Lewis Hamilton won a championship this weekend. Hamilton's Extreme E team, Team X44, won the series championship with drivers Cristina Gutiérrez and Sébastien Loeb. Max Verstappen drove a Honda NSX Super GT car. Kyle Larson drove a midget car. Danial Suárez is taking the plunge and will soon have questionable in-laws. If the World Cup was based on best racetrack, Japan would win apparently, and the United States would be a semifinalist with Circuit of the Americas? Ok. Jack Harvey and Christian Lundgaard are switching numbers and sponsors. Scott McLaughlin will have a meat sponsor. Daniel Ricciardo confirmed he will be Red Bull's reserve driver. Mattia Binotto could be out at Ferrari. Bathurst 12 Hour entries are coming in. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
What If IndyCar Had Playoffs?
One enjoyable podcast is Off Track with James Hinchcliffe and Alexander Rossi.
During the IndyCar season, Off Track provides good insight from what happened during race weekends and provides a good temperature of the season. During the IndyCar offseason, it is two guys who talk racing, from Formula One to NASCAR to sports cars while also giving updates of the offseason and other IndyCar news. Both Hinchcliffe and Rossi are intelligent gentlemen who will honestly give their assessment of something they saw or what they think about a particular decision.
While the NASCAR season was winding down, they both wondered what IndyCar would look like if there was a playoff format. Both assess an IndyCar playoff would have to be different in terms of length and size due to the number of full-time IndyCar entries and the number of races.
We are coming off a holiday. I don't want to do anything too serious. Let's placate Off Track's imagination.
IndyCar is set up where a two-round playoff could work. Three races in the first round before the final decides the championship. Eight is a good number of playoff participants. That is about a third of the grid. Four drivers advance to the finale. Four drivers do not.
Using that as the format, let's look at this as if IndyCar implemented playoffs simultaneously with NASCAR and followed the same procedures. That means from 2014 to 2016 the field reset, and all eight drivers had the same number of points, for this sake they will start on 1,000 points.
Starting in 2017, there would be playoff points, plus the playoff points for regular season championship finish. I am not going to go back and figure out stages for six seasons. In IndyCar's case, a regular season win gets a driver five playoff points. As is the case in NASCAR, win a semifinal race and you advance to the finale. Also, as is the case in NASCAR, there is an Entrants' Championship playoff, and of course there are some discrepancies between the drivers' and entrants' championship in a few of these IndyCar seasons.
With the IndyCar playoff only having eight drivers, I adjusted the regular season championship bonus to being for the top eight in the regular season and awarding points to the respective positions as follows: 15-10-6-5-4-3-2-1
2014
Who would have made it?
1. Will Power (St. Petersburg and Belle Isle I winner)
2. Ryan Hunter-Reay (Barber, Indianapolis 500 and Iowa winner)
3. Simon Pagenaud (Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Houston II winner)
4. Hélio Castroneves (Belle Isle II winner)
5. Carlos Huertas (Houston I winner)
6. Juan Pablo Montoya (Pocono winner)
7. Sébastien Bourdais (Toronto I winner)
8. Scott Dixon (Points)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
Yes. The #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet won three times during the season, twice with Mike Conway and once with Carpenter. The #20 ECR entry would have made the Entrants' Championship Playoffs while Scott Dixon's #9 Chip Ganassi Racing entry would not have made it.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Dixon and Power would have advanced with their victories at Mid-Ohio and Milwaukee respectively. Montoya and Pagenaud would have advanced on points. Since the #9 Ganassi didn't make the entrants' playoffs, the #11 KV Racing entry of Bourdais would have advanced to the final.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
Dixon thanks to a runner-up finish at Fontana. Montoya would have been second in the championship after finishing fourth. Power would be third after finishing ninth and Pagenaud was 20th on track.
The #2 Penske would have been the entrants' champions.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Dixon would have gone from third to first and won consecutive championships for the first time in his career. This would have been his fourth title. Castroneves would drop from second to seventh while Power would go from first to third.
Montoya would be up two spots to second while Pagenaud would be up a spot. Bourdais would leap from tenth to fifth in the championship while Hunter-Reay would have no change in his championship finish. The playoff would have been a big gain for Huertas, who was 20th in the actual championship, but ended up eighth thanks to his victory with an illegal car in a rain-shortened Houston race.
2015
Who would have made it?
1. Montoya (St. Petersburg and Indianapolis 500 winner)
2. Dixon (Long Beach and Texas winner)
3. Josef Newgarden (Barber and Toronto winner)
4. Power (Grand Prix of Indianapolis winner)
5. Carlos Muñoz (Belle Isle I winner)
6. Sébastien Bourdais (Belle Isle II winner)
7. Graham Rahal (Fontana winner)
8. Hélio Castroneves (Points)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
Yes, because James Hinchcliffe won the NOLA Motorsports Park race, the second round of the season, and then Hinchcliffe was injured in Indianapolis 500 practice. The #5 Schmidt Petersen Motorsports entry would have made the playoffs while the #3 Team Penske entry would not have qualified.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Rahal would have been the only driver to advance on a victory. Rahal won at Mid-Ohio. Hunter-Reay won the other two races in the semifinal round at Iowa and Pocono, but Hunter-Reay was 14th in the championship after the Milwaukee regular season finale on 227 points while Castroneves qualified for the playoffs with 370 points.
How do those other three championship race spots get determined? Newgarden would have ended the round with the most points, 1,104. Muñoz would have been second in the round on 1,082 points, 12 more than Power, who would have made the finale. Power would have qualified by two points over Dixon.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
Power with a seventh-place finish at Sonoma in what would have been an otherwise anti-climactic finale. Muñoz ended up 22nd after an accident while Newgarden was only a spot better after a pit stop problem. It would have been somewhat close with Power and Rahal and both cars were incidents. Power and Montoya got together, and Power was caught out when the pit lane was closed under one caution. That likely would have handed it to Rahal until Rahal was spun in the hairpin by Bourdais.
The race would have played out much different if these drivers were finalists. Bourdais wouldn't have made that move on Rahal.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Power and Dixon effectively swap titles. Dixon gets 2014 instead of Power and Power gets 2015 instead of Dixon. We wouldn't have had the title decided on a tiebreaker after Dixon won the finale while Montoya finished sixth and spent the entire season leading the championship.
Rahal would have been second, which would have felt more representative of his season than fourth, his actual championship finish. Newgarden would have gained four points and Muñoz would have gained nine spots.
Dixon would have been fifth while Montoya, Castroneves and Bourdais rounded out the top eight. Those drivers would have changes of -4, -3, -2 and +3 from their actual championship finish.
Lost in this format would have been Hunter-Reay's finish to the season. Hunter-Reay got up to sixth in the championship after his final four race flourish to the 2015 season. With the playoff format, the best he could do would be ninth.
2016
Who would have made it?
1. Montoya (St. Petersburg winner)
2. Dixon (Phoenix winner)
3. Pagenaud (Long Beach, Birmingham, Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Mid-Ohio winner)
4. Alexander Rossi (Indianapolis 500 winner)
5. Bourdais (Belle Isle I winner)
6. Power (Belle Isle II, Road America, Toronto winner)
7. Newgarden (Iowa winner)
8. Castroneves (Points)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Power makes the finale with his victory at Pocono. Dixon makes it after winning at Watkins Glen. The other race was a Graham Rahal victory at Texas. I know that Texas race was started in June and finished in August. With a playoff format, I doubt that Texas race takes nearly three months to finish and would have been a playoff race, but I cannot finesse a world where the semifinal round would have been Mid-Ohio, Pocono and Watkins Glen. Take what you get and don't get upset.
Two spots would have been decided on points. Those would go to Newgarden and Bourdais, and Bourdais would make it by ten points over Pagenaud, who would have been the best driver in the regular season.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
It would have been Josef Newgarden with Ed Carpenter Racing! Newgarden was sixth at Sonoma. This would have been another semi-anticlimactic finale as well as Bourdais was tenth, but Dixon had issues with his radio force an extra pit stop, and Power had an engine failure take him out of a podium position, leaving those two 17th and 20th respectively.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Pagenaud would have gone from first to fifth. Coincidentally, this season would fall in line with some early Cup playoffs where the best drivers from the regular season had one bad playoff race keep them from advancing and it led to the introduction of playoff points and the regular season championship bonus. Pagenaud would have been in line with that and 2017 saw playoff points introduced.
Newgarden would go from fourth to first, Bourdais from 14th to second, Dixon from sixth to third and Power from second to fourth.
Castroneves would drop from third to seventh, Montoya would go from eighth to sixth and Rossi would go from 11th to eighth.
2017
Who would have made it?
1. Newgarden - 1,030 points (three victories plus first in the regular season)
2. Castroneves - 1,015 (one victory plus second)
3. Power - 1,014 (two victories plus fifth)
4. Rahal - 1,013 (two victories plus sixth)
5. Dixon - 1,011 (one victory plus third)
6. Pagenaud - 1,010 (one victory plus fourth)
7. Takuma Sato - 1,007 (one victory plus seventh)
8. James Hinchcliffe - 1,005 (one victory)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
But you will remember Sébastien Bourdais won the season opener in the #18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda. Though Bourdais won that race, there ended up being nine entries to win in the regular season with eight playoff spots available. With the #18 Honda not winning again, it ended up ranked nine of those nine winning entries and ended up outside the playoffs.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Power wins at Pocono and advances.
Newgarden wins at Gateway and advances.
Rossi wins at Watkins Glen and doesn't change a thing because Rossi didn't make the playoffs. Two drivers would make it on points. Dixon would advance with 1,118 points while Castroneves would make it on 1,111 points, one more than Pagenaud.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
For the first time in the playoff era, the regular season champion would be the champion as Newgarden would finish second at Sonoma to take the title. The final four drivers would finish second, third (Power), fourth (Dixon) and fifth (Castroneves).
How Different Would It Have Been?
This is also the first time the actual champion and the hypothetical playoff champion would have been the same. Newgarden was first and remains first.
As for the rest of the positions, Pagenaud would be a big loser again, this time dropping from second to fifth. Dixon and Castroneves would finish in their actual positions while Power would just from fifth to second.
Rahal would remain sixth. Rossi wouldn't get his end of season surge to seventh. Sato would be a spot better than his actual finish and Hinchcliffe would get to be eighth instead of 13th.
2018
Who would have made it?
1. Dixon - 1,030 (three victories plus first)
2. Newgarden - 1,021 (three victories plus third)
3. Rossi - 1,020 (two victories plus second)
4. Power - 1,015 (two victories plus fourth)
5. Hunter-Reay - 1,009 (one victory plus fifth)
6. Bourdais - 1,005 (one victory)
7. Hinchcliffe - 1,005 (one victory)
8. Robert Wickens - 1,003 (sixth)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
Kind of... Wickens was hurt in the first race of the playoffs at Pocono. While that would eliminate Wickens from the drivers' championship, the #6 Schmidt Petersen Motorsports entry would have remained in the entrants' playoffs.
However, SPM did not run the #6 Honda in the second race of the semifinal round at Gateway, meaning Portland would have been a must-win, and Carlos Muñoz did not get a victory to advance this car to the final.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Rossi and Power would split the first two playoff races at Pocono and Gateway. Sato won at Portland meaning two finale spots would be determined on points.
Dixon would have made it on 1,134 points. Newgarden would make it with 1,098 points while Bourdais would finish 17 points short of the finale.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
For the second consecutive season, the regular season champion would be the championship. Dixon was second at Sonoma and would be champion. Power was third on the road with Rossi in seventh and Newgarden in eighth.
How Different Would It Have Been?
And for the second consecutive year the actual champion and hypothetical playoff champion would be the same. Dixon's fifth title would still come in 2018.
Rossi and Power flip spots, as does Newgarden and Hunter-Reay, as Hunter-Reay ended up fourth in the actual championship. Bourdais would be up a spot and Hinchcliffe and Wickens would go from tied for tenth to seventh and eighth. Pagenaud would have been the big loser dropping from sixth to ninth as he didn't make the playoffs.
2019
Who would have made it?
1. Newgarden - 1,035 (four victories plus first)
2. Pagenaud - 1,021 (three victories plus third)
3. Rossi - 1,020 (two victories plus second)
4. Dixon - 1,015 (two victories plus fourth)
5. Sato - 1,007 (one victory plus seventh)
6. Colton Herta - 1,005 (one victory)
7. Power - 1,004 (fifth)
8. Hunter-Reay - 1,003 (sixth)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Power wins two semifinal races (Pocono and Portland) and Sato won Gateway. They advance.
Newgarden would be safe on 1,124 points while Pagenaud takes the final spot on 1,115 points. Pagenaud would advance with some comfort. He would be 31 points clear of Rossi in fifth, 34 clear of Dixon, 39 clear of Herta and 65 points ahead of Hunter-Reay.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
Power takes his second championship three years ahead of reality with a runner-up finish at Laguna Seca. Pagenaud would be second after finishing fourth while regular season champion Newgarden was eighth on the road. Sato was 21st in the finale.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Power is up four spots from the actual championship, Pagenaud remains the same, Newgarden is down two and Sato is up five.
Herta would have been fifth, up two spots. Dixon drops from fourth to sixth. Rossi drops from third to seventh and Hunter-Reay remains eighth. Lost is Felix Rosenqvist's rookie season, which had him sixth in the championship and five points ahead of Herta in the final standings.
2020
Who would have made it?
1. Dixon - 1,035 (four victories plus first)
2. Newgarden - 1,020 (two victories plus second)
3. Sato - 1,010 (one victory plus fourth)
4. Power - 1,009 (one victory plus fifth)
5. Pagenaud - 1,006 (one victory plus eighth)
6. Patricio O'Ward - 1,006 (third)
7. Felix Rosenqvist - 1,005 (one victory)
8. Herta (sixth)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
This is the first season where each of the three semifinal races had a playoff participant win meaning only one finalist would make it on points.
Herta won at Mid-Ohio, Newgarden and Power split the Harvest Grand Prix weekend on the IMS road course. The final spot would go to Dixon with 1,101 points. The regular season championship would be 33 points clear of Pagenaud, 35 points ahead of O'Ward, 38 points better than his teammate Rosenqvist and Sato would fall 50 points short.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
The 2020 season finale would see Newgarden win the final race and take the title, the first time in the playoff era the champion would have won the finale. Dixon would be second after finishing third while Herta's late race mechanical woes would have him finish 11th and Power's early crash would end his championship hopes.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Dixon and Newgarden flipflop. Dixon would not have a sixth title, but Newgarden would now have three. Herta remains third. Power and O'Ward swap spots. Pagenaud goes from eighth to sixth. Rosenqvist jumps four spots to seventh. Sato drops one to eighth. Graham Rahal would be the big loser as he was sixth in the actual championship and wouldn't have made the playoffs.
2021
Who would have made it?
1. Álex Palou - 1,025 (two victories plus first)
2. O'Ward - 1,020 (two victories plus second)
3. Ericsson - 1,014 (two victories plus fifth)
4. Dixon - 1,011 (one victory plus third)
5. Newgarden - 1,010 (one victory plus fourth)
6. Herta - 1,007 (one victory plus seventh)
7. Power - 1,005 (one victory)
8. Rinus VeeKay - 1,005 (one victory)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
This would be the second consecutive year where each semifinal round determined a semifinalist.
Newgarden (Gateway), Palou (Portland) and Herta (Laguna Seca) would advance. The one spot on points would go to O'Ward. The Mexican would finish on 1,108 points, 17 points ahead of Ericsson with Dixon 33 points on the outside. Power would fall 44 points short and VeeKay 69 points short.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
Herta would win the final two races to win the championship while Newgarden would be second on the road at Long Beach and second in the championship. Palou was fourth in Long Beach finale while O'Ward's early accident and gearbox issues would leave him in 27th in the race.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Very because Herta would have won the championship, been awarded 40 Super License points and likely have gone to Formula One instead of returning for another IndyCar season in 2022.
Palou drops two places, Newgarden would remain second and O'Ward drops one. Dixon drops one to fifth. Ericsson remains sixth. Power would gain two to seventh and VeeKay would gain four to eighth.
Rahal and Pagenaud would fall out of the top eight because they did not make the playoffs.
2022
Who would have made it?
1. Newgarden - 1,026 (four victories plus third)
2. Power - 1,020 (one victory plus first)
3. Ericsson - 1,015 (one victory plus second)
4. O'Ward - 1,014 (two victories plus fifth)
5. Scott McLaughlin - 1,012 (two victories plus seventh)
6. Dixon - 1,010 (one victory plus fourth)
7. Rossi - 1,006 (one victory plus eighth)
8. Herta - 1,005 (one victory)
Is there an Entrants' Championship Discrepancy?
No.
How Does the Semifinal Play Out?
Dixon wins Nashville and advances, Newgarden wins Gateway and advances, McLaughlin wins Portland and advances.
On points, Power takes it with 1,112 points, 27 points ahead of O'Ward, 30 in front of Herta, 35 more than Ericsson and Rossi would have been 43 points short.
And Your Champion Would Be...?
For the fourth time, Newgarden would be champion as he finished second in the Laguna Seca race ahead of Power in third while McLaughlin was sixth and Dixon was 12th.
How Different Would It Have Been?
Power would still be a two-time champion, only three years removed from that title. Him and Newgarden would flip from their actual positions, as would have Dixon and McLaughlin.
Palou would not have made the playoffs and he would not have finished fifth in the championship. He would have been ninth. O'Ward is up two spots to fifth while Herta would be up four to sixth. Ericsson drops a spot to seventh while Rossi gains a spot to eighth.
Final Scorecard Assessment
Dixon would only have five championships, Newgarden would have four, Power would still have two and Herta would have one while Pagenaud and Palou would have none.
It doesn't look that much different than what we actually saw. I guess Newgarden's four titles would be quite seismic. We think Newgarden is special now with two titles. Imagine if he just won his fourth championship at 31 years old. We would almost be penciling him in for eight and surpassing A.J. Foyt's record while probably cooling our jets on Dixon doing it as he would still need two more to tie but would be four years removed from his fifth title. We might even be pushing Newgarden as more of a Formula One hopeful if he had four titles.
If there were playoffs, every race over the past nine seasons would have been run differently. The preparation would have been different. The finales would be treated differently. If Newgarden spins in qualifying at Laguna Seca with this format, I don't think he goes from 25th to second and wins the championship. Power would have prevented that.
There are a few surprises in there. Carlos Muñoz would have been a finalist. Do you think his career would have continued on the same path if he went into the 2015 finale with a shot at the title? I don't think Muñoz is M.I.A in 2022 if that occurs.
There are a few quirky things if there were playoffs. Carlos Huertas would have been eighth in the championship because he won one timed, rain-shortened race at Houston while saving fuel with a fuel cell that was larger than regulated. That might have caused a small riot in 2014 IndyCar. Imagine if Ed Carpenter Racing had actually won the title in 2016 with Newgarden. That definitely would have caused a small riot, but a celebratory riot. The kind we see when the city of Philadelphia wins a championship.
Is IndyCar doing something wrong not having a playoff format?
Considering the lack of championships that have adopted some type of playoff reset format, I would say no. It also ignores that there have been some compelling championships. With a playoff format, we would have lost the 2015 battle between Dixon and Montoya, which went to the final lap. The 2017 finale began with a third-point difference between Newgarden and Dixon entering while Castroneves and Pagenaud were both within 34 points and Power and Rossi each had slim shots at the title. That is six drivers with a shot at the title in the final race. A playoff would short us of two contenders in that case. The 2020 finale battle would have effectively remained the same, but Dixon would have been forced to do more than finish third. Third would not have been enough.
An argument could be made IndyCar would have gained with a playoff format because Dixon could not settle for third in 2020. In 2017, the championship drivers would have finished in four consecutive spots on the racetrack, but the difference is Newgarden carried a cushion from the first 16 races into that finale. He had breathing room because of his results. Should that breathing room not exist and the championship all be down to one race with whoever finishes better be champion?
That is the problem with the singularity of such a finale. When there is a reset then one race decides it. Every other race kind of decides who gets there with added weight on the three races prior to the finale, but who is champion is all down to one result on that one given day. What happened at Barber Motorsports Park in April cannot save you. However, what happened at Barber in April also doesn't hurt you in that case.
The one thing that cannot be denied with the NASCAR playoffs is those races see more out of the top drivers than ever before. Ross Chastain's move at Martinsville is the only piece of evidence needed. A driver purposefully drove into the wall hoping to go faster than the rest of the field and it worked and advanced Chastain to the final race. That wouldn't happen if he was just fifth in the championship and the best he could possibly finish in points was third.
But does heightening the importance of certain races mean the winners are better drivers?
I am not sure those two things match one another. Generally, races mattered more when they paid more. That is why the Indianapolis 500 survived and races at Speedway Park outside Chicago and races in Tacoma didn't. They mattered because they paid and in the case of Indianapolis it was the only 500-mile race for its time.
A shift in how the system decides a championship effectively making these races matter more is the equivalent of pressing a thumb on a scale. They matter more because we say they matter more.
If IndyCar adopted such a playoff system, I think you would see more chances taken. More teams would try alternate strategies in certain races. More teams would stretch fuel. You would probably see more daring pass attempts. All of those things are what viewers want. But at what cost?
I think there is a danger in making races free-for-alls. We see it in NASCAR where respect is close to zero between competitors. A win is a golden ticket. It will come at any cost. But the issue is the drivers look at one another as obstacles to bowl into and not race. If hitting a guy is the difference from being a championship contender or not, they will hit that driver and not try for the clean pass.
It nullifies what it means to be a great driver and the skill it takes to be great over an entire season and rewards a few good moments over a season while ignoring everything else that happens. The playoff format is too rewarding to success and does not come with a detriment of poor results. As long as you win a race, you are fine. You can be slightly below average or even straight up bad for the rest of the season and still be fine once you make the playoffs.
In a full season aggregate system, bad results drag a driver down. Four consecutive finishes outside the top fifteen are noticeable. Newgarden lost the championship this season partially because he had four finishes outside the top ten in the first six events.
With a playoff format, Newgarden cannot dig himself into a hole. Once you are in, you are in. That is the floor, you can only build from there. Newgarden wouldn't have really lost any ground despite those results because he had already won twice and would go on to win four times in the first 11 races.
Meanwhile, Power kept finishing in the top five. He had five top five finishes to open the season. He had eight top five finishes in the first 11 races, half of which were podium results. Power pulled away while Newgarden struggled. Newgarden found success and made a push, but those bad results were too much to overcome while Power never had a significant dip in form.
It comes down to how much consequences should come from bad results. A playoff format decreases the number of consequences. You win and you are good. The reset will save you. That 16th at Long Beach doesn't carry on, but those victories at Iowa and Road America do. A driver doesn't want too many bad results and would rather have more good results than bad, but when the regular season is over that driver will be in the playoffs where one win can get you to the next round regardless of what happens in the other races in that round.
Without a playoff system, a driver can win but that 25th-place finish at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is still something that cannot be overcome. One victory doesn't make up for the points lost in that one race. Even two victories might not be enough. A driver cannot never escape a bad result, the only hope is to lessen its significance with each successive event.
A playoff provides an escape. Do we want that if it means more chances taken during races? Or does being the best mean more than just winning and disregarding most other results?
Champions From the Weekend
Mikel Azcona clinched the World Touring Car Cup championship with finishes of sixth and third at Jeddah.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Cristina Gutiérrez, Sébastien Loeb and Mikel Azcona, but did you know...
Nathanaël Berthon and Gilles Magnus split the World Touring Car Cup races from Jeddah.
Justin Grant won the Turkey Night Grand Prix from Ventura Raceway.
Coming Up This Weekend
Supercars finale from Adelaide.
The World Cup group stage will conclude with the knockout stage beginning next Saturday.
