The lone international trip of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season has come and went. With seven races remaining in the 2023 season, here’s some quick thoughts that I have leaving the Honda Indy Toronto.

• Power’s Bad Luck – Will Power has had some bad luck lately. That’s never been more evident than running out of gas coming to the white flag on Sunday. A sure third place finish dropped him to 14th after having to hit pit road. Power pit with much of the others on Lap 49 and while most of them ran out of fuel after the checkered flag flew, Power did a lap shy. It ruined what could have been his third podium in the last four races too. He was runner-up in Detroit and third the last time out in Mid-Ohio. Another podium on a street course would have made him a huge threat for Nashville next month.
• Dixon Continues Strong Run, Palou Just Overshadowing Him – Scott Dixon has scored 9 top 10 finishes in 10 races run this season. In fact, all have been 7th or better. However, he’s 117 points behind in second. That just goes to show you how good of a season that Alex Palou is having. Dixon has finished 7th (Barber), 6th (GMR Grand Prix), 6th (Indy 500), 4th (Detroit), 4th (Road America), 2nd (Mid-Ohio) and now 4th again (Toronto) in the last seven races. Despite that run, Palou has finished 5th (Barber), 1st (GMR Grand Prix), 4th (Indy 500), 1st (Detroit), 1st (Road America), 1st (Mid-Ohio) and 2nd (Toronto) in that same span. He’s overshadowing a strong season out of Dixon.
• Rain Costs Andretti Potential Win – Heading into qualifying on Saturday, this was looking like Andretti’s pole and race win to lose. They were 1-2-4 in practice on Friday and 1-2-7 on Saturday morning. They were untouchable on both Firestone compounds. However, rain fell and ruined their advantage. They’d only qualify 8th (Kyle Kirkwood), 9th (Romain Grosjean), 14th (Colton Herta) and 22nd (Devlin DeFrancesco). That cost them strategy and finishes on Sunday in coming home 3rd (Herta), 15th (Kirkwood), 22nd (Grosjean) and 23rd (DeFrancesco). DeFrancesco had an electrical problem to DNF. Grosjean had his 5th crash in 10 races to finish 22nd. Kirkwood was on the right strategy before punting Helio Castroneves on Lap 45 and being penalized. Herta was the one who came through to finish 2nd. Kirkwood was 1st and 2nd in practice but that was a costly mistake in the race. Grosjean was 2nd and 7th and too had a bad mistake to put Andretti 0-for-10 on the season.
• Kirkwood/Grosjean An Expensive Combo – Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean were expected to flourish in 2023. However, they’ve been an expensive pairing. Kirkwood has crashed three times in race conditions (Long Beach, Texas, Indianapolis) and two more times in qualifying (St. Pete, Detroit). It’s costing him finishes. Even in Detroit when he was punted by Callum Ilott and had damage or pushed off the course on the opening lap in Road America, it’s been a tough sophomore season for the 24-year-old. That’s why on days like Sunday when he had a potential win, or even a podium, for him to make the mistake that he did was detrimental. He’s finished 12th or worse in 7 of the 10 races run. Similar for Grosjean. Sunday was his 5th DNF, all by crashes, in 10 races. All have been while he had a top 5 car. He was battling for the win with 29 to go in St. Pete. He was inside the top five with 2 to go in Texas. He qualified third and had a top five car but crashed and then with speed in Detroit, did so again.
• MSR’s Dreadful Season Continues – Tom Blomqvist was a casualty in the opening lap crash seeing him complete no laps and finished 25th in his debut. Helio Castroneves had a strong run going after a season-best qualifying effort of 13th. He was punted by Kyle Kirkwood on Lap 45 and dropped him to finishing 21st for a double DNF for the group. Castroneves has now finished 23rd, 10th, 21st, 21st, 22nd, 15th, 19th, 15th, 21st and 21st again for 60% of his races seeing him finish outside the top 20.
• Strong Weekend For RLL – Bobby Rahal admitted Indy’s struggles caused health concerns for him 11 months after having heart surgery. Then with them struggling in Detroit, he was questioning why he’s doing this. That’s why he was so emotional after seeing Christian Lundgaard score not only the pole on Saturday, but the win on Sunday too. It was showing that they’re on the right path. Road America saw Lundgaard start 7th and finish 5th. Graham Rahal came from 14th to finish 11th. In Mid-Ohio Lundgaard qualified 5th and finished 4th. Rahal started on the front row but bad pit stops dropped him to 7th. Then this weekend, Lundgaard led 54 of 85 laps for the win. Rahal came from a last place start to a top 10. While Jack Harvey crashed on the opening lap, it was a massive weekend for RLL.
• Honda Untouchable This Season – Honda has won 9 of the 10 poles and 7 of the 10 races including 4 straight. On street courses, they’ve won 6 in-a-row now too.
• Penske Just Not Last Year’s Penske – There was a chance for all 3 Penske’s to finish in the top 7 on Sunday, but instead, Will Power ran out of fuel and they’d finish 5-6-14. Penske has just lacked the pace that they had a year ago when they won 9 of 17 races and finished 1-2-4 in points. This year, they’ve scored just 2 wins in 10 starts, both on ovals. Luckily for them, they come to a doubleheader on an oval next weekend for which they’ve won 5 of the last 7.
  • Penske started off 3-for-3 with 3 different drivers on street courses in 2022, but have since gone 0-for-6. In just 2 of the last six, they had the second-place finisher.
  • They went 9-10-15 in Toronto and 2-6-11 in Nashville a year ago.
  • This year, they went 7-13-17 in St. Pete, 6-9-10 in Long Beach and 2-7-10 in Detroit previously.
  • That’s just two podiums in the last six tries after having three straight wins.
  • This weekend was uncharacteristically off from them in a sense of Power’s miss from a fuel save stand point, Newgarden overshooting his pit box and McLaughlins bad pit call.
• Big 4’s Streak Ends – Penske and Ganassi had won 8 of the 9 races this year entering Sunday’s race. Andretti won the other. When factoring in McLaren too, these four teams had won 37 straight races. Furthermore, in this Aeroscreen era (57 races), they’ve won 94.7% (54-for-57) of them.
  • The last non “Big 4” team to have won a race was Meyer Shank Racing in 2021. In fact, these teams didn’t win the Month of May at all with Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay winning the GMR Grand Prix and Helio Castroneves the Indy 500. The only other time they didn’t win was the 2020 Indy 500 with RLL and Takuma Sato. That’s it. Until Sunday when RLL won again.
  • Penske has won 22 times. Ganassi has won 21. Andretti has won 7 and McLaren 4. RLL now has 2 with ECR and MSR 1 each.
• Marcus Armstrong Thriving – In 8 races this season, he has 4 top 10 finishes including a season-best 7th place run in Toronto. Armstrong has been impressive with all but two finishes in the top 11 at that. In fact, if not for a questionable pit call in Road America, he had a top 5 going that day too.
• Rossi Sliding – Rossi entered Road America with four straight top eight finishes including results of 3rd, 5th and 5th consecutively. However, he’s since finished 10th, 10th and 16th respectively dropping him from 6th in points to 10th.