Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Álex Palou did the inevitable. Ferrari got our hopes up only for Max Verstappen to win the Italian Grand Prix, his tenth consecutive victory. It was actually a good race otherwise. The MotoGP championship was nearly sent entirely up in the air after a chaotic Catalan Grand Prix that saw Francesco Bagnaia have his legs run over at the start of the race in an incident that brought out a red flag. Bagnaia has reportedly escaped serious injury. Bagnaia wasn't the only championship leader to have a weekend to forget in Barcelona. Darlington didn't pay part of the electrical bill. Some junior drivers ran into one another. But let's go back to Portland, because IndyCar must make an adjustment to its procedures.
It is Time for IndyCar to Tweak Qualifying
This is something that has been flirted with for some time, especially since the IndyCar grid has grown to 27 full-time entries. IndyCar qualifying has become a frantic and cluttered affair as drivers compete not just for the fastest lap but for track position to secure that fastest lap.
As qualifying groups in round one have grown from 11 or 12 entries as recently as 2018 to 13 or 14 entries in 2023, IndyCar has explored whether or not its qualifying format could use some adjusting to create more space on track and decrease the number of complaints about interference.
The series decided against making any changes, and to be fair, we haven't heard many complaints about blocking. There might be drivers upset about being held up, but there hasn't been a wave of interference calls like we saw at one time.
However, the problem with IndyCar qualifying isn't track space and interference, but rather the pace.
Earlier this year I heard Midweek Motorsport correspondent Nick Daman note that IndyCar qualifying is too long, and that puzzled me a bit. It is three rounds, albeit really four as the first round is split into two groups. The combined time for the four qualifying sessions is 36 minutes, less than the combined time for Formula One qualifying
But then I saw it. There is too much downtime during IndyCar qualifying. Like a stupid amount of downtime. An irresponsible amount of downtime.
Take this past weekend at Portland. Here is a rough elapse time of each session for the first two groups of round one, the second and third rounds and then the intermission times between each session. Times for each group are from when the cars are released from the pit lane to when the final car finishes its lap in a round, and the intermission times are from when that final car finishes that final lap in that segment of qualifying through to when the cars are released from pit lane for the next session.
Group One: 12:02
Intermission: 3:58
Group Two: 12:06
Intermission: 8:54 (Benjamin Pedersen did spin on the final lap of the second group and required a restart)
Round Two: 20:53 (9:06 were red flag for Josef Newgarden's incident)
Intermission: 9:06
Round Three: 7:31
Ok, there were a few incidents at Portland. This might not be the best qualifying session to look at, but that nine minutes and six seconds between the second round and the final round is notable because nothing happened at the end of the second round.
Let's look at the previous road course round at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last month. That qualifying session had no red flags. How did that time out?
Group One: 11:42
Intermission: 4:17
Group Two: 12:17
Intermission: 8:41
Round Two: 11:38
Intermission: 9:22
Round Three: 7:48
That's not good. Even without the Pedersen spin, the intermission between the end of the first round and the second round was still nearly nine minutes. The intermission between the second round and final round was LONGER at Indianapolis despite the lack of incidents. Even the four-ish minutes between the two groups in round one is startling.
At Indianapolis, from the time the cars were released from pit lane at the start of the session to Graham Rahal taking the checkered flag as the final car in the final round, the session lasted one hour, five minutes and 45 seconds. About 22 minutes and 20 seconds was idle time.
And that isn't even include the idle time during the rounds. Normally, you see everyone immediately hit the racetrack, run about two or three laps, and then everyone is back in the pit lane from about five minutes remaining in the group until three to two and a half minutes remaining. That is the case for both groups in round one and round two. The final round is only six minutes. There is a little sitting around in that group as only six cars remain, but there is about six minutes of sitting around you could add from during the qualifying rounds alone.
IndyCar has been using the alternate start/finish line almost forever to limit the time it takes for cars to return to pit lane after a qualifying lap, and IndyCar is still averaging well north of five minutes between qualifying rounds.
It really is unacceptable.
IndyCar needs something different. You may say just shortened the intermissions, and yeah, that could work. But there is a reason for the gap, at least between the first round and second round. It is to allow the group two participants enough time to cool down so the group one participants do not have a significant advantage. Fine, but eight minutes is ridiculous. The second round is only ten minutes of a timed session anyway.
The intermission before the final round of qualifying cannot be about 50% longer than the final round of qualifying.
However, I think there is a way IndyCar can shorten intermission time while also adjusting the qualifying format to give drivers more space on track.
1. For round one, break up the grid into four groups based on combined practice leading up to practice. Snake the drivers into the four groups as so:
Group A: 4, 5, 12, 13, 20, 21, 28...
Group B: 2, 7, 10, 15, 18, 23, 26...
Group C: 3, 6, 11, 14, 19, 22, 27...
Group D: 1, 8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 25...
2. Each group is on track for six minutes. There is two minutes of intermission between each group. The intermission clock starts from the time the final car for that group enters pit lane.
3. The top three from each group advances to the second round, 12 cars total. The remaining cars that do not advance will set the grid as follows...
a. Non-advancing cars from Group A and Group B will set the odd-numbered starting positions in order of fastest to slowest speed.
b. Non-advancing cars from Group C and Group D will set the even-numbered starting positions in order of fastest to slowest.
4. Round two is split into two groups. The first group is made up of the three cars that advanced from Group A and the three cars that advanced from Group B. The second group is made up of the three cars that advanced from Group C and the three cars that advanced from Group D. Round two begins two minutes after the conclusion of the first round of qualifying. Each group is on track for six minutes.
5. The top three from each of the second round groups advance to the final round of qualifying. The three cars that do not advance from the first group take positions seven, nine and 11 on the grid. The three cars that do not advance from the second group take positions eighth, ten and 12 on the grid.
6. The final round of qualifying is made up of the three cars that advanced from the first group in round two and the three cars that advanced from the second group in round two. The final round lasts six minutes and sets the first six positions on the grid. The final round of qualifying begins four minutes after the final car from the second group in round two enters pit lane.
Here is what we get:
We get 42 minutes of qualifying.
We get 14 minutes of intermissions. That's much better.
We have less traffic on track. Each car should have plenty of opportunity to run a clear lap, which should allow the best drivers to rise to the top.
This is effectively taking what already exists and just breaking the first round groups in half, as well as keeping it split for the second round of qualifying as well. But that is all that it takes sometimes to make an improvement.
The current IndyCar format is dated. It isn't 2005 anymore. The intermissions are meant for commercial breaks that no longer exist now that every session is broadcasted commercial-free on Peacock. There is no need for six or eight or nine consecutive minutes of downtime in qualifying. There is no commercial break to get to. Those intermission should be quick. It is 2023 after all. Nobody wants to be twiddling their thumbs. Keep the cars coming on track. Don't give the person watching at home or at the track a second to look away. Keep them engaged.
There is no point in clinging to the past when the future can be better.
Champions From the Weekend
You know about Alex Palou, but did you know...
Myles Rowe clinched the USF Pro 2000 championship with finishes of second and third in the first two races from Portland.
Simon Sikes clinched the U.S. F2000 championship with a third place finish in the first Portland race.
Gabriel Bortoleto won the Formula Three championship with finishes of second and fifth from Monza.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Álex Palou, Max Verstappen, and company, but did you know...
Aleix Espargaró won MotoGP's Catalan Grand Prix, his second victory in the last three races. Espargaró also won the sprint race. Jake Dixon won the Moto2 race. David Alonso won the Moto3 race. Andrea Mantovani and Mattia Casedei split the MotoE races.
Kyle Larson won the 71st Southern 500. Denny Hamlin won the Grand National Series race.
Louis Foster won the Indy Lights race from Portland. Kiko Porto, Michael d'Orlando and Nikita Johnson split the USF Pro 2000 races. Jacob Douglas (races one and two) and Simon Sikes (race three)split the U.S F2000 races.
Frederik Vesti (sprint) and Oliver Bearman (feature) split the Formula Two races from Monza. Franco Colapinto (sprint) and Jonny Edgar (feature) split the Formula Three races.
The #40 Tresor Orange1 Audi of Mattia Drudi and Ricardo Feller and the #88 AKKOdis ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy split the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup races from Hockenheim.
Coming Up This Weekend
The IndyCar finale from Laguna Seca.
MotoGP is in Misano.
Kansas hosts NASCAR.
FIA World Endurance Championship has its penultimate round of the season at Fuji.
World Superbike returns from its summer break at Magny-Cours.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads east to Sachsenring.
The Acropolis Rally takes place.
