Midseason Reset
Basically every series is off at this point in the year. With all these series on break, mostly due to the Olympics, this is chance to briefly summarize where these series are at with all at or around their halfway points.
IndyCar:
Boy does this feel like Álex Palou’s championship to lose. With a 49-point lead with five races to go, a second consecutive and third title in four years for Palou feels inevitable, even if four of the races are at ovals.
I don’t want to say it feels anti-climatic, but with the level of parity through the first 12 races in IndyCar, seven different winners, no driver with more than two victories, there hasn’t been a driver dominating and taking the fight to the consistency of Palou. We are in a period where unless you are smashing the competition, it will be difficult to top the Catalan driver. This could be the case for the next three or four seasons.
It hasn’t been a bad year. It wasn’t that long ago the number of different winners was being hailed as a great positive and with five races to go, IndyCar could be looking at nine or ten different winners. Everyone loves selling IndyCar as a series with deep talent where a great number can win no matter what team they are driving for.
I think we are in an odd-year between the midseason introduction of the hybrid, Team Penske push-to-pass violation, Arrow McLaren driver rotation, an exhibition race, Nashville moving from the street course to Nashville Superspeedway over 40 minutes outside city, and now an extended summer break, there has been a lot of competition with the on-track action, unlike any other season we have seen in modern IndyCar. The hope is in the final five races the racing can take center stage and possibly a thrilling championship finale can cap things off.
Formula One:
I want to go back to post-Hungarian Grand Prix when Lando Norris let Oscar Piastri through to win the race but Norris was arguing McLaren should have been thinking about the drivers’ championship. Norris had a point.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen had 265 points to Norris’ 189 points.
Mathematically, if Norris had won every race after Hungary and Verstappen been second in every race and never scored fastest lap, Norris would finish on 464 points to Verstappen’s 463 points. That is without Norris winning at Hungary. Give him seven more points and he has some breathing room.
The problem is while it is possible on paper, Norris wasn’t going to win 11 consecutive races to close out a season. As good as McLaren is this year and while Red Bull isn’t world beaters, Norris wasn’t going to win 11 consecutive races, and any less than that isn’t going to get him the championship over Verstappen. Mercedes went out and won in Belgium. There is greater competition this season. Without a dash of horrendous results for Verstappen and Red Bull, no one is catching them.
McLaren didn’t give up on Norris, it is seeing the bigger picture. The cars were going to be 1-2 at Budapest. It doesn’t matter who wins, and Piastri was given the worst strategy while also having a three-second pit stop, something out of Piastri’s control. It is a team win, essentially maximum points, but at that time it got McLaren within 51 points of Red Bull.
After Belgium, McLaren is 42 points back. The constructors’ championship is very much in play for McLaren. Norris had to sacrifice a little, but the team is playing for what it can win and keeping harmony can go a long way. McLaren has something to play for and if it pulls off its first constructors’ championship since 1998, the mood will be greater than if Norris had not been selfless on a summer’s day in Hungary.
MotoGP:
Sprint races are keeping this championship close. Only nine races have been completed but Francesco Bagnaia is returning from the summer break with four consecutive victories and six victories total. Yet, Bagnaia’s championship lead is ten points over Jorge Martín.
It hasn’t been the case that Bagnaia has retired from the other three races he hasn’t won. There has been one retirement but the Italian has been no worse than fifth in the other races. It comes down to sprint races.
Martín has two Grand Prix victories, but he has won four of nine sprint races. While Martín has six grand prix podium finishes, he has been on the podium in seven sprint races with a fourth. He has failed to score points in only one sprint race. Compare that Bagnaia, whose has won two sprint races and has one other podium finish, and Martín is chipping away points every Saturday even if Bagnaia bests him on Sunday.
Over half the season still remains in MotoGP, but it feels like it will be Bagnaia vs. Martín again. Marc Márquez is 56 points back in third, but Márquez has yet to break through with a race victory, whether it be a sprint or a grand prix. There are still plenty of races left, but if Bagnaia continues his form and wins two-thirds of the remaining races, a third consecutive title will be his.
NASCAR:
Doesn’t most NASCAR seasons feel kind of irrelevant when we get into August. It is starting to ramp up as the playoffs approach, but has any of these results mattered?
Kyle Larson has been the best driver this year. Larson leads on points and he has contested one fewer race than the rest of the field, but none of it really matters until September. Three bad races in the final weekends of summer could unravel a championship hope before the days cool off. There have been other good seasons. Denny Hamlin has won three races. William Byron was the first to three victories this season, but he hasn’t won since April 7. Christopher Bell has three victories, but he has finished outside the top 30 in seven races this year.
Last year, Ryan Blaney entered August having not had a top five finish in the previous two months. Blaney would go another two months without a top five finish and he still won the championship. The first 22 races are not entirely meaningless, but they are only setting the table, not the meal itself.
FIA World Endurance Championship:
Five races, five different winners with three different manufacturers including a privateer team winning, what else could WEC ask for?
It has been quietly a great season for WEC, but there are only three races remaining, and there is still a month until the next round at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
This has been Porsche’s year even if it didn’t win the 24 Hours of Le Mans and didn’t have the greatest showing in France. The #6 Porsche of Kévin Estre, André Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor has finished first, second, second, fourth and second, and this has the Porsche in a comfortable lead over the #50 Ferrari which won Le Mans and is really only living off those extra points for winning the 24-hour race.
Toyota has won twice but hasn’t quite had the same consistent speed to compete with Porsche and Ferrari. Then there is Hertz Team Jota, which won at Spa-Francorchamps.
If there is any problem, it is three manufacturers lead the way and the rest are in a trailing pack. Cadillac isn’t having a great year. Alpine is having teething problems. Peugeot's car isn’t much better with a rear wing. BMW hasn’t made up any ground. Lamborghini is still in year one. Isotta Fraschini was never seen as a serious contender.
This is kind of what everyone feared when nine manufacturers compete in one class. They cannot all win. That is especially true when there are only eight races. Hypercar has reached its greatest potential, and manufacturers aren’t going to stick around for five or six years and never win a race. There is IMSA, which provides another playground to play on, but these programs must yield some results and success to justify existing. In the next two years, we are going to see some changes that will not be celebrated but are a natural part of motorsports.
IMSA:
Again, it has been Porsche’s year, but Cadillac is pushing.
Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr has won twice in the #7 Porsche with five podium finishes and their worst finish being fourth in six races. The IMSA results are nearly matching the WEC result. Surprise, Porsche is good!
Sébastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande are making it close in Chip Ganassi Racing’s Cadillac but the next closest team is the #6 Porsche with Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet. Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti has won two races, but the Acura team hasn’t been close to the consistency of the Porsches and Cadillac. Whelen Racing started strong with three runner-up finishes in the first four races, but has slid a little. BMW hasn’t been close this season.
There are only three races left in the GTP season, two of which are endurance races. It has gotten late early.
Meanwhile, AO Racing is the surprise championship leader in GTD Pro, but the team is seeing a change with Seb Priaulx stepping out to focus on his Multimatic commitments leaving rookie Laurin Heinrich as the lone championship leader with four GT races left. Heart of Racing Team and VasserSullivan Lexus each have a chance to pounce with experienced lineups and Corvette is not out of it, fresh off its first victory with the Z06 GT3.R.
Winward Racing has dominated GTD. Philip Ellis and Russell Ward have won four times with a second through six races. Good luck to anyone trying catch them, though there is plenty of time to pull off a comeback.
Formula E:
This is a review because the Formula E season ended last weekend in London. Pascal Wehrlein went from third to first to claim the championship, however the story feels more about who lost it.
Nick Cassidy was up 25 points entering the final two rounds, both doubleheaders at Portland and London. Cassidy had eight podium finishes through the first 12 races. Wehrlein had only three podium finishes in that span.
Cassidy ended up 19th, 13th, seventh and retired in the final race of the season after contact with António Félix da Costa. This is more than Cassidy but a Jaguar championship lost as well because Mitch Evans ended up second, six points behind Wehrlein. It felt like Jaguar was clearly the best team this season, and it did win the Teams’ championship and Manufacturers’ championship, but Wehrlein took the drivers’ title.
Wehrlein finished in the points in 14 of 16 races, 11 of which were top five finishes, but only five of those were podium results. It doesn’t feel that impressive, but credit to Wehrlein. This is a championship Jaguar must feel was destined to be theirs and it slipped through their fingers.
August Preview
August does lack a big event. The Olympics might have dampened the eighth month this year, but there is not that marquee event in August.
January has the 24 Hours of Daytona and the Dakar Rally. February has the Daytona 500 and Bathurst 12 Hour. There is the 12 Hours of Sebring in March as well as most seasons starting. Long Beach takes April. There is the Indianapolis 500 and Monaco Grand Prix in May, Le Mans and Dutch TT are in June, the British Grand Prix is in July, and then August is open.
Come September, there is the Italian Grand Prix as well as the Southern 500. October has Petit Le Mans and Bathurst 1000. November is when many championships are decided and even Formula One goes into December now.
It feels like August is missing something grand. Maybe that will change. There also doesn’t seem to be much great demand for a big event. We could be content with a light summer month.
Other events of note in August:
IndyCar will be back with Gateway, Portland and the start of the Milwaukee weekend.
Formula One returns at Zandvoort.
NASCAR will get to the very end of its regular season.
MotoGP only has two races, Silverstone and Austria. It will pick up in September.
