Round 5: IndyCar Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 9-11 May.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 5: IndyCar Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 9-11 May.

It's been more or less a month since the Chequered flag fell, at Long Beach and the Month of May, can finally get underway.

This year will be the sixth running of the event. So far, the start of each race has been barely without incident, the exception being 2017.

The inaugural race in 2014 featured a standing start but pole sitter Saavedra stalled as the lights went out and his car was hit by Munoz and Aleshin, showering the track with carbon-fibre and forcing a restart. It was decided that for 2015, the race would have a conventional rolling start. However, several cars came together at Turn 1, though somehow this didn't lead to a restart.

In 2016 after the start and as the field moved into the Turn 1, Kanaan collected Bourdais on the outside of the corner, bringing out the first caution of the race. The race restarted after four laps under yellow. Last year the yellow came out on Lap 1, as Charlie Kimball and Ed Jones made contact.

The track is a modified layout of the circuit previously used for the F1 United States Grand Prix, held from 2000 - 2007 and which is currently used by the MotoGP, Red Bull Indianapolis

Grand Prix. The race is run clockwise, the opposite direction to the Indianapolis 500.

Some trivia:
Driver with the most wins: Will Power, 2015, 2017, 2018
Team with the most wins: Team Penske, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Layout:
Motorcycle Course:


IndyCar Road Course:


Length:
2.439 Miles (3.925 Km)

Turns: 14

Lap record:
Will Power, May 12, 2017. 1:07.704, 129.69 mph (208.44 km/h).
Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6.
Verizon IndyCar Series.


Last year's race:

Will Power repeated the previous year's qualifying session by taking Pole. At the start Power took the lead, with the field going from four to five to six wide coming up to Turn 1. Within seconds, Simon Pagenaud, was nudged by Newgarden, into the path of Jordan King's Ed Carpenter
Racing Chevrolet, who then clipped Pagenaud from behind at Turn 2 with both going off into the sandtrap. Pagenaud rejoined the track but King needed rescuing, which brought out the first full course yellow.

Spencer Pigot, in the other Ed Carpenter entry also got into trouble at Turns 5/6, after he ran out of road at the chicane, took off over the curb, landing back on the track and collecting Sato. Pigot was given a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact. Sato, teammate Graham Rahal and Pagenaud all pitted for a fuel top-up.

The restart saw Power storm away, as Wickens and Bourdais dueled for second place, with Newgsarden's Penske looming large in Bourdais' mirrors. Power kept a margin of around one second over Wickens but the pair of them were now four seconds clear of Bourdais, who was still trying to fend off Newgarden, with Alexander Rossi now in tow.

As Power caught up with Spencer Pigot to lap him, Wickens had caught right up with Power, forcing Power to use his push-to-pass to get around Pigot. With Wickens right up with Power both pitted on Lap 20, virtually together and left together, with Power on primary tires and

Wickens on another set of reds, giving Bourdais the lead for just a lap before he too pitted. Newgarden stayed out a lap longer, with Rossi now in the lead, which he gave up on Lap 23 when he pitted.

Meanwhile, on the black tires, Power had been unable to hold off Wickens, conceding a spot along the back straight. By lap 26, Wickens held a 2.5sec lead, and Power was having to fight off Bourdais who was also on reds. Newgarden, like Power, was on blacks and a further five seconds down, still trying to hold off Rossi.

Behind them, Dixon’s off-strategy had seen him climb to sixth, ahead of Hinchcliffe and Hunter-Reay. Rahal passed Tony Kanaan for ninth on Lap 28, and Hunter-Reay for eighth on Lap 34. Hunter-Reay, on blacks, was also easy meat for Castroneves, and he conceded ninth on the pitstraight on Lap 35.

Rossi, Dixon, Hinchcliffe and the second Ganassi car of Ed Jones made their second stops on Lap 36, with Newgarden and Castroneves doing the same two laps later, Pagenaud a lap after that.

Wickens’ lead over Power had remained at around 5 seconds. However, he started suffering from understeer from his reds and as their second stops approached, Wickens leant on his push-to-pass but Power was now 4.5 seconds behind, as Wickens made his stop. Bourdais also pulled in on Lap 41, with Power, pitting on Lap 42. Now he was on the reds and Wickens on the blacks. The gap was now 3.5 seconds and Bourdais, also on blacks had fallen 3.5 seconds behind Power. The off-strategy Rahal, briefly led the race but but when he made his stop on

Lap 46, he handed the lead back to Wickens, which was now down to 1.7sec.Meanwhile further back, Newgarden on reds was gaining on Bourdais, who was on primary-tyres for third, while Dixon and Rossi closed on Newgarden.

At the end of Lap 48, Power was on Wickens’ tail but Wickens responded with a clever combination of Push-to-Pass and defensive lines into the hard braking zones of Turn 1 and 7.

At the start of Lap 51, Power made a move around the outside of Turn 1. Wickens tried to but couldn't defend his lead and had to give it up.

Four laps later, Newgarden tried to pass Bourdais for third place, at the Turn 12 chicane but from too far back. He clipped the high curb, spun the car and stalled, bringing out the second full course yellow.

Everyone took the opportunity to pit and while Power emerged ahead of Wickens, the Ganassi #9 crew did a great job to leap-frog Dixon ahead of Bourdais, Rossi, Castroneves, Hinchcliffe, Rahal, Pagenaud and Jones. All were on reds but were wondering if they could make it to the end on a tank of fuel.

A clean restart on Lap 62 left the drivers in the same order but on Lap 63, Rossi got past Bourdais on the back straight and at the start of Lap 64, Dixon passed Wickens for second.

Jones, in the other Ganassi car, had far worse fortune picking up a puncture and having to pit.

Power had a lead of 1 second over Dixon by Lap 67, when the battle between Wickens and Rossi for third place started hotting up. However, rain started to sprinkle the track over the closing 10 laps and Power edged away by a tenth or two each lap, finishing 2.5 seconds clear of Dixon.

Wickens was able to keep Rossi and Bourdais at bay and claim third place and second podium of his five-race IndyCar career. Bourdais managed to pass Rossi for fourth.

Castroneves finished sixth on his comeback and holding off Hinchcliffe, to complete the top six finishers.

As well as clocking Penske’s 200th win, Power scored his third win in four years at the IMS road course and his 33rd career victory.

Pole:
Will Power, 1:09.8182, 125.761 mph (202.392 km/h)
Team Penske,
Dallara IR18-Chevrolet IndyCar V6

Winner:
Will Power,
Team Penske,
Dallara IR18-Chevrolet IndyCar V6

Laps: 85
Distance: 207.315 Miles (333.641 km)
Race Time: 1:49:46
Average Speed: 113.318 Mph (182.367 km/h)

Caution periods: 2
Caution laps: 8

Race broadcast: NBC. 11 May, 3:00pm ET.

[Nick Woodbury]

The broadcast of the race will start at 3:00PM on NBC.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Nick Woodbury

The broadcast of the race will start at 3:00PM on NBC.

My mistake.

[JHamilton]

looking like we may get rain.

[fieldodreams79]

I've not seen one of these yet, but I hear they are a pretty good show.

Power, Pigot, Dixon, Felix and Josef fastest in P1:
https://www.indycar.com/stats/ntt-in...rix/practice-1

[NaBUru38]

Speaking of turn 1 chaos at road/street courses happen because rows are ridiculously close to each other. At the 500 every row is like 100 meters from the other, so starts are clean.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Speaking of turn 1 chaos at road/street courses happen because rows are ridiculously close to each other. At the 500 every row is like 100 meters from the other, so starts are clean.

In this case, there is a 90° right turn. It would make more sense, to adopt that section of the Motorcycle course.

[Purist]

No, with the motorcycle course, run clockwise, that kink makes the approach angle for any potential overtakes even shallower; the motorcycle turn is about 90 degrees, too, anyway. And on top of that, the tighter Turn 2 (effectively) will mean the cars are even more spread out through Turns 3 and 4, and thus out onto the infield "straight". So you'll also hurt overtaking into Turn 7 doing that.

At this course, it would be less of an issue if Turn 1 (Turns 7 and 12 also) had a more rediused curb on the inside, like F1 had when they ran here. That almost angular apex pinches down the racing line. Having a curb more like F1 did would also reduce the issue of the instant drop in track width going from the oval/pit exit to the infield road section. You already see curbing like that on the approach to Turn 8 at Long Beach and Lisboa at Macau.

As for spacing of rows, yeah, that's fine at a large oval where the slipstream will pull you back into touch, but doesn't work at almost all road and street courses. Long Beach would be a prime example of the impracticality of that. Spread them out that much, and the leader will be into the backmarkers as fast as the Toyota LMP1s are into lapping the GTs.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying

Congrats to Rosenqvist on his first pole and also to Chip Ganassi Racing, on completing the front row shut out.

Quite a different looking Fast Six, with previous multiple pole sitter and race winner Power, back in 6th.
Colton Herta, drove the fastest lap but it was in Q2, with a time of 01:07.8887, 129.335 Mph (208.144 Km/h.

As for the other Championship contenders, Newgarden and Rossi are 13th and 17th.

1 Felix Rosenqvist, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2785s
2 Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2979s
3 Jack Harvey, Meyer Shank Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.3238s
4 Colton Herta, Harding Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.3743s
5 Ed Jones, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.4609s
6 Will Power, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.7901s
7 Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman, Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2153s
8 Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.2445s
9 Marcus Ericsson, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2497s
10 Sebastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.2998s
11 Takuma Sato, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.3300s
12 Spencer Pigot, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.4697s
13 Josef Newgarden, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.6240s
14 Santino Ferrucci, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.4499s
15 Helio Castroneves, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.6497s
16 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.6235s
17 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.6994s
18 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.7710s
19 Patricio O'Ward, Carlin. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.7487s
20 Zach Veach, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.8170s
21 Matheus Leist, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.7751s
22 Max Chilton, Carlin. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m08.9572s
23 Marco Andretti, Andretti Herta. Dallara/Honda. 1m08.8995s
24 Tony Kanaan, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 1m09.1230s

[JHamilton]

Sounds like there will be rain for the 2nd half of the race. I bet the oval is really slick.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Remarkably, a very clean start but Rossi sustains some damage as O'Ward connects with Rossi.

[JHamilton]

Aw Ericsson spins and catches the wall coming into the oval.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Ericsson into the wall.

[bjohnsonsmith]

2nd FCY.

[JHamilton]

rain is coming...

[gert]

Jeezes man, how many laps do they need to run under FCY to clean up 1 single car that was in the grass and not even damaged.
That's 15 minutes ago...

If I want a parade I will watch F1 at Barcelona ...

[JHamilton]

He's coming...

[JHamilton]

He got em! What a pass!

[JHamilton]

That was a great race! According to the radio, there were 121 passes for position with 20 laps to go.

[bjohnsonsmith]

An amazing bit of driving. Congrats to Pagenaud, well deserved.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

That was a great race! According to the radio, there were 121 passes for position with 20 laps to go.

That was quite a frustrating race to watch, as the feed would either buffer or drop but what I saw was excellent. Pagenaud hunting Dixon down was awesome and with no P to P. Going to have to watch this again when IndyCar put this up on YouTube.

[skycafe]

Awesome drive for Pagenaud! I enjoyed watching that!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Result

Penske do it again, with a much needed win for Pagenaud. Four Chevys finished in the top six; not the result anyone would have expected. Great shame Rossi wasn't in contention. Can Pagenaud do a Power and go onto win the 500?

Another disappointing race and DNF for Colton Herta and nothing he could do about it.

1 Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 2h00m28.1166s
2 Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 85 2.0469s
3 Jack Harvey, Meyer Shank Racing. Dallara/Honda. 85. 3.7683s
4 Matheus Leist, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 5.4378s
5 Spencer Pigot, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 6.0938s
6 Ed Jones, Ed Carpenter Racing. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 7.1027s
7 Will Power, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 7.5853s
8 Felix Rosenqvist, Chip Ganassi Racing. Dallara/Honda. 85. 8.7080s
9 Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 85. 9.1802s
10 Santino Ferrucci, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 85. 12.7201s
11 Sebastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing. Dallara/Honda. 85. 16.6131s
12 Zach Veach, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 85. 19.6145s
13 Marco Andretti, Andretti Herta. Dallara/Honda. 85. 26.9994s
14 Takuma Sato, Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Dallara/Honda. 85. 28.0345s
15 Josef Newgarden, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 28.4598s
16 James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 85. 28.6403s
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 85. 29.1217s
18 Max Chilton, Carlin. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 32.0458s
19 Patricio O'Ward, Carlin. Dallara/Chevrolet. 85. 1m12.0400s
20 Tony Kanaan, AJ Foyt Enterprises. Dallara/Chevrolet. 83. 2 Laps
21 Helio Castroneves, Team Penske. Dallara/Chevrolet. 83. 2 Laps
22 Alexander Rossi, Andretti Autosport. Dallara/Honda. 81. 4 Laps
23 Colton Herta, Harding Racing. Dallara/Honda. 15. Contact
24 Marcus Ericsson, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Dallara/Honda. 11. Contact

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

That was quite a frustrating race to watch, as the feed would either buffer or drop but what I saw was excellent. Pagenaud hunting Dixon down was awesome and with no P to P. Going to have to watch this again when IndyCar put this up on YouTube.

I watched NBC and listened to the radio, which were perfectly timed the whole race, but the radio broadcast has a new studio this year. They had tons of problems, especially with the pit reporters. Luckily, they have a few weeks to figure it out.

[Nick Woodbury]

That was a thrilling race to watch on TV! The tension, the sheer unpredictability, constant battling throughout the field, the changing conditions. This race had it all!

I was away during the broadcast and watched it on the DVR tonight, so it made skipping the non-stop segments and commercial breaks a breeze.

Happy for so many drivers who very much needed a good performance, like both of the Ed Carpenter cars, and Leist. I was also very pleased to see Harvey hold on to a top 3 finish. Hopefully they can keep up these brilliant results. Perhaps more decent results can spur MSR to earn some backers that would allow them the affordability to participate in the full IndyCar season.