1. Something sounded right in Álex Palou's voice this offseason. Every time he spoke, there was a subtle confidence. Even better, every time Palou's team spoke about him, there was a sense of trust and excitement. That is why I put Palou down as the sleeper for this weekend and sure enough the Spaniard picked up his first career IndyCar victory in his 15th start and his first start with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Palou's results were not historic in his rookie season. He had flashes, but more times than not the results did not match what he did on track. It was easy to overlook him, but when Ganassi called him up to replace the departing Felix Rosenqvist, it should have told us how well he did as a rookie. It was a rookie season with almost no testing, condensed race weekends and in some cases doubleheader that previous were not scheduled and all of this happened at racetracks Palou had never visited before.
Barber wasn't on the schedule last year, but for some reason, after seeing how he drove at Road America and Mid-Ohio last year, I got a hunch he would do well this weekend. Did I think he would win? No. I thought Scott Dixon was due to get off the Barber snide, but I thought Palou could compete for a top five finish.
All the Ganassi cars were quick this weekend and Palou led the way after qualifying. He got the most out of the alternate tires when everyone thought you could not get a full stint out of them. Palou went the distance with alternates on that first stint and that decided the race. That opening stint put him ahead. He faced a late challenge from Will Power while negotiating lapped traffic, but Palou had the advantage and it ended up in victory.
This season will be 17 races... hopefully. I am not going to say Palou is now a contender. It wasn't that long ago we saw James Hinchcliffe win two of the first four races, three races total and he was never a factor for the championship in 2013. It was a good start for Palou. He could not ask for more. He has 16 more opportunities to repeat today's performance. If he can do this on a regular basis, Ganassi might have a new champion.
2. Will Power snuck into this one. He was good, but never looked great. All of a sudden, on his final stop after being about six or seven seconds off Palou, he came out on the Spaniard's gearbox. From there he stayed in contention for the entire final stint, but he had to watch his fuel and could not use his push to pass aggressively. He kept Palou honest as Palou was held up in traffic, but Power was 0.4016 seconds short, taking the checkered flag in second.
Considering how some of Power's seasons have started lately, I am sure he will be happy with second.
3. I don't think Scott Dixon will mind finishing third, even though his new teammate won on debut. This is nine podium finishes in 11 Barber starts and he has still not won at this track. He ran in the top five all race, but didn't have what Palou had today.
However, Dixon started the season with a third-place finish. That is 35 points to kickoff this season. That is a good start to a title defense.
4. Everyone came into the day expecting Patricio O'Ward to become a first-time winner. Instead, O'Ward was fourth and it was lost in the opening stint. O'Ward could not get a handle on the alternate tires. He dove to the pit lane early and made it a three-stop race. I don't think he or his Arrow McLaren SP team expected that many teams to make the alternate tires last the entire first stint.
O'Ward had a shot as he could run harder in the final stint, but he got hung up behind Marcus Ericsson and he lost some spots to Sébastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal in the middle of the race. He was able to get up to fourth, but he lost too much time and could not challenge the leaders. There was a little bit too much frustration when he got into traffic. I think he probably wants this race back and probably wishes he went four or five laps longer on that opening stint.
5. On the second caution of the race after Jimmie Johnson spun about 12 laps in, Sébastien Bourdais got off the alternate tires and he pull off a three-stop strategy, turning 16th on the grid into fifth at the checkered flag. For a moment, I thought Bourdais was going to end up ahead of O'Ward and potentially on the podium. That didn't quite work out, but this was a strong day for him and A.J. Foyt Racing. The team has consecutive top five finishes for the first time in eight years. Three consecutive is not out of the question.
6. I don't know how Rinus VeeKay has these bland drives into the top ten, but he did it again and was sixth with a broken thumb. He ran a similar strategy to Bourdais and kept up. He is a smart driver. You cannot say more than that. Eventually we will need to see some more flash, but this works as well.
7. Graham Rahal was in the same boat as Bourdais and VeeKay. They got off the alternate tires under yellow and it turned into a top ten finish. This was a good turnaround for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. This was not a good weekend considering the last time IndyCar was at Barber RLLR swept the front row and won the race and probably should have been 1-2 if Rahal did not have electrical issues. The team will be looking for more, but it is still a good turnaround.
8. Marcus Ericsson barely made it on fuel and finished eighth. Eighth is good, but it does not tell how close he was to his Ganassi teammate. He, Palou and Dixon were in lockstep most of this weekend. If it wasn't for fuel, he could have had a top five finish.
9. Alexander Rossi countered O'Ward's strategy and that appears to have been a big mistake. Rossi looked better on the alternate tire than O'Ward, but he stopped with the Mexican and he lost out on every stint from there onward. Rossi never could leapfrog ahead of O'Ward. It seemed like Rossi always got caught in traffic at the worst times and he always lost spots on pit stops. I feel like if he stays out when O'Ward stops, Rossi at least finishes in the top five and not ninth.
10. Romain Grosjean got a top ten finish on debut. Grosjean never stood out, but that is a good thing. He drove a smart 90 laps. We never saw him sliding around the racetrack. We never saw him go wide or off track. He didn't botch a pit stop. This is a fabulous start for him. He fit right into IndyCar and I think more top ten finishes are coming this season.
11. Jack Harvey was 11th. Not great, but solid. It is going to be tough to get top ten finishes this season. Harvey was ahead of Simon Pagenaud, who never factored in this one. Takuma Sato was anonymous and finished 13th. Scott McLaughlin lost some spots and ended up 14th, but he pushed Sato late. Not bad for McLaughlin. Ed Jones was 15th and was hardly noticed.
12. Conor Daly and James Hinchcliffe were 16th and 17th respectively. Those are two of the last three most popular drivers. That shows what popularity gets you.
Daly has never finished ahead of VeeKay when they have been teammate. Daly still doesn't have a top ten finish with Ed Carpenter Racing. The kid gloves are going off. If Daly just wants to be the class clown and be known for his haircut, fine, but stop acting like you aren't getting a fair shake. Daly now has 65 IndyCar starts. He is a veteran now. He has driven for Foyt, Coyne, Schmidt Peterson, Carlin, Andretti and Carpenter. He is a start with RLLR away from a free ice cream cone.
Daly has to start performing. We know he can get into the top ten and be competitive. We saw it with Coyne and Foyt. He won pole position with Carlin, but for all the attention he gets for the off-track antics, the results at least have to be respectable, and they haven't been.
Oh, by the way, congratulations to Dalton Kellett on a career-best 18th-place finish. Still not on the lead lap, though.
13. Jimmie Johnson got the attention and he finished three laps down in 19th. If it wasn't for that opening accident, he would have been three laps down in 24th. Credit to him for avoiding that opening accident, but then he spun on his own in turn 15. This is going to be a tough season and Barber is just the start.
If it wasn't for Max Chilton being caught in the first lap accident, Johnson would have even been behind him as well. Chilton rounded out the top twenty, four laps down.
If you tuned in for Jimmie Johnson, I hope you are patient because this is what a lot of this season will be. It is going to be hard for IndyCar to sell a driver finishing multiple laps down. Today was his debut, the first test, but if this is repeated over the next three or four starts, Johnson will have to be treated like Kellett and Chilton. He cannot be singled every time just for running 21st.
To be fair, Johnson did well this weekend. He was not a liability on the racetrack. His times in practice were in the ballpark with the rest of the field. Next week will be interesting because he was able to run many test laps at Barber. He has never done a lap at St. Petersburg. There is no baseline for him. Each lap will be a chance to improve.
14. A few drivers want that opening lap back. Most notably: Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Lost the car going uphill through turn four in dirty air and he just lost the car. He spun into the path of Herta and Hunter-Reay, and they had nowhere to go. Herta was able to get some laps in after the team repaired the car, but he was 22nd ahead of Newgarden and Hunter-Reay respectively.
Drivers have overcome a slow start, but it feels like when things go wrong on the first lap of the season it is a sign of things to come. All three of these drivers need to be flawless at St. Petersburg and onward.
15. Felix Rosenqvist is bound to be fired, and it doesn't help that his old car won the race. Rosenqvist was caught in the opening lap incident and there was nothing he could do, but 21st after hitting the wall entering the pit lane and spinning in qualifying and losing out on advancing to the second round of qualifying is not how you can start with this Arrow McLaren SP organization, which fired James Hinchcliffe for appearing in a magazine and fired Oliver Askew for getting a concussion. Rosenqvist has been uncharacteristically off since his sophomore season began. He needs to find some of that rookie magic.
16. I was thinking about push-to-pass entering this weekend. In this race, we saw a few drivers save it almost all until the end because there was no incentive to use it when on a two-stop strategy, but because they were on a two-stop strategy they still couldn't use it to make it on fuel mileage.
How can IndyCar incentivize using it? I was thinking about saying a team has to use at least 40% of it in the first half of the race or they will just lose it. I am sure some teams will be fine with that as they are conserving fuel anyway, but it would force some teams to use it. We wouldn't see teams saving over 150 seconds into the final stint.
I don't know what could be done, but I think IndyCar could do something.
17. We will do it all again in a week. St. Petersburg is another difficult place. I am not sure it is the place you are hoping for after a disappointing season opener.
