turn four and let the leaders through and then remained to the outside when the rest of the pack approached. Just ride it out with two laps to go!

Pagenaud timed it for the least amount of consequences. It wasn't the final lap, which would look downright dirty, but he did it late enough where it couldn't draw a caution and a string of replays. He stabbed Norris in the back in the middle of a crowded train station, a place where he could let the body fall to the floor but vanish into the sea of commuters and get out unseen, leaving Norris to slowly die.

9. After everything I saw today, I am worried bad habits carry over to the real world. That sounds absurd because the consequences are higher and who in their right mind would turn right into somebody in the middle of the front straightaway when going 220 MPH at Indianapolis but after running this event, I am worried the wires will be crossed in some of these guy's brains.

I am worried when the drivers get back on track, they will think back to these days playing this game and not be able to tell the simulation from the real thing. It might be preposterous but through these weeks on iRacing we heard about how much these drivers use it as a tool to learn things and apply it on the track. Who says that doesn't apply to pushing the boundaries of how much contact one can get away with?

IndyCar better be on high alert. The bold and brainless moves may bear little consequence in the simulation but it will not pass in the real world and if we ever get on track for the 2020 season and a driver is being more careless than he should be IndyCar better come down hard and fast on him to send a message.

10. I am going to hit a few other notable names:

Will Power was one of the top drivers at the start and then the pit strategy didn't fall his way. The cautions really took him out of it and somehow he was a lap down in 14th. Power didn't win a race in this series and there were probably five of them where he was one of the three best guys out there.

James Davison was really strong in this one and if it wasn't for Scott Speed, he was looking at a top five finish and potentially battling for the victory.

It was also nice to see Stefan Wilson out there and Wilson was looking at a top ten or top five finish. It is a little sad we didn't get to see more of Davison and Wilson throughout this series.

Sage Karam dominated the first race and then couldn't avoid trouble for basically the remainder of these five events. You have to first finish to finish first. He might be fast, but the speed didn't pay off nearly as much as he would have suggested.

11. We should tackle the entry list decisions because ultimately 29 spots were reserved while four spots were up for grabs. The issue was we had no clue who was locked before Wednesday's qualifying session, nor did we have an entry list of who was attempting to make the race.

IndyCar mostly kept its word that the full-time cars, the race winners (Sage Karam, Scott McLaughlin and Lando Norris) and the only other Indianapolis 500 to compete in this series (Hélio Castroneves) were locked in but there is something fuzzy about a few spots.

Felipe Nasr failed to qualify in the #31 Carlin entry, which is a full-time team. Dalton Kellett, who did contest all five prior iRacing events, drove an additional A.J. Foyt Racing car and Kellet was locked in. That is one discrepancy but Conor Daly was locked in and in real-life Daly would be in a third car for Ed Carpenter Racing. However, after Nasr failed to qualify, Daly took over the #31 Carlin entry.

We can say the #31 Carlin entry "bought" its way in and had Daly take over its car but that would mean Daly's non-full-time entry was locked in while the full-time Carlin car wasn't. This is splitting hairs but we have the time, we are still in lockdown.

Turning this into a Canadian affair for a moment because Kellett was locked in but Robert Wickens and James Hinchcliffe were not and neither Wickens nor Hinchcliffe qualified for this race. Both Wickens and Hinchcliffe attempted to run every race. Wickens missed the first race due to not getting equipment in time and Hinchcliffe had a few connection issues keeping him from starting two races but both drivers have been highly-competitive in IndyCar, both drivers have sponsors with ties to IndyCar, both are larger draws than Kellett but Kellett was locked in over those two.

It would have been nice if IndyCar had released an entry list before the qualifying session on Wednesday and an explanation that went along with it. I know it is a lockdown and IndyCar is operating with fewer hands on deck but let's not sacrifice transparency because of it.

12. Let's talk about the qualifying session itself because IndyCar did not promote it.

I understand not putting the qualifying session on television. It is difficult enough putting on one race a weekend without a full-fledged studio supporting the event but qualifying could have been streamed and the series didn't even have that.

It was also just a qualifying session, one-lap to decide the final spots and that is how it is done in the real world but this isn't the real world. None of it was going to be broadcasted on television but you could have had a ten-car sprint race to decide the final four spots between Scott Speed, Stefan Wilson, James Davison, R.C. Enerson, Robert Wickens, Kyle Busch, Spencer Pigot, Felipe Nasr, James Hinchcliffe and Kyle Kaiser for the final four spots.

The six guys who missed wasted their afternoon for four laps of qualifying. At least make it worth their while. It could have been a 20-lap race, something simple like that.

13. This was the "dream" race. It was supposed to be a non-IndyCar "dream track" but we have a narrow-minded congregation who can't see beyond 16th and Georgetown and think because its May only one track could host this video game race and nothing could have been better.

This was IndyCar's final show before the first race at Texas on June 6. Barring an additional iRacing event or a further delay to racing, IndyCar could have ended with a bang, a 39-car field that included the defending NASCAR Cup champion, Wickens, Hinchcliffe and possibly one or two more drivers who may have decided to pass on attempting to qualify on Wednesday but would have been committed to a guarantee to race on Saturday and IndyCar said no thanks.

This could have been different and brought together a few different faces at a track no one would have IndyCar experience at. Indianapolis will get its moment in August... hopefully, we didn't need this simulation today. Today could have been something we would not see this year or perhaps ever. Instead, we got more of the same.

14. I think it is time for a break. IndyCar had a great six-week period. We have another month until the scheduled season opener. Perhaps IndyCar can squeeze in one more iRacing event, maybe that final weekend of May could be used as a promotion for the start of the season at Texas on the first Saturday in June. That likely will not happen but we should not be concerned IndyCar is not hosting an event next weekend. We need a break. We need something to appreciate when it restarts.