Mario Andretti raced. Dinner with Racers innovated. IndyCar revised. Denny Hamlin beat the field and the rain on Wednesday night from Darlington. Chase Briscoe held off Kyle Busch the following day in the Grand National Series. The rain did make a visit in Charlotte and though there was no Indianapolis 500, Team Penske still won on Memorial Day weekend. The Truck series somehow has too many entrants now. One event had too many cooks in the kitchen. Daniel Abt broke the rules playing a video game. Monaco made some news for 2021 and that is what we will look at today. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Disrupting Your 2021 Dreams
Neither the Monaco Grand Prix nor Indianapolis 500 was held this weekend and, in 2021, one will not have to choose to attend one or the other. Automobile Club de Monaco announced last week the 2021 race will take place on May 23. The Indianapolis 500, should Roger Penske choose to return the race to its traditional date next year, will take place on Sunday May 30.
The news out of Monaco sent a ripple of excitement across the motorsport world about the possibility of Formula One drivers running both Triple Crown legs in 2021.
Though not intended to fall on the same weekend, for the better part of the last 20 years, since the Monaco Grand Prix ended its tie to Ascension Day weekend, the two Triple Crown legs have fallen on the same day and famously created a day full of motorsports from about 8:00 a.m. ET in Monaco to the Indianapolis 500 in the early afternoon with the Coca-Cola 600 closing out the day with a day into night race. While being a television dream, it kept Formula One drivers from venturing to the United States, unlike decades ago when Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Jochen Rindt, Denny Hulme, Clay Regazzoni and Mario Andretti did both (though Regazzoni failed to qualify for Monaco the one year he went to Indianapolis).
The scheduling could play into Fernando Alonso's favor, who has been teasing a Renault return after Daniel Ricciardo announced his move to McLaren for the 2021 season. Alonso has notably been on the Triple Crown kick since 2017 when he forwent the Monaco Grand Prix with McLaren's blessing to run the Indianapolis 500 in partnership with Andretti Autosport. In 2018 and 2019, Alonso won the 24 Hours of Le Mans while his second trip to Indianapolis last year ended in a humiliating failure to qualify for the race.
Alonso is scheduled to be back in Indianapolis this year for the 500-mile race, but he has never closed the book on Formula One. McLaren has moved on and, outside of Indianapolis, Alonso is free to race for whom he wants wherever he wants. A return to Formula One would cloud any future Triple Crown attempts. It would at least delay it for a few years.
With Monaco being a week earlier, it could allo Alonso to have his cake and eat it too with a full-time Formula One ride and attempt to join Graham Hill in the history book without sacrificing any events from his full-time employer. The opportunity arises for other Formula One drivers as well.
But this is where I have to break you some bad news, your dreams will not come true in 2021.
This is not 1964. Drivers will not be spending one weekend at the Hôtel de Paris and the following at a Hilton. We will not have multiple world champions sprinkled throughout the eleven rows of three. Main factors are in play:
1. Formula One drivers are still under contract and are not Fernando Alonso
Remember how Alonso lands his 2017 seat. After two exasperating seasons with McLaren and the Honda engine, Alonso was an upset star and ready to head out the door. He held all the power. McLaren needed to make its star happy and in a season that was already lost allowing him to run Indianapolis was just the ticket.
No other Formula One team was going to play ball. McLaren wouldn't have played ball five years earlier. With Zak Brown in charge, instead of Ron Dennis, what was inconceivable became reality and Alonso had a grand rookie attempt, though it ended poetically with the one problem he hoped to escape, an engine failure.
No other team, even McLaren, will allow their drivers to run Indianapolis in 2021. No driver has the pull to get it either. As fun as Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo are, they are not going to jump into a McLaren IndyCar. Lewis Hamilton has no interest and I bet Valtteri Bottas feels the same way. Forget Red Bull's pool of youth spending anytime in the Hoosier State. Ferrari is definitely not allowing Carlos Sainz, Jr. or Charles Leclerc over, I don't care how intently they have been considering IndyCar.
Just because it is an open weekend doesn't mean the drivers are free to do whatever they like.
2. It might not be a free weekend
Just because Monaco will not be May 30, doesn't mean another race will not take that date. Liberty Media wants the calendar to grow. After having the 22-race calendar trampled in 2020, Formula One may come out with a bang in 2021 and we could see Monaco be the first of a back-to-back with any number of races. Netherlands, Azerbaijan, perhaps a return to Germany, who knows? We could have a different grand prix be our breakfast guest before Indianapolis. It was Turkey in 2010 after all.
3. You realize Monaco now clashes with qualifying?
Many rambled with giddiness when the Monaco news broke but they forgot one important thing, the week before the Indianapolis 500 is a busy weekend for IndyCar. It is qualifying weekend.
We don't know what the 2021 qualifying format will look like, but we know it will likely be two days, Saturday and Sunday and Indianapolis 500 qualifying requires a lot of attention.
Let's just take the entire week into consideration for a second:
Indianapolis 500 practice will likely begin on Tuesday and I am sure there will be some rookie orientation test or refresher test earlier in the month or at the end of April, but practice begins on this Tuesday and it would be crucial for any driver completing rookie orientation.
Practice continues through Friday but in the middle of all that is Monaco practice on Thursday. A Formula One driver has to complete at least one practice session that weekend to be allowed to race in the grand prix. We are looking at a scenario where a driver would have to spend two days in Indianapolis, take a red eye to Monaco, run Thursday practice and then what?
A driver could head back to Indianapolis for Friday practice, but that driver also has to qualify at Monaco Saturday morning. Let's burn some money and pollute the skies a little more with jet airliner exhaust and send that driver back to the Speedway for Friday. That driver will have to take another red eye to qualify at Monaco on Saturday morning. Qualifying ends around 10:00 a.m. ET. Let's say a driver is able to get to Nice and on a plane back to Indianapolis at 11:00 a.m. ET. I don't know what the fastest flight from Nice to Indianapolis is but if Paris to Chicago is nine hours, and I know that is commercial, it is going to take at least seven hours even with the fastest jet out there and it is against the jet stream.
That driver is not getting back in time for any qualifying. There is no point of flying back to Indianapolis just to turnaround and heading back to Monaco. That means there is no way a driver could make it back for any Sunday qualifying. Qualifying is just out of the question.
4. But... but... but Mario Andretti...
Before you say anything about Mario Andretti and how he ran the Indianapolis 500 while balancing Formula One responsibilities in the 1970s remember that Andretti had two qualifying weekends for most of those years and he had made a dozen starts in the Indianapolis 500 to that point. He could have Mike Hiss or Wally Dallenbach qualify the car because he knew he could start at the back of the field and have no issues.
No Formula One driver, not even Alonso, is going to have someone else qualify his car and then start on the 11th row. For every Formula One driver but Alonso it would be that driver's first start. No driver is going to make his Indianapolis 500 debut knowing he will at best start 31st if he is lucky. If a driver is going to do the Indianapolis 500 right, he is going to qualify the car and take whatever starting position he earns.
Even if a driver plans on having a substitute driver for qualifying, we are talking about a Formula One guy getting two practice days on Tuesday and Wednesday and then not being in the car until the post-qualifying practice Monday practice. The substitute driver would get Thursday and Friday to work on the qualifying setup, but we also know Indianapolis weather in May is not kind and one rain day creates a leak. Two rain days floods the boat. Three rain days sinks it completely and we will get to see who goes down with the ship.
Nobody will run both the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 in 2021. Unless Mr. Penske decides to bring back two qualifying weekends, for some reason, it is not going to happen. The races no longer clash but plenty of hiccups exist, more than any driver would tolerate, more than any Formula One team would allow.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe but did you know...
Brad Keselowski won the Coca-Cola 600.
Lee Lukas and Tanner Whitten won their respective semifinal races for Thursday Night Blunders Pro 4 Truck Belle Isle event.
Fernando Alonso swept the Legends Trophy races from Indianapolis. Agustín Canapino and Harry Tincknell split the Pro races on the IMS road course.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR is at Charlotte the next three days for all three national series. The Cup series will be at Bristol on Sunday.
Thursday Night Blunder concludes its 2020 season.
IMSA has an iRacing event at Virginia International Raceway.
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