Will Both Races Look The Same?

With this year moving to a pair of 250-lap races, I wonder if both look similar this weekend.

“It doesn’t truly change much,” Will Power told me on Wednesday. “It probably changes strategy a bit. To me, it comes down to traffic position, running through that traffic well. Yeah, it’s more of — yeah. Getting through traffic. The higher the grip, the higher level of grip, the cooler it is, the harder it is to pass.”

Last year, you had a doubleheader, but each were different distances. That very much played a role in strategy and differing the two shows, so it wasn’t the same thing on two separate days.

Saturday’s race last year was 250 laps compared to 300 on Sunday. Did the 44 extra miles of racing on Sunday make it a different race than Saturday?

Last year, the top three drivers were the top three drivers on both days. In fact, the top 5 on both days had 3 of the same drivers represented in each box score. Can anyone improve from Day 1 to Day 2 now with both races being the same distance and in the same part of the day?

Scott McLaughlin went from 22nd to 3rd last year. Felix Rosenqvist went from 26th to 7th. Colton Herta from 24th to 12th.

On the flipside, most of the others had similar results within a position or two each day. How much can anyone gain between races?

I mean if you’re good you’re good and it’s hard to find improvement areas. If you’re bad there are glaring weaknesses. However, can you do enough on the car and inside of it to gain that much in a 24 hour span?

Penske went 1-2-5 after leading 248 of 250 laps. Can anyone truly catch them?

Which is why I wonder how different this one looks. We had just 1 caution for 14 laps on Saturday. With Penske sweeping the front row, you can’t just go on the same strategy to beat them. You must do something different which means a slew of cars likely trying for the 4 stop strategy vs. the safer 3 stopper.

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Newgarden Sweep?

The doubleheader format in general started in the series in 2013 and only two times has someone swept both races in the same weekend. Scott Dixon did it in Toronto in 2013 and Graham Rahal at Belle Isle in 2017.

Josef Newgarden had a great shot last year in leading 206 of 250 laps in his Saturday win and cruising to what was shaping up to being a easy win on Sunday. Until his suspension gave out on him while leading.

Newgarden had 1 more pit stop left and was dusting the field on Sunday. He led a race-high 148 laps. However, he failed to sweep the weekend.

2-for-18 now.

He has another chance on Sunday. Can he pull it off?

“We’ve got a great car,” said Newgarden. “We knew that right from the jump. It was just a matter of I felt like we could do more today. Even leaving now, we’ve got a lot of homework tonight to be even better. It was good, but it wasn’t quite good enough. It’s going to need to be better tomorrow is my feel.

“It’s definitely in the window, there’s no doubt. The tough thing about Iowa is the window is so tight here. You can have a stint where you’re really good and a stint where you all of a sudden lose a ton of potential and time on the average, and it’s really easy to bounce back and forth between perfect and way off perfect.

“I think the car’s in the window. We’ve just got to maybe clean some areas up. I’ve got to get some new tools in my toolkit, figure out how can I arm myself a little bit better for the way everything is flowing nowadays?

“Everyone is stronger. It looks like that. Everyone has more maneuverability. Everyone is getting coached by their spotters now on exactly how to race people hard. So it is a tougher game than I think it’s ever been around here.

“Our car is capable. We’ve just got to make sure we maximize it.

“I was hesitant yesterday to — I feel like everybody — when we walk in here, they just assume, oh, we’re going to be quick. It’s not the attitude that you can have. You just can’t feel like there’s anything given. I think we did a good job today recovering. I was really proud of the team.

“To feel disappointed with qualifying and then to just really improve the race car and do a great job today, I’m proud of that, but that doesn’t guarantee tomorrow either. I think Scott’s going to be really good. Pato, he’s going to come back better. I think Will’s going to be strong. You never know who else is going to improve overnight.

“I’m focused on being better tomorrow because I’m going to assume that everyone else is going to pick up their game.”

Newgarden is THE short oval king. He’s won 5 races here, 4-for-7 at World Wide Technology Raceway and also has a 2018 win at Phoenix as well. That’s 10 of his 28 wins (35.7%) on short ovals.

In fact, each of his last 5 race wins have come on ovals as has 7 of his last 9 wins (77.7%) in general. 14 of his 28 wins (50%) were on ovals.

Newgarden’s led 111 or more laps in 8 of his last 10 Iowa starts including five wins, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 10 tries.

This format started with three races (Belle Isle, Toronto, Houston) in 2013, fell to Belle Isle and Houston in 2014 and just Belle Isle as the standalone from 2015 through 2019. During the 2020 season, due to COVID, we had it in Texas, Road America, Iowa, World Wide Technology Raceway, Mid-Ohio and on the IMS road course. Last year it was back to Belle Isle again before moving to here this weekend.

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Can Pato O’Ward Beat The Penske’s?

Pato O’Ward won this race last year from the 7th starting spot. He starts 11th on Sunday. Coincidentally enough, the last time someone started 11th and won here was James Hinchcliffe in this No. 5 car back in 2018.

Granted, that was with Schmidt Peterson and with Honda not McLaren and Chevy, but you get the point.

Is this race his to lose? O’Ward started 5th and finished 3rd on Saturday. He was 5th in practice. Can he win from 11th?

The thing is, if he’s going to win, he’ll have to pass all 3 Penske’s in doing so as Penske swept the front row and Josef Newgarden starts 7th a day after leading 129 of 250 laps in the win.

“Just didn’t have anything for the Penskes,” O’Ward said. “We need to take a solid step forward if we want to make them sweat tomorrow.

“I just think they were specifically strong getting through traffic. I would just — I’d get stuck. I wasn’t able to place the car where I needed to in order to get by some slow cars.

“Obviously happy with it, but considering how much pace we had last year, it’s like where is it?”

O’Ward was 9.6 seconds behind Newgarden and 6.3 behind McLaughlin. Can he close that gap overnight?

“I have a very clear picture of what we need,” he says. “We’ve just got to get creative and see how we’re going to find that. Obviously we put our best foot forward coming into qualifying for the race, knowing what we’ve had here in the past, and we think this is going to be working for us.

“But we need to take another step if we want to challenge for the win tomorrow.”

Oddly enough, 3 of O’Ward’s 4 career trips to victory lane came on the 2nd day of a doubleheader weekend which makes him a strong favorite for Sunday.

O’Ward has been great in Gateway (3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th) and even better here: 4th, 12th, 2nd, 1st and 3rd. In his last 15 oval starts in general, he’s finished 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 15th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 24th and 3rd respectively.

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Can Sleepers Hold Hard Chargers Back?

Row 2 features David Malukas and Ed Carpenter. Row 3 is Colton Herta and Graham Rahal. Helio Castroneves starts eighth. Scott Dixon in 9th. How long can they hold off some faster cars?

We know what Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward can do. Marcus Ericsson has been fast on ovals the last two years and went from 10th to 5th on Saturday. Can those three get ahead of those sleepers in front?

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ECR/MSR

There’s no doubt that both Meyer Shank Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing are having a rough season. In fact, both teams have drivers racing for them this weekend that didn’t start with the team in St. Pete.

MSR sits 20-24 in points. ECR is 15-19.

However, both tested here in June and both look stout so far.

In Friday’s practice before the final caution to where a lot of cars put on fresh tires, MSR had both cars in the top 10 of the speed charts. They’d finish 9th (Conor Daly) and 13th (Helio Castroneves) with Daly’s top speed being 174.003 mph and Castroneves’ 173.083 mph.

This is the site of Daly’s only pole (2020) and Castroneves’ last win (2017). Daly also qualified third in both races here last year too and starts 15th on Sunday. Castroneves qualified 8th for Sunday’s race.

In saying that, MSR struggled here last year though.

Simon Pagenaud finished 23rd in both races after qualifying 21st and 16th respectively. Castroneves was 16th and 21st respectively after starting 25th and 24th himself.

Now, they have great pace.

Same for ECR.

Three-time Iowa race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay was eighth (174.204 mph) on the speed charts on Friday after being second in the test last month. Ed Carpenter was 11th for much of the session before finishing 16th. Rinus VeeKay was 21st.

They both dropped with other electing to go for fresh tires at the end.

“The practice results that you see are not indicative at all of who is fast in race trim because the practice results are based on a solo lap by themselves with no interference, no dirty air, and all that stuff,” said Hunter-Reay.

“What’s really going to pay this weekend is a car that is consistent over the long run that uses the Firestone tire in a balanced manner through the stint. We have no idea who that is yet.

“We do have a good idea based on history and based on who I ran around tonight. I think Josef and Pato were probably some of the best out there. That’s what’s most important.

“Really the practice session really doesn’t matter. Folks that know really what to look for, we’ll go back and look at average pace or average lap times over a stint of 20, 30 laps, and that will kind of tell a story.

“But, yeah, it wasn’t a bad day. I think we made some good changes. I’m cautiously optimistic on hopefully we can just make a consistent run to the first two stints. If we do that, I think we’ll be good.

“It was quite a bit different than the test, that’s for sure. Just started the session pretty loose and then just had to work on kind of getting that in check.

“I kind of made the decision let’s just bail on focusing on anything qualifying. Let’s just focus on the race car the whole time. It’s different phases of the tire through the life of the tire, and you kind of figure out what you can get away with and what you can’t. It’s tough.

“It’s amazing how much different this place is than it was back in my first run in 2012. Totally different race car, but it’s challenging.

“It’s tough to keep the tire under you. You have to be smart about it. It will be a tough one, but I think we made the right changes towards the end of the session in practice. We had a good direction at the end, which is important.”

Owner Ed Carpenter qualified fourth for Sunday’s race where VeeKay (14th) and Hunter-reay (25th) hae some work to do still.

Hunter-Reay has had his learning cap on for the last month. He knew when he signed up for this opportunity with Ed Carpenter Racing, that this was going to be a journey, not a sprint. This past May’s Indy 500 was his first NTT INDYCAR SERIES start since Sept. 2021. Granted that was with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, not ECR.

It was a few weeks later that he signed on with ECR to drive the No. 20 Dallara-Chevrolet for the remainder of the season.

If this car and this team were operating well on a consistent basis, then there’d be no need for Hunter-Reay in general. So, it’s not like he was coming into a race winning, or really even a top 10 contending situation.

With ECR backsliding, they needed Hunter-Reay’s guidance on helping them through this and getting them back towards the front half of the field on a regular basis. However, that takes time.

Road America was his first start with the team and also his first start on a natural road course since Sept. 2021. This was a true learning experience for that race weekend.

They then took what they learned from Road America and then to apply it over to Mid-Ohio. Those were at least similar tracks with a similar package. Last week was his first street course start since Aug. 2021 in Toronto. He did so with an ECR program that has largely struggled over the last few years too.

Now though, he’s at a place to where he’s expecting to lead the team to a potential season best result.

Hunter-Reay returns to Iowa Speedway this weekend as not only one of the most experienced drivers in the field, but one of the most accomplished. Hunter-Reay competed in every NTT INDYCAR SERIES race at the track from 2008-2020 for a total of 14 starts. Not only did he earn a podium finish five times in six years, he won three races in four years. In a recent test at Iowa Speedway that featured 20 cars, Hunter-Reay set the second-fastest lap of the day.

“Iowa Speedway has always been one of my favorite races on the schedule, I just love short track racing,” said the 18-time victor in the series. “We had a very productive test here a few weeks ago. With that said, this track is very challenging and can be extremely difficult to nail a balanced setup over a long run on tires. It seems its always changing year to year.”

Hunter-Reay, recognized as one of the most successful American open wheel racing drivers, has brought a wealth of knowledge to the team with an INDYCAR career that spans two decades. 

That’s paying dividends to teammate Rinus VeeKay who too should be strong this weekend.

VeeKay has competed in two doubleheader weekends at Iowa Speedway to date, 2020 and 2022. He narrowly missed out on a podium finish in Race 1 last year, crossing the finish line side-by-side with another driver and ultimately placing 4th.

Iowa Speedway is also the site of VeeKay’s very first oval track experience. In 2017, while competing in USF2000, he finished 2nd in his oval debut.

“Two races this weekend! That’s going to be very exciting,” he says. “I’ve done well at Iowa Speedway in the past and had a pretty nice race there last year, 4th place. We can do very well, this is one of those tracks that will provide a lot of opportunities for us. The Hy-Vee INDYCAR Race Weekend is always so fun with the concerts and everything else going on in addition to our races, it’s going to be a nice couple of days!”

VeeKay has spent his entire NTT INDYCAR SERIES career with Ed Carpenter Racing and is the team’s longest-tenured full-time driver, now in his fourth season behind the wheel the No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet. Earlier this year, the 22-year-old made his 50th career start and qualified on the front row of the Indianapolis 500 for the third consecutive time.