Month: May 2019

Pagenaud Completes May Sweep

Simon Pagenaud reminded the racing world that he’s one of the best by claiming his first Indy 500 win on Sunday afternoon. Pagenaud completed a perfect month of May by winning the Indy GP on May 11, claiming pole for the Indy 500 on May 19 and winning “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on May 26. His tremendous performance has erased any doubt of his return to Team Penske next season and moved him to first place in the championship standings.

Pagenaud seemed to have the car to beat all month, and nobody could seem to catch him as he led 116 of the 200 laps to give Team Penske their 18th win at Indianapolis. It was also the first-ever victory for a Menards-backed car, ending a decades-long drought in search of their first win at Indy.

Alexander Rossi stormed forward to finally challenge Pagenaud after the last round of pit stops, and he took the lead before a red flag session halted the action after a huge crash in the closing stages of the race. The final 14 laps featured multiple swaps of the lead between Pagenaud and Rossi, but Pagenaud reclaimed the lead on lap 199 and held off Rossi by 0.2 seconds as he took the checkered flag. He was the first pole sitter to win the race in 10 years.

Besides the obvious winner in Pagenaud, let’s take a look at the winners and losers of the 103rd Indianapolis 500.

Winners

  • Alexander Rossi. Despite the dejected look on his face after coming so close to claiming his second Indy 500 win, he has to be thrilled with the fact that he was even in contention after earlier issues. Two fuel issues on pit stops cost him valuable time, and if it wasn’t for a well-timed yellow flag on his 30-plus second stop, he would’ve had a race to forget. Rossi’s usually cool demeanor seemed to come unhinged during the fuel mishap, and it continued on track as he waved a salute to Oriol Servia’s lapped car for blocking him on multiple occassions. Rossi performed his usual theatrics at Indy by slicing through the field (and grass) for some spectacular passes, but in the end it wasn’t enough to pass the dominant Pagenaud. He now sits third in the championship standings.
  • Takuma Sato. Sato had an early problem in the pits that forced him to go a lap down, and the 2017 winner was in a mostly forgotten position for the majority of the race. He was within the top-10 at the final restart after a few yellow flags fell his way. His car seemed to be tuned up to 10 as he came out of nowhere to pass contenders like Will Power, Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden in the final stages. He even almost made a charge at Rossi and Pagenaud as well. His podium finish moves him up to tied for fourth in the championship standings.
  • Josef Newgarden. While he is now the only member of Team Penske without the elusive Indy 500 win, a top-five finish at Indy is nothing to complain about. Newgarden was fast all day but couldn’t match the speed of the front runners when it counted. He took multiple turns of front wing on his first three or four pit stops, showing the car wasn’t exactly handling the way he wanted before it seemed to fit his liking more in the final stages. However, his first win at the brickyard will have to wait at least another year. His championship lead was taken away for the first time this year as he now trails Pagenaud by a single point.
  • Will Power. Power almost became one of the biggest losers of the race after getting a penalty for bumping a crew member during a pit stop sent him to the back of the field. The “disgraceful” (his words) penalty gave him a tough day of working through the field. He couldn’t seem to move up for long stretches and stayed below the top-20, but he really opened it up in the final laps and clawed his way back up to fifth to remain in the championship hunt.
  • Santino Ferrucci. The formerly-disgraced Formula 2 driver finished in the top-10 for the third time this season and won Rookie of the Year honors at Indy for his seventh place finish. He managed to keep his head down and provide one of the best highlights of the day by diving across the grass to avoid the crash that led to the red flag. He now is ahead of much-heralded rookies like Felix Rosenqvist and Colton Herta in the championship standings.
  • James Hinchcliffe. After not qualifying last year and barely making the show in 32nd place this year, coming home in 11th is a job well done. His ability to skate through the middle of the five-car crash by the tremendous work of his spotter was another moment to remember.

Losers

  • Sebastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal. The two were running in the top-10 with less than 20 laps to go before they came together as Bourdais failed to yield enough room for Rahal’s inside move. Charlie Kimball, Zach Veach and Rosenqvist also got caught up in the damage that brought out the red flag. Rahal and Bourdais now both sit outside the top-10 of the championship standings and are over 100 points behind Pagenaud.
  • Marcus Ericsson. Ericsson was running within the top-10 for long stretches of the race and was set to take Rookie of the Year honors if he could hold his position. However, it all fell apart when he spun out on his own accord as he entered the pits, doing damage to his car and falling all the way to the back of the field. While Ericsson has shown stretches of promise in his first IndyCar season, he’s still having a tough time at putting full races together. As charter member of the Marcus Ericsson fan club, I can report that membership is slowly dwindling.
  • Helio Castroneves. His quest for a record-tying fourth Indy 500 win came to a crashing halt (literally) when he came into contact with James Davison on pit road on lap 42. Davison seemed to miss his pit box and swing a little wide, but Castroneves plowed into him and was forced to take a drive-through penalty that put him at the back of the field. He did climb back up to 18th by the end through attrition, but that mistake may have cost him in his final Indy 500.
  • Colton Herta. Herta qualified in the top-five in his debut 500 as the top-rated Honda. Any positive feelings quickly went out the window as his car had a mechanical failure after three laps that forced him to retire. It was also the fourth-straight finish at the back of the field after his win at COTA that probably feels like a lifetime ago for Herta.
  • Ed Carpenter Racing. After qualifying in second, third and fourth, Carpenter could only manage sixth, Ed Jones 13th and Spencer Pigot 14th. Whether it was tire degradation, poor restarts or a lack of pace at the end, all three cars dropped significantly below what should be expected for top-five starters.

How my picks finished

My podium picks of Bourdais, Carpenter and Rossi were looking pretty good for long stretches of the race with all three near the top-five. Bourdais’ crash eliminated my winner, and Carpenter’s late fall from third to sixth only gave me Rossi on the podium as a runner-up. I’ll have two chances to get a perfect podium this next weekend as the IndyCar series takes no breaks before traveling to Detroit for the doubleheader on Saturday and Sunday.

Indy 500 Preview

It’s finally here. The race that dwarfs the overall season for many fans and can create iconic moments that live on long after a driver retires from the sport. Foyt. Unser. Mears. Milk. Kissing the bricks. When you hear these names and traditions, you know it’s time for the Indy 500.

With the biggest race of the year also comes the biggest grid of the year, as the traditional 33 cars make up the field for the 103rd running of the Indy 500. Three cars failed to qualify last Sunday and were “bumped” from making the official field. Max Chilton and Pato O’Ward of Carlin, along with two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso of McLaren (in a technical partnership with Carlin) couldn’t come ahead of underdog Kyle Kaiser of Juncos Racing.

In order to provide a preview that contains all the story lines heading into the race, I decided to organize it by going row-by-row for the starting grid.

Row 1: Simon Pagenaud, Ed Carpenter, Spencer Pigot

Pagenaud continued his renaissance during May by claiming pole after coming through with a surprising win in the rain at the Indy GP. He put together his best career finish at Indy last year with a sixth place result, and he will be looking to equal Will Power’s performance in 2018 of winning the Indy GP and Indy 500 in the same month. Carpenter almost came away with the win last year and has been on the pole three times at Indy, but last year was his first time finishing on the podium. His teammate Spencer Pigot made the Fast Nine in qualifying for the second consecutive year and put in his best-ever qualifying effort in IndyCar. He’s faced trouble in his first three appearances at Indy and has never finished higher than 18th. Pigot will be trying to build off his top-five finish at IMS earlier this month to secure his best career result at a large oval.

Row 2: Ed Jones, Colton Herta, Will Power

Jones equaled his best career starting position in IndyCar by securing fourth in qualifying behind Ed Carpenter Racing teammates Carpenter and Pigot. His road course effort this season has been in partnership with Scuderia Corsa, which allowed him to be able to run a third car for ECR in Sunday’s race. Jones had his struggles last season at Ganassi, but like Pigot put in a season-best effort of sixth at the Indy GP two weeks ago. Most notably he finished third behind Takuma Sato and Helio Castroneves at the 2017 Indy 500. Herta is the only rookie to start in the first four rows, but he didn’t look new to the speedway when he threw down a four-lap average of over 229 miles per hour on pole day. He’s faced three straight terrible results after becoming the youngest-ever IndyCar winner at COTA, so fortunes may be looking up for Herta. Power starts on the outside of row two as the defending Indy 500 champion for Team Penske. He currently sits sixth in the standings despite only one top-five finish this year, and he will undoubtedly be aggressive from the start.

Row 3: Sebastien Bourdais, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi

Bourdais has never finished better than seventh at Indy, but he’s qualified within the Fast Nine the past two seasons after his horrific crash in qualifying cost him almost all of the 2017 season. He was the second fastest Honda behind Herta and is my darkhorse pick to win the race. Newgarden qualified within the first three rows for the fifth time in the last six years and is one of the top drivers still searching for that elusive Indy 500 win after finishing third in 2015. Lining up next to him is the man he couldn’t catch at the line in 2015 in Alexander Rossi. Rossi raced all the way to fourth after qualifying 32nd last year and has finished in the top-seven in his three career starts at Indy. The winner of the 100th Indianapolis 500 put himself in a much better position to start this year, and I’d be surprised to not see him on a podium.

Row 4: Marco Andretti, Conor Daly, Helio Castroneves

Marco Andretti has finished on the podium four times at the Indy 500 in his 14 starts, but he’s failed to land on any podium in the NTT IndyCar Series since 2015. With this year being the 50th anniversary of his grandfather Mario’s win at the 1969 Indy 500, Marco will be hoping for his own sake he can prove he’s still capable of top-level results in the series. Daly has always had speed but seems to never be able to find the right car or funding to take advantage of it. With support from a major team like Andretti this year, Daly will be extremely focused on bringing the car home in a good position to possibly get a chance at races with Andretti or a different team later this season. Castroneves enters the race as the only active driver to have won the race more than once, winning in 2001, 2002 and 2009. He also has three runner-up finishes to his name, notably the incredibly close result against Takuma Sato two years ago. Last year he crashed at the Indy 500 and could be heard begging team boss Roger Penske for another shot at a fourth win. This may be his final chance to join the likes of A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears as the only four-time winners at the legendary track.

Row 5: Marcus Ericsson, Takuma Sato, James Davison

Ericsson hasn’t impressed in all of his races since joining IndyCar from Formula 1 this season, but qualifying 19 spots ahead of his more experienced teammate James Hinchcliffe is a good start. Rossi had a difficult start to his first season in IndyCar before his success at the 500, so a good top-10 result could go a long way in giving Ericsson confidence for the rest of the season. Sato is one of seven active winners of the Indy 500 and is in one of the best stretches of his career after a win at Portland last year and a win at Barber in April. His suprising Indy win two years ago is his only time finishing within the top-10 in nine career starts. Davison is probably the biggest surprise in the top rows after qualifying 15th in his one-off effort with Dale Coyne Racing. He’s ran at the Indy 500 in four of the previous five seasons but has never finished higher than 16th in 2014. This will be the highest he’s ever qualified at Indy.

Row 6: Tony Kanaan, Graham Rahal, Scott Dixon

Kanaan has struggled mightily the past two seasons as his career comes to a close, but he did win the Indy 500 back in 2013. Rahal took a big risk in qualifying last Saturday as he dropped his original time to have one shot at not having to feature in the bump day race of six cars going for the final three spots. His risk paid off as he moved up from the final rows all the way up to 17th. Rahal made a drive from 30th to 10th at last year’s race, but it was only his third top-10 finish at Indy in 11 attempts. He will line up next to five-time series champ and 2009 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, who had a pretty lackluster run to only qualify 18th. He’s been on pole three times at Indy and has found himself on a podium on four occasions in 18 starts.

Row 7: Oriol Servia, Charlie Kimball, JR Hildebrand

Servia may be the oldest in the field along with Kanaan and Castroneves at 44 years old, but a good result could prolong his career in the series. He was the last driver confirmed for this year’s race as Schmidt Peterson’s third entry. However, MotoGator Team Strange Racing partnership could extend to a six-year run next season, according to a RACER magazine story on Thursday. Servia starting 19th is his second-lowest qualifying effort since 2012. Kimball is in his first part-time season with Carlin after being a full-time driver in the series since 2011. Considering every other Carlin-associated car failed to qualify for the race, Kimball putting the car 20th is pretty remarkable. It also proves he probably should be running a more complete schedule than his five races in 2019. Hildebrand will always have to face the demons of crashing on the final corner to finish second at the 2011 Indy 500. He will compete for the second time with Indy-only Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

Row 8: Ryan Hunter-Reay, Santino Ferrucci, Matheus Leist

Hunter-Reay is starting the furthest back of any former winner in 22nd this year. He will have to slice his way through the field to catch up to his teammates starting in the top-10. When he did win the race in 2014 he climbed all the way from 19th to come across the line ahead of Castroneves. Ferrucci will be entering his first-ever Indy 500 and did a solid job to comfortably make the race beyond the final row. Leist had a good result last year by qualifying 11th and finishing 13th in his first start at Indy, and he’s coming off his first-ever finish in the top-10 with a fourth place at the Indy Grand Prix.

Row 9: Jack Harvey, Jordan King, Ben Hanley

Harvey will be making his third start at Indy after running part-time seasons in 2017 and 2018. He’s already put in some impressive performances this year with Meyer Shank Racing with three top-10’s and his first podium finish at the Indy GP. King will be entering his first Indy 500 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan this year after only running on road/street courses last season with Ed Carpenter Racing. Hanley did a great job in qualifying 27th in Dragonspeed’s first season as an IndyCar team.

Row 10: Zach Veach, Felix Rosenqvist, Pippa Mann

Veach continues to have a tough time putting together big results at Andretti by slotting in at 28th on the starting grid. He has yet to finish within the top-10 in five races this season and will need a stellar drive through the field to contend for top positions on Sunday. Rosenqvist sits atop the Rookie of the Year race so far with 106 points through five races, six points ahead of Herta. The Swede has put in exciting performances like his fourth at St. Pete’s and landing on pole two weeks ago at the Indy GP. The month of May hasn’t been as kind to him on the oval track, where he struggled in qualifying to barely avoid bump day. Pippa Mann will be especially pleased to have clinched the last spot in the 10th row after being one of two cars to be bumped from last year’s Indy 500. She ran for Dale Coyne Racing at the Brickyard the previous six seasons and managed a career-best result of 17th in in 2017.

Row 11: Sage Karam, James Hinchcliffe, Kyle Kaiser

The last row had to qualify in the high-pressure conditions of bump day on Sunday. Six drivers had one final run to make it into “the show”, and Karam came away with the best time. This will be his fourth year in a row racing with Dreyer & Reinbold at the Indy 500. Karam is well known for his work in Indy simulators and is always focused on making his one run a year at Indy count. Hinchcliffe was relieved to make the field after an up-and-down couple of years at Indy. Hinch almost lost his life during a crash in 2015, came back to win the pole in 2016 and then failed to qualify in 2018. His ability to manage the mental hurdles of possibly missing the race for a second-straight year after needing to use a backup car to qualify was an impressive feat. However, Kaiser’s run with the underfunded Juncos team to bump Fernando Alonso and McLaren out of the race drew plenty of David vs. Goliath comparisons. Juncos feared they wouldn’t be able to qualify after a crash in practice, but they were able to rebuild the car overnight and push ahead to make the field. After running no sponsors earlier in the month, sponsors have come flooding in to the tiny team as they prepare for Sunday.

Predictions

Winner: Sebastien Bourdais

Second: Ed Carpenter

Third: Alexander Rossi

A different driver has won the Indy 500 for the first time in five of the last six seasons, with many coming from former series champions as well. Bourdais qualified well to put himself in the top-seven, and I think he might be able to sneak away with a win at the Brickyard this year. Carpenter proved last year he can do more than just qualify at the top (five top-two starts) and should finish on the podium again. Rossi has proved he has a knack for slicing through traffic and drafting better than most, and I think he will be able to put in another good performance to get back on track after a tough result earlier this month. Team Penske has won 17 times at Indy, while no other owner has won more than six times (Andretti). I’ve gotten burned picking the Penske cars earlier this season, but Pagenaud, Newgarden and Power should all be finishing within the top-10 if they don’t get caught up in accidents.

Race: Sunday, May 26 at 11:30 a.m. CST, NBC

Indy GP Preview

Will Power has won the Indy GP in three of the five seasons it’s been run.

With the biggest month of the IndyCar season finally here, tomorrow will serve as the opening act for the Indy 500 on May 26. The Indianapolis Grand Prix will be run for the sixth time on Saturday in its combined road course setup of using part of the oval track along with the road course in the infield. Will Power has won the race three times and is the two-time defending winner, while also winning pole in each race win in 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Simon Pagenaud is the only other driver to win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. One came in 2014 in the inaugural event with Sam Schmidt Motorsports, and the other was in his championship-winning season with Penske in 2016. Penske has won four of the five Indy Grand Prix’s. After running 82 laps around the 2.4 mile course for the first three years, the race distance was increased to 85 laps in 2017-18 before growing to 90 laps for Saturday’s race.

Josef Newgarden has a 28-point lead atop the standings after four races through the best opening stretch of results in his career. However, the Indy GP has been one of his least successful tracks in his seven-plus years in the series. He’s never even finished within the top-10, finishing 11th the past two years after finishing 17th or worse in his first three appearances. Two seasons ago he suffered a pit limiter problem that made him serve multiple penalties late in the race, and last year he made a risky move trying to take third place from Sebastien Bourdais in the second half of the race before hitting the curb and spinning out. With one setback coming from mechanics and one from questionable driving, Newgarden needs to run a tidy race to keep his championship lead as they enter the double-points weekend on May 26.

Alexander Rossi is the only driver besides Newgarden to finish in the top-10 in every race this season, while the other contenders have each had at least one poor result to create the sizable gap to Newgarden this early in the season. But just like any season in IndyCar, one early mistake can make a lead go from feeling dominant to extremely vulnerable in a single weekend.

Race Predictions

Pole: Will Power

1st: Will Power

2nd: Ryan Hunter-Reay

3rd: Scott Dixon

While I’ve picked Power on my podium three times this season and it’s only came through once, there is no other track besides St. Petersburg that I’d feel more confident in his ability to run away with the weekend. Power has gone through a bit of a slump the past three races, which always seems to lead to successful stretches like his domination last year by completing the Indy-double of reigning victorious in the Indy GP and Indy 500.

Hunter-Reay has had a quietly strong start to the season after having his engine blow in the opening race, and he sits at fifth in the standings after three top-10 results. He’s finished on two podiums at IMS before, and I expect him to be able to race Power hard throughout the weekend as one of the leaders for Honda. Dixon has finished runner-up to Power the past two races at this track, and he should also be in contention in the closing stages of Saturday’s race.

I could see a scenario where Newgarden or Rossi have their first setback of the year after a run of limited problems in the opening months of the season. Look for Colton Herta to bounce back after two lackluster results after winning at COTA in the second race of the year. Last season he swept the two Indy Lights races at the Indy GP.

Race: Saturday, May 11 at 2:30 p.m. CST, NBC