Alex Palou’s Points Lead

Alex Palou has been untouchable. The Spaniard is on a string of races to where he’s started 3rd, 1st, 1st and finished 1st, 4th, 1st. He’s led 162 of the 385 laps in the process.

He went from nine points down entering the Month of May to 51 points up heading to Road America.

“Honestly, there’s a lot of races to go,” Palou admitted. “We got the lead two races ago, now suddenly we have this amazing lead.

“On the same way that we go up, there’s somebody that can go up as well, and we can go down. That’s INDYCAR. That’s the high competition that we have here. There’s a lot. I think in 15 weeks we can have 10 race weekends. It’s going to be tough to keep the energy up for everybody. But having that lead, it’s going to help us. Hopefully we can keep it going and getting bigger.”

Josef Newgarden noted during the preseason test that his main goal this year outside of winning the Indy 500, which he did last Sunday, was to have the championship wrapped up early. He didn’t want to have to go into the season finale stressed like he has the last few years in which he’s finished runner-up in points in each of the last three years.

While he’s won twice in 2023, equaling Palou, he’s 70 points behind in third.

That’s how good Palou has been and it may be he, not Newgarden, having this thing wrapped up by September to score his second title in three years.

Palou is showing right now why Chip Ganassi fought so hard to keep him last season. It would have been just as easy for Ganassi to let Palou walk like most are expecting him to at the end of this season anyways. Why keep a dead-end driver one more season?

The last race in Detroit is why.

Palou led a race-high 74 of 100 laps from the pole en route to a dominating race on a dominating race weekend. It was his second straight pole after having 1 pole in his previous 52 starts and second win in the last three races.

“It feels amazing,” Palou said of this momentum.” You need to try to ride the wave while you have it. Yeah, happy that we have a wave and that we can ride it because we know the season is really long, you have some races that don’t go that well.”

So far, Palou hasn’t really had many races that didn’t go well.

He won by nearly 20-seconds in the GMR Grand Prix. He overcame Rinus VeeKay running into him on pit road last Sunday in Indy to finish fourth. Prior to May, he was eighth in St. Pete, third in Texas and fifth in Long Beach and Barber respectively.

He led 22 laps in Texas, two in Long Beach, 52 in the GMR Grand Prix, 36 in the Indy 500 and now 76 more.

This dominance has him opening up a 51-point lead in the standings. It was 20 entering this weekend. For a series that has seen the championship not decided until the final race for 18 straight years now, Palou is on a pace to maybe wrap this up early.

He’s 70 points clear of third, 82 points clear of fifth. When going back to last year, he won the season finale by a half-a-minute in leading 67 of 95 laps in the process. It was that weekend he and Ganassi patched things up and off he’s went since with an average finish of 3.5 over the last eight races. He’s led 255 laps in that span with three wins.

Prior to last year’s season finale, Palou had just two podiums in 12 starts. That’s because of his battle with Ganassi to leave and go to McLaren. His access was cutoff and it cost him results.

Still, while in that battle, he did have eight top 10’s. It’s just the fact that he had three podiums in the four races to start last season before these issues arose.

He’s by far the top driver in this paddock right now.

In Road America, he was third in 2020 and won in 2021. After that is to Mid-Ohio to where he’s finished third and second the last two years. Then it’s to Toronto to where he was sixth as a rookie there a year ago but has finished fifth and first respectively in his last two street races.

His lead could be approaching 100 heading to Iowa.

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Can Grosjean, O’Ward Rebound?

Coming into the Month of May, Pato O’Ward sat three points out of the lead while Romain Grosjean was 15. They also had combined to finish runner-up in each of the first five races to the season too.

Entering Road America now, O’Ward is 82 points back and Grosjean 128. Is this the place they can respond?

Both drivers have been making far too many mistakes to feel good about that outlook.

O’Ward came into the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season wanting more. He had been close over the last few years but hasn’t truly been good enough to knock off Penske and Ganassi from their throne on top of the series.

There’s a reason that Penske and Ganassi have won each of the last 10 series titles. If O’Ward and Arrow McLaren Racing was going to become the first team since 2013 to win a title not named Penske or Ganassi and the first team not named Andretti either since 2002, then they’d have to find more consistency.

The young Mexican start had two wins in each of the last two seasons. O’Ward also has had 9 podiums in that same two-year span (5 in 2021, 4 in 2022). Out of his 8 Top-5 finishes a year ago, only four of them landed on the podium.

That was the difference.

O’Ward’s had 13 starts of 7th or better (10 being 5th or better) over the course of the final 14 races in 2022. He only had 4 podiums to show for it.

That blueprint was there and the team worked so hard this offseason to fix it.

It all started off good for O’Ward this year too. While an engine malfunction while leading at the end of St. Pete happened, he still finished second. In the next race at Texas, second again. He was looking like a legitimate title contender.

Then came some mistakes. Over the next five races, including Sunday’s in Detroit, O’Ward has made some costly errors to which he will look back come seasons end and point to these moments to why he may not be in the position that he needs to be in to hoist the Astor Cup championship trophy in Laguna Seca this Fall.

O’Ward had a bad strategy call in the second round of qualifying in Long Beach. That took him from a potential pole to qualifying sixth. In the race, he tried to make up too much ground too often and it bit him. He’d finish 17th.

O’Ward rebounded in Barber to finish fourth and then another runner-up in May’s GMR Grand Prix. He was back in the hunt again.

Unfortunately, being overzealous on a late race restart in the Indy 500 took him from a top three to a crash in 24th and then compounding a bad pit stop to a mistake on track for another crash in Detroit left him in 26th.

While O’Ward was upset at Marcus Ericsson for his mistake at Indy, he should have been more patient in the process. Yes, O’Ward went from first to third on the opening lap of the restart, but it looked like he tried too hard to get a position back entering Turn 3.

In Detroit, he was on the right strategy as he was the same as his teammates to start the race and they were all in the top five after the first stint, but an issue on the stop left him a lap down. He was hoping to pass Santino Ferrucci on track to be the first a lap down and got in too hot into Turn 9 and found the concrete wall.

“Race went upside down on that pit stop,” O’Ward said. “It was all downhill from there.”

While you have to be aggressive in this series, O’Ward has found the limit and has unfortunately passed over it. He needs to reel it in a bit because he has a championship caliber car, but he’s getting in his own way.

It’s not too late, but he’s out of mulligans. Penske and Ganassi have won 6 of the 7 races this season and have 6 of the top 8 spots in the standings including 1-2-3-4. O’Ward has some work to do.

Similar circumstances for Grosjean.

So much speed. So much promise. So many mistakes.

A crash in the season opener in St. Pete while battling for the lead with 29 laps to go. A crash with two laps to go while running fourth in Texas. A crash in the Indy 500. A crash while running seventh in Detroit.

Those finishes?

18th, 14th, 30th, 24th.

In the races he’s not had problems?

2nd, 2nd, 11th.

Now it’s time for Road America.

Grosjean was runner-up on a like track in Barber. O’Ward finished fourth.

Grosjean is 2-for-2 in top five finishes at Road America.  O’Ward has 3 top 10’s in his last 5 starts here including a runner-up in the middle. He blew an engine last year.

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“Big 2” vs. Everyone Else

Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske have combined to have won each of the last four Road America races including 7 of the 8 since the 2016 return. They’ve also had the most podiums scored here with Penske having 9 and Ganassi 7 in that span as well.

Their dominance isn’t just dependent on this scenic Wisconsin road course either.

The two teams have combined to have won each of the last 10 series championships. They’ve also won 6 of the 7 races this year and 40 of the 54 (75.4%) of the races with the Aeroscreen. Furthermore, if you go back to the 2022 Indy 500, they’ve combined to have won 16 of the last 19 (84.2%) of the races.

Penske has won nine times in that span, Ganassi with seven. Andretti has won twice and McLaren once.

They also enter this weekend’s race having the entire top four of the points standings and 6 of the top 8 in general.

In a like track at Barber this past spring, two of the three podium spots went to Penske. In last month’s GMR Grand Prix, two of the three podium spots this time went to McLaren. Ganassi took the other in Indy.

In the last two races in general on the season, Penske and Ganassi went 1-2.

Penske won last year’s race and should have won the year before as well. Can they pick up their fourth win in the last nine races here?

Josef Newgarden should have won in 2021 by leading 32 laps from the pole. His car quit on him on the final restart. Newgarden got redemption in leading 26 laps and taking the win. He also led 53 of 55 laps in his 2018 win too. The Team Penske driver was third in 2019 and runner-up in 2017 as well.

Scott McLaughlin went from 14th in 2021 to 7th last year.. to…1st on Sunday? McLaughlin has 4 career INDYCAR wins and 3 of them have come on natural road courses including this spring at Barber. Trends are on his side for a win this weekend.

Will Power has had three top two finishes in 8 tries and a podium in four of them at that. He was third at Barber this past April and third here in 2021 as well to give him three podiums in his last five starts on this scenic Wisconsin road course.

Can they snag a win and head to Mid-Ohio, a place they won at last year, as the favorites again?

What about Ganassi?

Scott Dixon has 5 top fives including two wins and a third-place effort in his last 7 tries makes him among the favorites in my opinion. He was ninth a year ago and 7th and sixth respectively on natural road courses in 2023.

Alex Palou was third and seventh on this track in 2020 with Coyne and won in 2021. Palou qualified third a year ago but crashed and finished last early on in the race. He was fifth and first respectively on natural road courses this season and coming off of a string with 2 wins in the last 3 races including two consecutive poles.

Marcus Ericsson was 10th in Race 1 and fourth in Race 2 in 2020. He was also sixth and second respectively the last two years as well. Ericsson finished 10th and 8th respectively on natural road courses this season too. So not spectacular, but not bad either, but good enough to be around.

Marcus Armstrong has been a top 11 driver every time he’s raced. In a Ganassi car on a drivers track, watch out.

That’s seven drivers right there.

However, does a sleeper team triumph on Sunday?

McLaren Racing

While they only have one podium here since 2016, this weekend could be the one that they snag at least another. They took 2 of the 3 podium spots in the GMR Grand Prix and had all three cars in the top five that day. They went 4-8-9 in Barber too.

Pato O’Ward has 3 top 10’s in his last 5 starts here including a runner-up in the middle. He blew an engine last year. He was fourth in Barber.

Alexander Rossi won this race in 2019 and was third in two of his last three starts here including last season. The only other finishes in that span was 19th in Race 1 of 2020 and seventh in 2021.

Felix Rosenqvist won in 2020 and sixth in 2019. Last year, he started seventh and finished sixth. At Barber, he went from the top 10 at the start, to last after a spin, back to the top 10 in the end.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

They’ve long been good here but just haven’t won.

Graham Rahal has seven Road America finishes – third, eighth, sixth, fourth, seventh, 11th and eighth respectively. This could be his weekend.

Christian Lundgaard was 10th a year ago and not only made the Fast Six in Barber, but finished there (6th) as well. Jack Harvey qualified in the top three in two of his last four starts on this track and was 13th here a year ago too.

They were so strong in the GMR Grand Prix but have since lost all that momentum. Can they pick it back up in Road America?

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Repave

The ribbon was cut last Fall as America’s National Park of Speed commemorated the completion of the long-anticipated replacement project of the racing surface that had not been overhauled since 1995. Milling and grinding the entire 4.048-mile racetrack, including the pit lane, began on October 3. Fine grading, a new base layer, and a new final surface asphalt layer followed in late October.

After the track cured, it’s now time for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES to race on the new racing surface this weekend.

The big news is that aside from the opportunity to make minor adjustments, the original configuration of the entire racetrack remained the same.  Advanced Materials Services consultants, Walbec Group engineers, and their Northeast Asphalt team were mindful of the tracks’ history and authentic character. Before milling off the old surface, the entire racecourse was surveyed to allow the engineers and Road America to review the track’s unique characteristics and make decisions that guided the grade control process during each step of the repaving process. Over 7,000-grade control points were set to direct the grading and paving process to ensure that the track width, camber angles, and curbing locations were accurate within a tenth of an inch.

“Our goal was to put the track back exactly as we found it to maintain its distinct features and preserve the track’s significance in the racing world,” said Craig Donze, Engineering Manager for the Walbec Group. “High-quality aggregates were locally sourced from Wisconsin, and the team used a highly polymerized asphalt mix to maximize durability. Multiple tests were performed throughout the project to ensure the surface would handle the weather and racing stresses. Teamwork from initial planning through construction resulted in a racing surface that will provide competitors and racing fans enjoyment for years to come.”

Engineers and Road America worked collaboratively throughout the project to improve drainage around the property and upgrade features that cross beneath the racing surface before paving. This included increasing the size of culverts and running new conduits under the track to support the facility’s events. Over 800 truckloads were removed during milling, with nearly the same number of trucks bringing in the new asphalt racing surface for paving. During the project, two paving machines ran in an echelon (side-by-side) pattern to minimize the center seam visibility and maintain a consistent density. 

“This was a massive endeavor, and we are extremely excited to have a new racetrack for competitors and fans to enjoy,” said Mike Kertscher, Road America’s President and General Manager. “The goal was to keep it the same as our founder Clif Tufte envisioned, and we’re certain we met that goal. We look forward to the future with this all-new track and pit lane, and we encourage everyone to get their season passes, tickets, and camping for what we anticipate will be an incredible season in 2023.”

Now we’ll see. With a new surface adds more grip and with that, means maybe some more aggressive setups. As a result, I expect the track record of 1:41 to fall as lap times were nearly a second faster in this month’s test.

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Ryan Hunter-Reay, ECR Team Dynamic

Ryan Hunter-Reay is back and will drive the No. 20 Dallara-Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing for the rest of the 2023 season.

Hunter-Reay was brought in as a favor for his good friend Ed Carpenter last week and to do a simple task – evaluate the team and to help make them better. It’s as easy as that. However, that’s also a feat that he acknowledges is way easier said than done as well.

“Ed (Carpenter) is a good friend of mine. He called me. I was surprised when it happened,” said Hunter-Reay. “He called me and said, I need your help. Would you be willing to do this? This is the situation that we’re in.

“I had driven for Vision, right, in ’09. Ed was my teammate. I had tested with the team in 2013. I tested with the team in 2021.

“So this is over a decade-long relationship and friendship that kind of got us to where we are at this point.”

If the team were already firing on all cylinders, then he’d not have unexpectedly been asked to be in this position that he’s currently now in. The team feared that if they were going to be better in 2024 than 2023, then something drastic had to be done. Conor Daly sat 20th in points at the time of his mutual dismal. His teammate, Rinus VeeKay, sat 15th.

“We need to improve our competitiveness and I wanted to add a fresh perspective from a driver like Ryan (Hunter-Reay) who has a massive amount of experience and success as well as a reputation as a team leader,” stated team owner, Ed Carpenter.

Hunter-Reay mentioned that this is a unique scenario that he’s facing but something that he’s done before. He’s been on both sides of the equation and has respect for both sides in the process.

“Right now honestly it’s race by race. We’ll see where it goes,” he says.

Hunter-Reay notes that while VeeKay and Daly are both great drivers, sometimes a team, especially in a series as competitive as INDYCAR, you just need to mix things up a little bit, look at things in new ways, and it’s just the way the business rolls.

“I’m not really sure where it’s going yet, and I’m not really looking that far ahead right now,” he continued. “I am totally focused on getting to Road America, doing the best job I can for that group of people at Ed Carpenter Racing who I have a great relationship with, and that’s really where it is.

“We’ll see where it goes. And yeah, it’s a lot of pressure on me, honestly, but at the same time, when I look at this pragmatically, I look at it from a realist point of view. There’s not silver bullet here. This is a matter of us looking at how we can approach things differently. How do you approach a qualifying session differently, a race weekend differently?

“How can we tweak some things? Maybe some of the things I used to do in the past weren’t right. Maybe some of the things they’re doing now aren’t right. Maybe we could come together and maybe take a path that way.”

This one, in this situation, is as difficult as the others before because of the nature of how things stand.

“Obviously this is a tough situation,” said Hunter-Reay. “A lot has happened in a short amount of time. There’s just a whole lot to take in. It’s so multifaceted. There’s so many variables here at play.

“Bottom line is tough situation, especially mid-season. We’re just plugging away hour by hour here, day by day, and looking forward to the weekend ahead.”

Daly said before being let go that the biggest issue with the team at that point of the season was mechanical grip and that’s the department to where they were lacking the most.

So, for Hunter-Reay, how do you balance coming in and fixing a problem in a series that’s defined as arguably the most challenging and closest series from top-to-bottom to compete in?

He surely knows what he likes in a car, but how much do you implement what he likes in a car versus on what the team already had on it? Wouldn’t it be better to take what the 20 car had and insert Hunter-Reay and get his feel for what is wrong with it?

Maybe it’s not the team, maybe it was the driver. Or, maybe it’s not the driver, it’s the team. Shouldn’t you know that first?

“Well, a team, right, everybody says racing doesn’t get the rap for being a team sport as much as it should because it is — it’s a lot of different personalities in one area that need to come together and put forth a competitively strong effort when you’re going up against all these other teams,” he told me.

“Each situation is so unique. I can’t say what I can bring into a situation. It depends on what and how they go about — which I’m still going to learn, how they go about it on race weekend. How the team goes about what their test plan is, what the menu is for each different change, each different request from the driver, and what that data analysis looks like between sessions and kind of how we approach a qualifying session and all this.

“I am coming in and I am working with — really even though I know a lot of people there, it’s a new grouping. It’s a new situation. I also have to blend into that. I have to gel with that.

“Then from there, I’ll find my place and what I can bring to the table or what I think may be a potential improvement that we can try and work on.

“Yeah, a lot of TBDs right now, just a whole lot of them. I wish I could expand more on it, but one thing on my side, I think I have a lot of experience with some really great race teams, whether they be in INDYCAR. My career has been a journey. I’ve driven for the greats, I’ve driven for Rahal, Foyt. I’ve driven for Andretti. I’ve driven for Ganassi.

“I have a lot of experience and a lot of different race teams and how they go about their business.”

What’s also odd is the fact that Daly has placed higher than VeeKay in 4 of the 7 races (St. Pete, Long Beach, Indianapolis 500, Detroit). VeeKay has qualified better than Daly in 6 of the 7 though, but Sunday’s pay points and money and Daly has been ahead more times than not in 2023.

Daly felt on Media Day for the Indianapolis 500 a few weeks ago, that the gap between he and his teammate wasn’t all that far off.

“I mean, honestly, you don’t forget how to drive,” Daly said then. “I think Rinus (VeeKay) didn’t forget how to drive. He’s still race winner and pole sitter. He’s very, very talented at what he does and he’s struggled you know, just as much as we have. He’s done a little bit better in a couple places, but we’ve also had things you know, go very wrong and a couple different races this year.

“So I don’t think it’s, you know, if I was very, very much on an island and Rinus was in the top 10 in the championship, I’d be very upset with myself. It’s been a very difficult situation.”

So where do you start?

This seems like an all-around reset and the team is looking for Hunter-Reay’s guidance.

The thing is, Hunter-Reay hasn’t raced a Chevrolet powered car on a track that turns left-and-right since 2013 in Houston (Oct. 6, 2013). That was a street circuit. The last natural road course event was in Sonoma (Aug. 25, 2013).

That’s a long way ago. These cars have changed a lot since then. While he raced a Chevy for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing in this past year’s Indy 500, that’s on an oval. How much has he learned setup wise over the years can he bring over to ECR, but how much of that data works being that most of it was from a Honda setup?

“Yeah, so since the last time I tested in a Chevy, turning right at Barber October of 2021. You know, that was when — my engineer for many years, Ray Gosselin, engineer for 12 years at Andretti, he was going to Chevy,” he said to me on the subject.

“I was able to work on some drivability things with them, and since then it’s been completely reworked on the drivability side. Basically you’re most sensitive to it as a driver like, right, tip in right when you get into throttle, getting through the middle of the corner, because you are trying to maximize the corner. Obviously all these things happen very fast.

“But that transition period from 0 percent throttle to, let’s say 20 to 25 percent throttle, that is a very key area in where and how you put the power down and manage that power. Each driver wants something different.

“Things have changed, so that will be another thing I’m going to have to adapt to. At Indy you’re really not looking for those drivability characteristics that you would be on a road course. You’re in a completely different road range.

“So that’s something that will be another one of those items on the list that I’ll be trying to work through in a very short amount of time.”

One thing Hunter-Reay can lean on is the fact that in the first two years of the current car, the DW12, he ran with Andretti Autosport and Chevy. He even won a title with the bowtie camp. Then, between 2013 and 2014, Andretti swapped from Chevy to Honda. So he’s had a change between camps before, albeit nine years ago, but he’s done it.

Also, Hunter-Reay did test an ECR car at the Barber Motorsports Park in October 2021, where he made an immediate impact. They took those notes and when they came back the following spring, Rinus VeeKay won the pole.

Another aspect working for them is the fact that how the schedule lines up for them. Up now is Road America, a place Hunter-Reay has had past success at. After that is Mid-Ohio, another strong track for the American. To make matters even better, they’re both the same discipline of tracks. It’s not like they’re going from a natural road course to a short oval, to a street course and so forth. It’s two of the same tracks with the same philosophy at both and a week off between them.

If you’re going to make this change, like they did, Hunter-Reay is the right man to lead the charge. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based driver is an NTT INDYCAR SERIES Champion (2012) with 18 career wins, including a victory in the 2014 Indianapolis 500. Hunter-Reay also has multiple overall IMSA sportscar wins, the 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans among them, has been invited to the Race of Champions five times and has won two ESPY ‘Driver of the Year’ awards (2013 and 2014).

Most recently, he competed in the 2023 Indianapolis 500 with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, leading eight laps in the closing stages of the race and ultimately finishing 11th with a bad handling race car.

So, time will tell here what happens next. If the results don’t really change much, then we know it wasn’t all Daly. If the results do change but it comes from Hunter-Reay giving feedback on just how far off this car was, it further helps Daly’s case too.

That’s why I’m wondering what Hunter-Reay does.