Hat Tricks and Points Leads

There’s a rare feat coming on Sunday with both the INDY NXT race on Sunday morning and the NTT INDYCAR SERIES race afterwards. Both Nolan Siegel (INDY NXT) and Alex Palou (INDYCAR) have won each of the last two races in their respective series. Can they score hat tricks this weekend?

Siegel just graduated high school a few weeks ago and since, the 18-year old won the second leg of the doubleheader in Detroit last month, he followed that up with a big win the last time out in Road America and is now looking for his third straight win on the season this Sunday in Mid-Ohio (11:30 a.m. ET, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network).

As a result of two straight wins, he’s opened up a 40-point lead in the championship standings after entering the last race two points behind.

In six starts this year, he has a top two in three of them.

The thing is, Siegel has made six USF2000 starts (16th, 17th, 3rd, 9th, 5th, 6th) at Mid-Ohio and two in the Indy Pro 2000 Series (3rd, 7th). He’s not had great results in those races.

The two guys chasing him, Christian Rasmussen and Hunter McElrea have.

Rasmussen has won here in every step. He won in 2019 in USF2000 in a weekend he finished 1st and 2nd respectively. He won four of the six visits in 2020 with finishes of 1st, 1st, 1st in one race weekend and 14th, 20th, 1st in the other.

In four Indy Pro 2000 starts here in 2021, he was 1st, 5th, 1st and 3rd.

That’s 13 Mid-Ohio starts with 7 wins.

McElrea won just last year. He’s coming off of a race to where he charged from 13th to finish third in Road America as he now has three top four finishes in his No. 27 entry in the last four races run.

Andretti has won 9 of the last 10 here. They went 1-2-4-5 in this very race last season.

For Palou, his dominance has opened up a 74-point lead on Marcus Ericsson, 81 on Josef Newgarden and 98 each on Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden.

The Spaniard is on a string of races to where he’s started 3rd, 1st, 1st and 3rd and finished 1st, 4th, 1st and 1st. He’s led 172 of the 440 laps in the process.

He went from nine points down entering the Month of May to 74 points up leaving Road America.

“I would say it’s getting bigger,” Palou said of this momentum.

Right now, he’s been untouchable. In fact, his points lead could grow even wider leaving Mid-Ohio on Sunday with Palou finishing third and second respectively the last two years here. On natural road courses, he’s won 6 of his 7 career races on.

In saying that, he’s also not looking at or approaching Sunday’s race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course any differently as the eight races prior or the immediate races after.

“If it was another series, maybe yeah, you could try and just finish where you need to finish. In INDYCAR you really can’t,” he notes.

He said that he did points race at the end of the 2021 season, but that was due to trying to secure his championship. He drove under the limit in doing so. This time, it’s far too early to be doing that and he feels like he should try and score more points to get an even bigger gap.

He tells me that he feels like there’s still some areas that he needs to improve upon and what gives him confidence is the fact that he doesn’t feel like they’ve done anything differently on his car now than they did this past spring. His recent success if a byproduct of them having luck on their side and others having misfortunes on theirs.

“At the same time I just think that everything is working really good for us now,” he continued. “I feel like we were as strong as we are now at the beginning of the season, but we had some ups and downs during the races. Long Beach was a clear example where we were running in the top four, got caught up on an accident, dropped back to 15th and still finished P5.

“Our performance is there. It’s just we’re able to get the results and get clean weekends, which is not real easy to do very often in INDYCAR.

“I feel like we have momentum. Momentum in motorsports matters a lot for driver confidence, team confidence, mechanic confidence. Everybody want to get the win, just like you are asking for more and more. It just gets better and better.

“Hopefully we can, as I said, keep the wave big or even bigger. Hopefully we can continue having some success.”

Can anyone stop him this weekend?

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Penske vs. Ganassi

This season has come down to another Penske vs. Ganassi show. They’ve won 7 of the 8 races run including five straight. Among the last three, they’ve gone 1-2 in each. They’re become untouchable and I say they’ll be so again this weekendd

Since 2020 which was the debut of the Aeroscreen, both Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have each scored 9 wins on these types of tracks. Andretti Autosport has won the third most times (4) in this span (Aeroscreen era).

Only the McLaren win last year at Barber by Pato O’Ward and Ed Carpenter Racing on the Indy Road Course (2021) are the only other teams to have won on a natural road course during the Aeroscreen era.

They’re also dominating the podiums too. Between Penske (22), Ganassi (20) and Andretti (17), they’ve combined to have taken 59 of the 72 podiums chances (81.9%) in this span. Arrow McLaren Racing (5) and Dale Coyne Racing (4) are next best followed by ECR (3) and RLL (2).

7 of the last 8 Mid-Ohio races have seen teammates on the podium.

2022: Penske-Ganassi-Penske

2021: Penske-Ganassi-Ganassi

2020 Race 1: Penske-Penske-Andretti

2020 Race 2: Andretti-Andretti-Andretti

2019: Ganassi-Ganassi-Andretti

2018: Andretti-SPM-Penske *

2017: Penske-Penske-RLL

2016: Penske-Penske-Andretti

That’s among the last 24 Mid-Ohio podiums, Penske has 11 of them (45.8%), Andretti with 7 (29.1%) and Ganassi 4 (16.6%). Between this trio, that’s 22 of the last 24 (91.6%).

This season, the podiums have gone:

Barber: Penske-Andretti-Penske

IMS: Ganassi-McLaren-McLaren

Road America: Ganassi-Penske-McLaren

Penske and Ganassi have swept the podium here in each of the last two years and have won the race in six of the last eight years overall.

Which bodes the question, who can break this party up?

One could wonder if anyone can realistically break them up this weekend or are they fighting for a top five instead of a race win/podium?

If anyone can, Andretti Autosport comes to mind as the top team to do so. But, they also self destructed here just one year ago too. They have dominated here in the past, so can they do so again?

McLaren also comes to mind.

They had 2 of their three cars on the Indy road course podium, another in Road America and Pato O’Ward scored the pole here just last year. His teammate Felix Rosenqvist was a close second here in 2019 and won in 2020 at Road America. Alexander Rossi has six top six finishes in his last seven tries on the track including three podiums in his last six overall there. In qualifying here, he’s made the Fast 6 in 4 of the last 7 tries. He’s finished eighth, third and respectively on natural road courses in 2023.

Rinus VeeKay scored a pair of top 11 results at the track in 2020 and was 16th in 2021. He rebounded to finish fourth a year ago. Can he get back into the thick of things with a win on Sunday? In USF2000 competition there, he was third and second respectively. He swept the weekend a year later in Indy Pro 2000 while scoring a pair of thirds a year after that in Indy Lights. He’s not made the Fast 6 yet here in INDYCAR but did at least make it out of the 1st round (9th, 11th, 11th, 11th) in 4 tries though too.

Then you have the two Ohio based teams.

RLL has Graham Rahal who has nine top 10 finishes in his last 10 “home race” starts including seven of them being in the top six. He scored a pair of fourth place results in September 2020 on his home track and was sixth and 12th respectively the last two July’s. He’s only made the Fast 6 just 3 times in the last 12 tries at his home track though but 7x since 2014 he’s at least made it out of the 1st round in quals too.

Christian Lundgaard was in the Fast Six and finished there in Barber. He won the pole and finished fourth in Indy, started and finished sixth at Barber and started seventh and finished there in Road America. He finished 11th here a year ago.

Jack Harvey now with the hometown team at RLL, has two top 10 finishes in his last five Mid-Ohio starts and hungry for a win. He also swept the weekend in Mid-Ohio in Indy Lights competition in 2014 too. His detriment is he’s only qualified 20th, 9th, 5th, 19th, 23rd and 24th respectively.

Meyer Shank Racing had duel top 10 finishes last year and has Simon Pagenaud who’s always a threat there. At one point, this was his playground. Pagenaud had five top four finishes in a six races span including 10 straight top 10’s before his 14th place run in 2021. He was back in the top 10 (10th) a year ago. Now, he’s in another home team at MSR who consistently put out good cars for Jack Harvey here.

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Scott Dixon Time?

Scott Dixon is hopeful to score his record tying seventh NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship. If he’s going to do so though, he’s going to have to rattle off a bunch of wins in a short amount of time. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver currently sits -98 in points back in fifth.

However, if anyone can close that gap, it’s Dixon.

The thing is, he’s going to have to capitalize now and by now, starting in Mid-Ohio.

He’s won an astounding six times on this track. He also has 16 top 10 finishes in his last 17 starts here.

After Mid-Ohio is Toronto. Dixon has won 4 times there too including just last year for which the Exhibition Place circuit is somewhere that he currently has a streak of three consecutive top two finishes at.

Then, it’s a doubleheader at the Iowa Speedway which is a place that he’s never won at (0-for-17), but he’s also had five straight top five finishes there too including a pair of runner-ups at that.

Nashville is up next and his two finishes there are second and first respectively. That gets you to the final month of the season with Indy road Course, Gateway, Portland and Laguna Seca left.

That’s why it all starts at Mid-Ohio. While he’s been so dominant here, it’s also a place that he’s had just 1 podium in his last 9 tries on this track. He also has only 1 podium finish on the year too. Dixon has also finished 7th, 6th and 4th respectively on natural road courses in 2023.

That’s not going to cut it and he knows that. When you’re trying to catch Alex Palou who’s had 3 wins in 4 races and six straight top fives, to go along with two straight podiums here, he has to make a run on Sunday at the win.

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Sophomore Drivers

Last year, rookie drivers David Malukas (8th), Kyle Kirkwood (9th) and Callum Ilott (10th) all started up front. Now that they’ve raced here, what can they do in their second NTT INDYCAR SERIES go around?

Malukas finished ninth a year ago and needs some good fortunes this weekend. They were fast in practice at Road America, but had an issue in qualifying which kept them out of advancing past the first round. He started 13th. However, they’ve since learned what they did wrong. Can he challenge for a podium on Sunday?

In the Road to Indy, Kirkwood won all three times in USF2000 competition in 2018, won both times in Indy Pro 2000 in 2019 and won three of his four Indy Lights starts here in 2021 including a fifth place finish at the end.

That’s 8 wins in 9 tries.

Ilott is always strong on these tracks while Christian Lundgaard is too.

Lundgaard was in the Fast Six and finished there in Barber. He started seventh and finished there in Road America. He won the pole and finished fourth in Indy. He finished 11th here a year ago.

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Ratings

The NTT INDYCAR Series didn’t use to race much on holiday weekend’s outside of Memorial Day. It never truly worked out well for them. There was just too much going on and for a fan base that if we’re completely honest, wasn’t very large until recently, the attendance and ratings were always taking a dip in the summer holidays.

Between family gatherings, vacations, cookouts, other sporting events, etc, hosting an INDYCAR race during the Fourth of July or even Labor Day weekend was one that would usually would flop.

But, in the last few years, that’s since changed. INDYCAR raced on the Fourth of July in 2020 on the Indianapolis road course. It was behind closed doors but it was the first time that it felt right. The last two years, they ran in front of a large crowd in Mid-Ohio in both races.

Now, they’re back. If this works again, I can see Mid-Ohio becoming that new Fourth of July staple on the schedule. It’s a prime slot that could honestly succeed.

However, attendance is one thing, ratings are another.

The Fourth of July weekend is a tough slot for anything. There’s just far too much going on between vacations, cookouts, etc.

The NASCAR Cup Series last year drew a 1.15 rating with 1.930 million viewers for their race at Road America. INDYCAR drew a .57 rating with 643k viewers for the race at Mid-Ohio. F1 unfortunately out drew INDYCAR which was an early morning race in England.

Race day in 2021 at Mid-Ohio was July 4. That race drew 1.303 million people.

A drop to 643k wasn’t ideal, especially being on the same network as it was the year prior.

It’s also why the race got bumped from NBC to USA this year which unfortunately, could see another dramatic decrease in viewership this year. Last year, INDYCAR didn’t even get over 400k for their race at Belle Isle which was a week after the Indy 500. NASCAR on USA last year didn’t even get to 2-million viewers on this race weekend.

What’s going to happen to INDYCAR’s race on USA midday on Sunday? Does another year of bad viewership force this weekend to become an off weekend for INDYCAR again?

They’ve tried to make this weekend work before. Watkins Glen tried it on Fourth of July weekend between 2007 and 2010. It never really worked. In fact, it was the nail in the coffin as the final race was only July 4, 2010 before taking a five year break. When they came back, it was in September. That was a 2 year Labor Day weekend deal that never really worked either.

Maybe the holiday weekends were a fit for Watkins Glen. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a hit for INDYCAR at the time so they’ve typically skipped racing on them.

In order to make a holiday weekend race work, you need a prime location and a marquee event. It’s why the Firecracker 400 in Daytona had always worked. It’s why the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend always works. It’s why the Southern 500 is the only thing that works for NASCAR on Labor Day weekend. They found that out the hard way by trying Fontana and Atlanta in that place.

INDYCAR needs that right fit for the Fourth of July to make it work. Attendance is great at Mid-Ohio, but ratings are where the money is.

What happens if you make this race unique and race it on the Fourth of July no matter what day it falls to counter? The ratings were solid in 2021 when it was on the 4th and attendance was equally as good.

Daytona used to always be at 10 am or even 11 am on July 4th no matter the day of the week. If the Fourth of July was a Tuesday, then the Firecracker 400 was run on a Tuesday. Can INDYCAR do something of this nature?

It would separate itself from any other racing series. Hell, there’s absolutely nothing on TV during this holiday. Nothing. Unless you want to watch a hot dog eating contest, Friends re runs or superhero movies, there’s nothing to watch.

So, why not try an INDYCAR race at Noon. Hit the early window. Leave the race at Mid-Ohio because it’s close enough to this fan base to where they can still drive home and be home in time for a cookout/fireworks and take hold of the date itself and not just the weekend.

INDYCAR is to a point they have to think outside the box now. They’ve brought the series back from the dead. It’s revitalized now. However, they’re stalling out. This idea could help bring a spark back and continue the push forward.

Again, big ratings equal big TV paychecks.