Small Teams Keep Rolling- Long Beach Recap

April 10, 2017April 10, 2017 thepitwindow

The start should have told us this would be an interesting race. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach presented one of the best races in its 34 year Indycar history. In the end, another small team won, the large teams had various issues, and Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais increased his point lead. Do not adjust your screen. That last statement is correct. The race breakdown:

What happened to pole sitter Helio Castroneves at the green? He usually gets a good jump when he’s on pole for a race, but it appeared he was surprised they threw the green flag and was sixth going into the first turn. I can’t remember the last time the pole winner didn’t lead a lap. His day got worse with two speeding penalties on his last pit stop.

I knew trouble was coming when I saw Charlie Kimball and Will Power side by side going into turn 4. Kimball seems to be involved whenever there’s a crash lately. I keep going back and forth on who was at fault, but I think Will should have backed off knowing who he was next to. He would have passed him later. Kimball this season has taken out Graham Rahal early at St. Pete and now Will Power at Long Beach. Last year at Watkins Glen, Kimball clashed with both drivers, ending their day.

The early yellow changed strategies. Five laps were added to the race distance to make this a three stop race and allow the drivers to race without saving fuel. The first lap caution effectively ended that idea. Some teams opted to stick with three stops, others went with two. James Hinchcliffe only stopped twice and won. Ryan Hunter-Reay also \ made only two stops and was in position for a runner-up spot when electrical issues with six laps to go took him out of the race. More on the Andretti team woes in a minute.

Simon Pagenaud had the drive of the day. Forced to start last because of a qualifying penalty, the defending series champion drove to a fifth place finish. Passing people in the pits doesn’t account for all the position improvements. He found his way around cars on the track.

The podium was Hinchcliffe, Bourdais, and Josef Newgarden, getting his first podium as a Team Penske driver. Bourdais now has a win and a second place in the young season. He needs to extend his lead some more at Barber with two ovals coming up after the Alabama race.

Notes:

All four Andretti cars failed to finish. Marco Andretti had an engine failure; Takuma Sato, Alexander Rossi, and Ryan Hunter-Reay all had electrical failures. Electronic issues seem to plague this team a lot. Last year at Pocono Hunter-Reay was on his way to victory when a power hiccup caused a momentary stall on the backstretch.

This is the first time since 2013 that neither a Penske nor a Ganassi car won the first two races of the season, and the first time since 2008 that an Andretti, Penske, or Ganassi hasn’t won either of the first two.

Honda still waiting to win a road course pole. It may happen at Barber.

Zach Veach will drive car 40 for A. J. Foyt in the Indianapolis 500.

Jack Harvey secured a ride for the 500 with Andretti Autosport in car 50.

The car count for the Indianapolis 500 is now 29.

Greatest 33 Non-Winners

I’ll be back later this week with an update on the project. If you’re doing a grid, please send them to me by April 30.

Counting Blue Cars- Long Beach Preview: Will Honda Stay Strong?

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017 thepitwindow

Round 2 of the Verizon IndyCar Series starts Friday in Long Beach. This is my favorite street event on the circuit. The entire community embraces the race, the fans are knowledgeable, and the amount of activities and displays are unsurpassed at any street event. This race has a 40 year plus history, and it shows. They know how to do this event properly. Every Indycar fan needs to go to Long Beach at least once.

The best advice for watching this year is get a spotter’s guide. Sponsor and livery changes abound. Ed Carpenter Racing has Spencer Pigot sponsored by Loki the Wolf Dog and J. R. Hildebrand is in the Preferred Freezer Services livery this week. Scott Dixon’s car will look like Tony Kanaan’s carrying both carrying NTT Data colors. Helio Castroneves is in the AAA car this week. Simon Pagenaud has Menard’s livery and Josef Newgarden is wearing the Hum colors. Graham Rahal’s car is sponsored by Mi-Jack this week. Last, Marco Andretti has switched to UFD, which will be his sponsor for 7 races this year, as H. H. Gregg is out as a sponsor.

If you like blue and white cars, don’t miss this race. Eleven cars carry this combination in some form. I can’t remember such a large change in two consecutive races.

This race will tell us more about Honda this year. Was St. Pete a fluke? Is Honda for real? I think the latter is true. Do they have enough for the pole? Probably, but Will Power and Simon Pagenaud have to be the favorites. For the race itself, there is an even more motivated Will Power after his race debacle at St. Pete, and Scott Dixon, hoping to build on his third place finish in Florida. Dixon also wants to correct his qualifying error that cost him the pole.

Drivers to watch closely this weekend are Sebastien Bourdais, Graham Rahal, and Josef Newgarden. After his convincing win at St. Pete, a good Long Beach result could put Bourdais in the thick of the title hunt. Rahal typically starts the season slowly, but could use a top 5 in the race after his collision in St. Pete. Newgarden, in his second race for Penske, looks to improve on his 8th place at St. Pete. He has qualified on the front row at Long Beach before, so a crucial good starting spot is possible.

Passing is challenging here, so pit strategy is crucial. Only two drivers, Mike Conway, who started 17th in 2014, and Will Power,12th on the grid in 2012, have won from outside the top 5 in qualifying.. I see this coming down to a race between Pagenaud and Dixon, like last year, with Dixon prevailing this time.

Bonus Coverage: NBCSN is airing practice live tomorrow at 5 pm . The network did this several times last year. Qualifying is at 6:30 pm Saturday, and race coverage begins at 4 pm Sunday. Practice sessions not on TV are streamed.

Notes:

Remember the good old days when Penske and Ganassi were known collectively as the red cars? The only red left are the numbers on the 2 and 12.

I can’t remember the last time Fuzzy’s Vodka was not a primary sponsor on an ECR car.

This is the 34th Indycar event at Long Beach. Mario Andretti won the first event in 1984. Before Indycar ran here this was the venue for the Formula 1 US Grand Prix.

IMSA and Pirelli World Challenge also are racing this weekend.

New Drawings of Next Year’s Car; News; Greatest 33 Non-Winners Project Quick Update

March 30, 2017 thepitwindow

First, some news from IndyCar:

Pippa Mann has been confirmed for the Indianapolis 500 with Dale Coyne Racing. This will be her sixth Indy 500, the fifth consecutive with Coyne. Mann will again drive car #63, raising awareness for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Ed Carpenter Racing announced an expansion of its partnership with Preferred Freezer Services. They had sponsored J. R. Hildebrand in the 500 the last couple of years. PFS will be the primary sponsor for the 21 car at Long Beach, the Indianapolis Grand Prix, The 500, and the Honda Indy Toronto. They will continue as an associate sponsor at the other races. No word on whether this gives ECR room for a third 500 entry for Spencer Pigot.And this morning (Wednesday) new designs of the 2018 car.

Now Wednesday’s big news:

Indycar released more definitive drawings of what next year’s Indy race car will look like. The overall reaction has been very positive. I love the design. Gone are the awful airbox and the hideous rear sportscar bumper. This looks like a proper race car. My biggest concern is the short nose. The cars of the late 80’s and early 90’s had very short noses, result in many foot and leg injuries. Several drivers from that era still suffer from effects of crashing those cars. I can assume that technology allows this design with enough reinforcement to protect the drivers’ feet. I like the outlined silhouette of this year’s car laid over the concept drawing. It shows how dramatic the change will be. The big question. Will it race well? Stay tuned.

IMG_20170329_203639

Greatest 33 Non- Winners Project- Judging from the response I received yesterday, I will be getting a lot of grids. In fact I received one from a high school friend yesterday who did an interesting data analysis to rank the drivers. I will share his work in next Tuesday’s post. Thanks for your interest in this project. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

The Greatest 33 Non-Winners Finalists

March 28, 2017 thepitwindow2 Comments

Note: Photo from the dust jacket of Hard Luck Lloyd, by John Lingle. This is a great biography of Lloyd Ruby.

I have cut the field to 50 drivers who had great careers at the Speedway but never won the race. I eliminated 8 nominees because their records were just not as strong as the top 50. Some of them had great careers in other forms of motorsports, but didn’t do that well at IMS. Surprisingly, 3 current drivers made the list: Marco Andretti, Carlos Munoz, and Will Power. Of the drivers in this field, Marco is 5th in laps led. Michael Andretti is the runaway leader in laps led among non-winners with 431. Second place Rex Mays led 266 laps. This list spans a lot of the history of the race, from Ted Horn and Harry Hartz to Roberto Guerrero, Danny Ongais, and Robby Gordon. The complete list with stats is at the end of the post. Names were selected from nominations submitted by readers of this blog.

The IMS website has a chart of these stats, my source, if you would like to analyze the driver further. Go to this link:

http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/events/indy500/history/historical-stats/driver-stats

Now the fun begins. From this list of nominees, grid who you think are top 33 in 11 rows of 3. You may send your grid to me by commenting on this blog, direct twitter message, or reply or message on Facebook. If you have my email, you could send it there also. I will share your grids, with your permission, on this site. I will publish mine last, so that no one thinks I am pushing my list.

Have fun. Take your time. Remember, there are no wrong answers. I would like to have all grids by the end of April so I can present a final grid, based on everyone’s choices, before the Indy Grand Prix.

I have compiled statistics in 6 categories for each driver for each driver: Number of races, poles, front rows, laps led, top 5’s and top 10’s . The front row total includes poles, and the top 10 total includes top 5’s.

If the link doesn’t work, let me know, and I’ll email it to you. Enjoy!

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It’s Not Where You Start…..

March 13, 2017 thepitwindow

A wild weekend ended with a surprise winner. Street course winners don’t come from last to win. Sebastian Bourdais showed strength in practice, but a qualifying crash put him last on the starting grid. I thought he had a strong enough car to salvage a top 10. He won by more than nine seconds, passing Simon Pagenaud for the lead on lap 37 and not looking back. He was out of the lead only for pit stops the rest of the way.

The first part of the race was one of the best street races I’ve seen. Multiple passes, including two for the lead, close racing throughout the field, and two caution periods in the first 30 laps helped make it quite a show. The caution free last part caused the field to get quite strung out with an occasional battle here and there. Overall, it was an above average St. Pete race.

I don’t think Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball will be having dinner together anytime soon. They collided at Watkins Glen last year and had a first lap incident yesterday. I’m still not sure who was at fault yesterday. It just seems Kimball is becoming a part of more than his share of these crashes in tight corners.

Power outage. Will Power won the pole Saturday and was a strong favorite to win the race. He took the lead at the start, but was passed by James Hinchcliffe soon after the restart on lap 5. He made an early pit stop due to a flat-spotted tire, hit an air hose on the way out, resulting in a drive through penalty. He worked his ay back to third before the engine began to sour.

He is still in a better position than he was after last year’s race, where he didn’t start yet almost won the championship. Last year he left St. Pete with the single point for winning the pole. Do not count him out yet.

Other great drives yesterday- Rookie Ed Jones finished tenth, running a very steady, clean race. It was a very nice debut for his first Indycar race.

Ryan Hunter-Reay lost his rear brakes in the morning warmup and crashed hard into the tires in turn 10. The accident reinforced everyone’s concerns about the brakes during the race, but except for Spencer Pigot, there didn’t appear to be much of an issue. Hunter-Reay finished fourth, passing teammate Takuma Sato late.

Speaking of Pigot, before the brake issue, which happened as he entered the pits, he was having a great day. He moved to the top 10 quickly and was in position for a solid finish. He seems much more comfortable in his second year with the team.

Honda is definitely back in the game. They led all the practice sessions, just missed the pole, then dominated the race standings. There goes my theory that 2017 would be a 2016 rerun.

The Event

The crowd seemed to be stable, about the same as last year. It was wonderful to see and spend time with so many friends. It was just a great feeling to be back at an Indycar event.

The biggest issue was entering the track. I understand the need for security checks. This year the system was very inefficient, causing waiting lines of more than an hour according to some reports. I arrived later than I normally do on Saturday, a tale for another day, and was shocked at how long it took to move through the entrance. Some team staff were furious at having to wait to get in since they carried nothing with them. One said they were late for a meeting. They simply need more bag checkers and an express line for those with no bags. This was the worst it has been here.

The volunteer staff did their usual fine job. They are friendly and helpful. St. Petersburg is getting more and more community buy-in for the race. The mayor is fully behind the event.

Thursday I head to Sebring for my favorite sportscar race of the year, the 12 hours of Sebring. I will be tweeting all weekend and have a report next week. I am anxious to see the midway upgrades they have done. They have also added a showing of the Steve McQueen movie, Le Mans. I think they should show half of it.

ICYMI: Power Restored in St. Pete

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 thepitwindow

After three practice session dominated by Honda, I heard a lot of discussion about whether Chevy was sandbagging. After qualifying, it does not appear that was totally true. Four Hondas made the Firestone Fast 6, a better representation than at any race last year. However, a Chevy won the pole. One thing we need to keep in mind is there are 13 Honda cars and only 8 Chevys. The odds are in Honda’s favor. However, I believe given this same proportion last year, the first rows would have been all Chevys. Honda has definitely made strides this season. Scott Dixon beat Power’s track record in Round 2 today.

In the end, Will Power is again on the Pole. This is the 7th Pole here and the 45th of his career. When he retires, Power will go down as one the great qualifiers in IndyCar history. He has some unfinished business from last year, when he missed the race. Power has a good shot at finishing where he starts.

The two biggest disappointments in qualifying belong to Marco Andretti and Sebastien Bourdais. Andretti led FP1 and was strong in the other practices rounds. He did not even advance out of Round 1, mirroring many of his results from last year. Bourdais crashed in his qualifying group. Some teams, notably Rahal, still experienced brake issues.

Brakes will be a concern tomorrow. I have seen many lockups in turn 1. Overheating brakes going into turn 1 could be a huge worry. This is a heavy braking track. Failures and overheating will need to be monitored closely tomorrow.

It will be an interesting race. Josef Newgarden starts from fourth. He gets special mention because the winner has started from outside row 2 the last four years. A chance of rain late in the race will also mix things up. The forecast as of 10:30 Saturday night as I write calls for a 40% chance of morning showers, then cloudy.

Tomorrow when we wake up, we can finally turn to our partners and say those three little words, “It’s Race Day!”

Indy Lights Notes:

First, a salute to Carlin Racing for honoring John Surtees, who died Friday.

The Indy Lights race today was one of the best I’ve seen from this series. There were many battles for position and several passes for position. The star of the race was Colton Herta, who started fifth and fought his way to second. He had some tough battles to get by a couple drivers, but showed patience and made moves at the right time. Aaron Telitz won the race going away. He led from start to finish with a steady pace and got through lapped traffic with little trouble.

My final race report will be out Monday. Enjoy the race. I think this season may be more fun than I thought.

From Last Night Opening Day- Reunions, Bumps, Thumps, and Brakes

March 11, 2017March 11, 2017 thepitwindow

It was a great opening day for Indycar. Fans reunited after a long winter, cars ran two very active sessions, and there was also some good news regarding major partners. Let’s start with the good news first.

Chevrolet and Honda signed multi-year extensions with the series, joining extensions already in place with Firestone and Dallara. Added to the date equity established with the long range schedule, the series continues to gain stability. One thought I have is did Chevy and Honda sign these extensions because a third engine manufacturer is close to coming on board? That may or may not be a factor. We shall see.

I was at the track only 5 minutes before I began seeing familiar faces. It was great catching up with so many people today. I will get to meet up with others tomorrow. This the greatest thing about the first race of the year.

The practice sessions were very busy. The new tire allotment seemed to accomplish one of its goals, to have cars on track most of a session. No one ran the reds in the morning. I didn’t expect they would, since the afternoon round was about the time qualifying will be tomorrow. In the afternoon, some cars ran reds most of the time, some started on blacks and switched. I think there a few who ran blacks the entire time. Marco Andretti and Scott Dixon led the morning and afternoon, respectively. Both drive Hondas. Honda cars dominated the top ten in both sessions. Could tomorrow be a different story? What was different about today was the number of Hondas in the top ten. They have led practice rounds, but usually did not have many others in the top ten.

Parts of the track were repaved, but drivers still complain about how bumpy it is. This has always been a bumpy track, and probably always will be. There are still issues with brake heating. Spencer Pigot ran just a few laps before he was called in because his brakes were overheating. Indycar approved duct work modifications to help cool the brakes, but it looks like there is still some work to do. This could have an effect on the outcome of the race Sunday. Sato’s crash in the afternoon may have been brake related.

Will Power had a crash in turn 10 in the morning practice. There was damage to the rear wing assembly. He rebounded to finish second in the afternoon. This accident was mild compared to his shunt last year on opening day.

Qualifying tomorrow will answer the question, is Honda better this year? A pole would be a definite answer, though three cars in the Fast 6 would also show progress. As Scott Dixon said after the final practice today, “It’s Friday. It means nothing.”

A sad note to end on. John Surtees, former motorcycle and F1 champion, and championship car builder died today at the age of 83. He is the only person to win world championships in two forms of motorsport. The car he drove to the world title, and a car he built are on display at the Barber Vintage Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. If you’re going to the race at Barber, visit the museum. It is well worth your time.

ICYMI: St. Pete Preview- Penske Party on the Beach

Opening Race Weekend is finally here. Gosh, it seems like it’s been a long time. The Firestone Indy Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – green flag Sunday at 12:30 on ABC -again begins the season. This is my fifth time at this race. I have seen this event grow a lot since my first trip […]

March 9, 2017 thepitwindow

Friday’s practices may tell us how much the Hondas have improved. We will also get to see how Ganassi and Foyt cars are adjusting to their new engines and aero packages. Honda believes they will be better since the same package as last year is mandated for this year. Of course, Chevy has likely made some gains as well. Qualifying will be the main indicator of where Honda stands.

As far as the race, Penske dominates this race. The team has won eight of the twelve races here, including the last two and three of the last four. I don’t see a change in this trend. One Penske driver is particularly motivated to win this race. Will Power won the pole last year but missed the race due to what was believed to be a concussion. Sitting out probably cost him the season title. Look for Will in Victory Lane Sunday. He easily could be joined by two teammates on the podium, though I would not rule out a Honda driver sneaking in there.

I am eager to see how the new push to pass format plays out. Drivers have 150 seconds total to use as they wish. each push can last up to 15 seconds if they wish. It cannot be used at the start of the race or on restarts except for a restart with 2 laps or fewer left. I hope there isn’t ever a restart that late. Will starts be more bunched up? I’m glad I’m sitting in Turn 1.

Things that may take a while to adjust to:

Scott Dixon in a blue car

J R Hildebrand in the 21

Josef Newgarden in the 2

A number 4 Foyt car

Bourdais in the 18

Great Idea:

Just before I began writing this piece on Wednesday, I saw a tweet from Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports called “Our Starting Lineup”. It listed the race pit crew by position, their faces placed around a car outline. These guys work hard and it’s great that their team is recognizing them in this way. I hope other teams follow this example.

I will send out reports from the track Friday and Saturday. Let me know if there is any information you’d like me to get and I’ll do my best to get it to you. If you’re going to the race, I hope to meet you if I haven’t yet.