Just when he thought we would finally write about a team other than Chip Ganassi Racing, Felix Rosenqvist ruins Arrow McLaren SP’s first win and offers the potential that allowed him to get the plum seat alongside Scott Dixon. Having compromised many words with CGR in our recent post-career analysis columns, let’s open in a different direction.
Our first major trend to watch out for, after leaving four races where practice time was limited, is how erratic the season has been for so many teams and innings. It’s supposed to. Without tons of practice sessions to bring each car to near-perfect condition, drivers and engineers have been forced to make quick and bold decisions about chassis configuration. As a result, those big changes have hit the target or failed. Think that you have hours, rather than days, to prepare for a big test, and you don’t feel confident that you are ready to pass the test.
Sunday was an excellent example, with approximately two hours separating qualifying and the race. Pato O’Ward’s supreme short burst speed at the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevy was good enough to take pole position, but as the race revealed, the rear tire degradation was too high once he moved to the main Firestone compound in the middle of the contest, and again when he finished his career in used alternates. With more time on the track to develop the car around the Sunday setup, it’s more than likely that the rear parts have been better preserved, but in the slam-bang schedule, the team did their best to achieve the setup and soon discovered that the limitations of the rear tires were becoming troublesome
O’Ward’s situation was reflected by most of the teams. Dale Coyne Racing’s Alex Palou was a beast on Saturday when he ranked third while chasing Will Power and Scott Dixon, and with some chassis tweaks overnight, he improved 11 points in the Round 1 qualification, he He ranked third for Round 2, and then spent the afternoon chasing the drive, which went south pretty quickly. Expand reality to the rest of the field (except Dixon and Rosenqvist), and the results for most drivers in the initial four rounds seem like hardly anyone has any idea what they’re doing from week to week.
While that’s not true, compressed schedules in reaction to COVID-19 have become IndyCar’s largest variable generator. There has been a podium here, missing in action there, an average finish next time and a close to close. If you like surprises, the 2020 season is on the way to being unforgettable in that regard.
From this point on, the random nature of IndyCar’s careers to date has played into Dixon’s hands.
With no stable opponent ending up on his wheels, the five-time champion has accumulated a 54-point lead over second place. For the sake of context, that’s one full race (50 points) plus pole (one point), leading one lap (one point) and leading the most laps (two points) ahead after four races. And that comes after a humble 12th on Sunday.
After Texas, it was Simon Pagenaud of the Penske team (P2) and Josef Newgarden (P3) the heels of the Dixon championship. After winning the Indy GP, Pagenaud stayed close (P2, -25 points), and while Newgarden maintained his position, a distant end of the seventh separated him from his teammate and Dixon in the standings (P3, -40 points). ).
Following Dixon’s Saturday victory at Road America and the Pagenaud 12thIn the final spot, the Penske driver was able to keep his second place in the championship, but the gap exploded, more than doubling (P2, -62 points). For Newgarden, whose Saturday was pear shaped, his career to 14th He came in with the loss of third position (P4, -71 points) when Colton Herta came in behind Pagenaud (P3, -67 points).
At the end of Sunday, when Dixon’s three-race winning streak ended, his 12thThe finish instead could have been used by the Penske tandem to undo some of its poor finishes. But since we have not yet established a constant threat to the Ganassi driver, his bad day at the races had little influence on the championship. Pagenaud fought once again, finishing just behind Dixon at 13thand, as a result, it has been demoted (P3, -63 points). Newgarden, who placed ninth on Sunday, fell even further (P5, -67 points).
Herta, the current IndyCar consistency master, is the only driver so far in 2020 to finish all four races within the top 10, and has been rewarded in qualifying (P2, -54 points). Sunday’s second man Pato O’Ward also received a boost in the standings, dividing Pagenaud and Newgarden (P4, -63 points).
In this prediction-defying season, who knows what Iowa will bring to the constantly rising and falling championship contenders behind Dixon and Herta?
Other thoughts:
How the hell have we already passed the 25 percent mark on the season? Engine maker IndyCar 2020’s war is a strange thing to behold. Chevy has four poles and zero wins. Honda has zero poles and four wins. It must be some kind of record. When was the last time Team Penske went through the first four races without a victory? Seven years ago, when it took Helio Castroneves until the eighth race of 2013 (in Texas) to find the way to victory for The Captain. And what about the other powerful team with no wins, Andretti Autosport? The last time he was blank in the first four races was … not too long ago. Takuma Sato produced the team’s first victory in Round 6 in 2017, in a small event known as the Indianapolis 500. Sato has yet to appear in one of the three races he has started, but the Japanese star has been very efficient since losing Texas with finishes. from 10thninth and eighth. If you continue to improve your results by one place in each race, put your money into No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda of Sato to win in Round 1 at Laguna Seca. The ambient temperature dropped from the steamy GMR Grand Prix at Indy, which helped reduce cabin temperatures to a place where they weren’t a problem. Some drivers made use of the new and second cooling duct on the side of the spray, but most were fine with one. The drivers most welcome note included relocating their drink systems to the inside of the kneeling chassis. With the drink bladder moving away from the radiators, hot liquids at Indy were replaced by cold drinks at Road America.
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