Barber Race Day

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Good morning from a coolish Barber Motorsports Park. The forecast looks sunny and dry for the start of the race, with temperature of 68 degrees at the green flag.

Today’s schedule: Times are Central

Gates and all fan activities open at 8:00am

  • 8:00am – 8:40am Porsche Sprint Challenge North America – Cayman (Race #2)
  • 8:55am – 9:35am Porsche Sprint Challenge North America – GT3 (Race #2)
  • 11:00am – 11:30am NTT INDYCAR SERIES Warmup Peacock, Indycar Radio
  • 12:00pm – 12:55pm INDY NXT (Race) Peacock
  • 2:00 pm – 5:00pm NTT INDYCAR SERIES (Race) NBC, Peacock, Indycar radio
  • The green flag will fall at 2:30 Central time.

The big question today is: Can Romain Grosjean put a complete race together?Grosjean has yet to convert a pole into a victory. St.Pete was his best chance, and today will be another great opportunity for him.

The Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix is traditionally a low incident race. Few yellows occur during the race, and generally they come early. Pit strategy and starting positon are the keys to the race outcome.

I still like Pato O’Ward to win from third. The winner usually comes from the first five starting positions.

I expect another podium from Scott Dixon. It would be nice to see him finally win at this track.

Keep an eye on Christian Lundgaard today. He starts sixth, the best for a Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver this season. Can he maintain or improve his position. Will we see another charge through the field from Graham Rahal?

The last two Barber winners, Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward, start second and third.

I’ll be back with starting tire choices. Enjoy the race.

Grosjean Continues Andretti Pole Dominance

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Romain Grosjean too the pole for tomorrow’s Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park, turning a lap of 1:05. 8396. Grosjean edged Alex Palou by 0.0734 seconds in winning his second pole of 2023 and third career pole position.

Andretti Autosport has won three of the four poles this season. Kyle Kirkwood won the pole at Long Beach.

Five teams put cars in the Fast Six. Only Chip Ganassi Racing had two cars in the final round.

Quick Thoughts

Is tomorrow the day Grosjean finally converts a good starting spot into a victory? St. Pete was in his grasp until the incident with Scott McLaughlin.

Pato O’Ward has qualified in the top six of every race in 2023.

If Kyle Kirkwood can stay on track during qualifying, he will win a ton of poles. His spin today was the secon incident in qualifying this year.

Nice to see some success for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Christian Lundgaard will start sixth.

Despite a strong team showing in practice, Scott McLaughlin was the only Team Penske car in the Fast Six.

All time career pole winner Will Power has an average starting spot of 10.5 this season.

Today’s crowd was good, although it seemed a bit down from previous Barber Saturdays.

Palou Tops Practice 2

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Alex Palou got a clean lap with about 12 minutes to go in the morning practice and it was good enough to lead the session by two tenths if a second over Josef Newgarden and Scott

The Penske duo of Newgarden and McLaughlin led most of the session.

Practice ran clean until Helio Castroneves spun and stalled on track with 45 seconds left. Only a couple of cars went out to complete the time.

500 Qualifying Tweaked

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Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced the qualifying format for the 107th running of the the Indianapolis 500. While similar to lastyear as far as the number of cars eligible for the pole, the program has been modified to create more content on Sunday.

The new format, per IMS and Indycar: The schedule does not include the practice periods preceding each day’s action.

DAY ONE: Saturday, May 20

11 a.m.-5:50 p.m.: Full Field Qualifying (Live on Peacock, also 2:30-4:30 p.m. on NBC)

Qualifying will take place for positions 1-30. Positions 13-30 will be set, and those drivers will not requalify Sunday.

When every car in the qualifying order for Saturday has been presented at least one chance to qualify, teams may choose from two lanes for second and subsequent attempts. Cars in the priority lane (Lane 1) must withdraw their qualified time – if the car has one – but get priority access to the track ahead of Lane 2. Lane 2 is for cars that have already qualified but wish to improve their position.

Once cars are outside of the Top 30, they are considered to not have a qualification speed as only positions 1-30 will be locked in during Day One.

DAY TWO: Sunday, May 21

2-3 p.m.: Top 12 Qualifying (Live on Peacock)

Positions 7-12 will be determined. The order is based on Saturday times, slowest to fastest. Each car is guaranteed one attempt. The fastest six advance to the Firestone Fast Six to determine positions 1-6.

4-5 p.m.: Last Chance Qualifying (Live on NBC)

Positions 31-33 will be determined. Each car is guaranteed one attempt and may make multiple attempts until time expires. Each car’s most recent qualification speed will remain eligible for the starting lineup until the time is withdrawn or qualifications end.

5:15-5:45 p.m.: Firestone Fast Six (Live on NBC)

Positions 1-6 will be determined. The order is based on times from Top 12 Qualifying earlier Sunday, slowest to fastest. Each car is guaranteed one attempt. The fastest driver in the Firestone Fast Six will earn the coveted NTT P1 Award for pole.

This program eliminates the two hour gap that Sunday in 2022 had. I assume the series will play Sunday by ear each year, since this may be the last year there are more than 33 cars for a while.

As I stated last year, I thnk 12 cars eligible for the pole is too many. I am also unsure of the value of bumping for just one car. I will expand on my thoughts next week when I sharethe entire May program.

Qualifying Day at Barber

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Today’s schedule

Times listed are Central Time

Gates open at 8:00am

  • All Fan Zone Activities
  • 7:50am – 8:10am Porsche Sprint Challenge – Cayman (Qualifier)
  • 8:25am – 8:45am Porsche Spring Challenge – GT3 (Qualifier)
  • 9:00am – 9:45am Blue Marble Radical Cup (Race #2)
  • 10:00am – 10:45am INDY NXT (Practice #2)
  • 11:00am – 12:00pm NTT INDYCAR SERIES (Practice #2) Peacock
  • 12:20pm – 1:00pm Porsche Sprint Challenge North America – Cayman (Race #1)
  • 1:20pm – 1:40pm INDY NXT (Qualifier)
  • 2:00pm – 3:15pm NTT INDYCAR SERIES (Qualifier) Peacock
  • 3:30pm – 4:00pm INDY NXT autograph session
  • 3:35pm – 4:20pm Blue Marble Radical Cup (Race #3)
  • 4:35pm – 5:15pm Porsche Sprint Challenge North America – GT3 (Race #1)

Good morning from Barber Motorsports Park. The weather forecast call for 73 degrees and partly cloudy when practice begins and 77 degrees and cloudy with a 15% chance of rain for qualifying.

Starting position is key to success in the nrace at Barber. Qualifying will be interesting. In yesterday’s practice, the top six were separated by 0.36 seconds and the top twelve had a gap of 0.65 seconds.

Notes

Romain Grosjean will get a new engine for the number 28.

Yesterday afternoon Inidnapolis Motor Speedway announced its May schedule and Indianapolsi 500 qualifying format. There are a couple of tweaks to qualifying. I will talk about May in my next post in a bit.

Perhaps it’s the timing of this race, but it seems odd to step on another race’s weekend with an announcement like this.

I will be back with practice results, qualifying groups, and qualifying results later.

McLaughlin Fastest in Barber Friday Practice

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Scott McLauhghlin led a strong Team Penske showing in the first practice for the Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix. Will Power finished third after going off track with about 10 minutes left in the session. Josef Newgarden was seventh fastest.

The practice period stopped three times. Helio Castroneves went off track and stopped against the barrier in turn 14. Romain Grosjean lost an engine and stopped on track. Will Power went off track and into the sand trap in turn 2.

Despite the strong Penske showing, Pato O’Ward was the only other Chevy in the top 10.The McLaren driver finished eighth’

Colton Herta had the second quickest time, but was the onle Andretti car in the top 12. Long Beach winner Kyle Kirkwood was just 22nd fastest.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing showed improvement with Christian Lundgaard in sixth and Graham Rahal in 12th.

Practice to set qualifying groups is at 11 am Central time tomorrow, with qualificiations at 2 pm Central.

Laid Back Friday

Today was one of the more relaxing Fridays at Barber. The crowd seemed a little low for Friday.

I had a chance to check mout the Indycat=r merchandise tent. Iy appears each driver has at leasy=t two different shirts available. There are some nice designs and colors. Greenlught cars aren’t available for some of this year’s drivers yet, but hopefully they will be out next month.

An advantage of a small crowd is that the trams ran quickly. That won’t be the case the rest of the weekend.

Results

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