Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
The fastest car at IMSA's test from Daytona will not even be at the 24 Hours of Daytona. A few other drivers have lined up rides for that race and other endurance races. There was testing in Japan, and that included a few names from IMSA and Indy Lights. There was a gala. There was an investigation that apparently nobody asked for. An endurance race was held. IndyCar delayed introducing the hybrid system until after the Indianapolis 500, and Honda is threatening to leave the series, but we will discuss that another day. Trust me, there is plenty of time left in this offseason, 90 days to be specific with 92 days already behind us. I had something else planned to end this year on, and it is a little more fun...
A Forgotten Statistic
After every IndyCar race, the box score summarizes two hours of competition.
It lists the finishing order, giving each driver's starting position, the number of laps they completed, interval to winner, reason for a retirement and, back in the day, it would even tell you how much each driver earned.
A box score can also tell you how many laps a driver led, when lead changes occurred, when cautions occurred, what cause the cautions and how many laps were under caution.
It is quite informative, and it tells you one other thing, but you probably don't even think about it.
Take a look at the box score from the IndyCar season finale at Laguna Seca. What do you see? What are you not noticing? You probably think you have seen it all. There are no surprises. But take another look, right at the top. If it is at the top, it must be important, no?
Going from the top to the bottom, you see who had the fastest lap before you see who the winner is. Think about that! Fastest lap means... something. Formula One gives away a point for it, if a driver finishes in the top ten. It is always mentioned in the box score. Again, IndyCar puts it right at the top. If you go to Wikipedia, fastest lap is listed in the race results section for each round along with pole-sitter, most laps led and winner, and yet fastest lap is worth nothing toward the championship. The other three at least earn a driver points. Fastest lap is purely bragging rights.
Yet, if it is just for bragging rights and we know it is listed in every box score and it is widely publicized for each race, can you name who has the most fastest laps in IndyCar history?
...
You can't!
You can't even find it in IndyCar's record book, because it is not tracked, or if it is, it is not publicized. Formula One tracks it. IndyCar does not.
You can name the record for most victories (67, A.J. Foyt).
You can vaguely name the record for most pole positions because Will Power just broke it and you aren't sure what the exact number is but at the moment it is 70 pole positions, a nice round number.
You could not say the number of fastest laps Scott Dixon, Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Álex Palou, Patricio O'Ward or Colton Herta have in their respective careers and they have all raced exclusively in the 21st century.
No one could fault you for being clueless on what the record is for fastest laps in IndyCar because there isn't an easily obtainable answer. For that matter, there aren't even reliable records of fastest laps for most of IndyCar's history.
We know every fastest lap in the Indianapolis 500 since 1950, meaning there are 33 editions of the race where fastest lap will forever be a mystery. However, like most of IndyCar's past and present, the Indianapolis 500 is only one race. There are hundreds of other races that have taken place and those matter just as much as the Indianapolis 500 when it comes to record keeping.
When it comes to each season, it appears the best we can do is have every fastest lap dating back to the start of the 1993 season, which simultaneously isn't that long ago and a large sample of data. IndyCar's history is not going to be told accurately with just the last 30 years, but we might just have to accept that. We already accept holes in the record book.
For starters, how many records are counted just from 1946 to today? That has generally been accepted in many cases. Heck, even Colton Herta really isn't the youngest winner in IndyCar history, but we consider him because the record book only takes into consideration from 1946 to the present. Though we have records of a younger driver winning a race that counts toward the IndyCar record book. George Joermann is still in the record book as a race winner, but does not get recognized for his rightful place in history.
Certain records will just be lost to history. It is ok. The sack wasn't an official statistic for the NFL until 1982. We will never know the exact sack totals for the likes of Deacon Jones, Dick Butkus and a number of other great defensive players from the first half of the biggest professional sports league in the United States. Yet, the world continues to turn and we have accepted that Bruce Smith holds the record on 200 sacks.
The same can be done with fastest laps. Yes, it will forever be incomplete and be vacant of some of the greatest names in IndyCar history, but it can be as complete as we have records for and will remain that way as long as we keep tracking it accurately.
With that being the case, who has the most fastest laps in IndyCar history?
Again, the best we can do in terms of having complete seasons of fastest lap data is the 1993 season. That is 31 years and 673 races between CART, the Indy Racing League, Champ Car and the reunified IndyCar Series. A tumultuous period that inflated the numbers for drivers on all sides of the split, leaving us with some head-scratching statistics but also did see most of the best talent rise to the top.
Leading the way would be Sébastien Bourdais with 41 fastest laps. Thanks Champ Car! Thirty-four of Bourdais' 41 fastest laps occurred between 2003 and 2007, including having seven in the 2005 season, nine in the 2006 season and eight in the 2007 season, three of the five times a driver has had at least seven fastest laps in a single season.
Tied for second would be Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon, each with 36 and two ahead of Will Power in fourth. Tony Kanaan would round out the top five with 29 fastest laps. Josef Newgarden is three outside the top five with 26 fastest laps. Dario Franchitti would be the final driver with at least 20 as Franchitti ended with 23 fastest laps.
Alex Zanardi, Paul Tracy and Juan Pablo Montoya would round out the top ten with 18, 17 and 15 fastest laps respectively. There would be a three-way tie on 13 between Ryan Briscoe, Tomas Scheckter and Dan Wheldon. Ryan Hunter-Reay sits alone on 12, one more than Emerson Fittipaldi, Bruno Junqueira and Álex Palou would also already be on 11 career fastest laps.
Only four other drivers have ten fastest laps since 1993: Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Simon Pagenaud and Justin Wilson.
That would be the top 21 drivers. As for when drivers move up the fastest lap category, we can keep track of it from here going forward. Of course, if more data comes in and we are able to complete more seasons from prior to 1993, those can be added and adjustments can be made.
For now, the answer we have is Sébastien Bourdais.
Champion From the Weekend
Jules Gounon clinched the Intercontinental GT Challenge championship with a third-place finish in the Gulf 12 Hours with Maximilian Götz and Fabian Schiller in the #14 Mercedes-AMG Team 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG.
Winners From the Weekend
The #99 Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel, Mikaël Grenier and Luca Stolz won the Gulf 12 Hour.
Coming Up This Weekend
Nothing really. Enjoy the holiday season and keep an eye out for some awards and some predictions coming between now and the end of the year.
