TRACK HISTORY/TRENDS
This will mark the 15th race on the IMS road course if you factor in all 10 GMR Grand Prix races as well as the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader and the now three NASCAR-INDYCAR shared weekend’s in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Oddly enough, we’ve seen a lot of parity here for this road course event. Simon Pagenaud started it in May 2019. Scott Dixon won in July 2020. Josef Newgarden won in October 2020 in Race 1 of the doubleheader weekend while Will Power won the 2nd leg of it. Rinus VeeKay won in May 2021 while Power won again in August of that year. Then, in May 2022, it was Colton Herta’s turn and his teammate, Alexander Rossi, winning the return trip last July. This May, it was Alex Palou.
That’s 8 drivers in an 9-race span to win here on the 2.439-mile road course layout. Will we get a 9th on Saturday?
TRACK COMPARISONS/WHO’S BEEN GOOD ON THEM
Team Penske has the most Indy road course wins (8) as well. However, they’re also 1-for-5 over the last two years here and haven’t won the May particular event since 2019. At that time, this was their 5th straight win in the race. They’re 0-for-4 since.
Does that make the Andretti Autosport camp among the favorites then? They started 0-for-11 here, before sweeping both events a year ago.
For Indy in particular, Penske has the most podiums scored here with 14. They had 8 in the pre Aeroscreen era and 6 since (2020 and beyond). Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing have actually swapped roles in dominance here though and could soon be swapping again.
From 2014 through 2019, Ganassi had 3 podiums on the road course compared to Andretti’s two. Since the Aeroscreen came on the cars, Andretti has since netted 6 podiums (8 races), tied with Penske for most in this span, in comparison to Ganassi’s three in the same 8 races.
RLL has 3 podiums here as fourth best while McLaren just scored two podiums in May.
Podium Finishes on IMS Road Course (42 spots)
Penske 14
Andretti 8
Ganassi 6
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 3
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 3
Arrow McLaren Racing 2
Meyer Shank Racing 2
Ed Carpenter Racing 2
Dale Coyne Racing 2
Overall, Ganassi though has the most wins in the Aeroscreen era on natural road courses with 10. They’re 3-for-4 this year too including on this very track this past May. Penske is next best with 9 while Andretti (4), Arrow McLaren Racing (1) and Ed Carpenter Racing (1) have won the other.
In regards to podiums, Penske has produced 22, Ganassi 21 and Andretti 17. Those are the only three in double digits. McLaren (5), Dale Coyne Racing (4), ECR (3), RLL (2) and MSR (1) are the only other ones.
Strategy
The INDYCAR race on the IMS road course is honestly a big strategy play. The 2022 race in May was purely a display of strategy among wet tires and slicks. That was an anomaly in a sense that was the first pure rain race here. The others are down to tire choice and when to use them on stints.
If you can make it past the opening lap, the cautions usually are few and far between (12 of last 13 races here have seen 2 or fewer) and the tire strategy in turn becomes the main focus.
Then there’s the tire strategy. The disparity between the two tire compounds is typically large meaning the blacks are slower initially but remain consistent over the course of a full fuel run while the reds have a great burst of initial speed but fall off more of the same period.
In Indy however, the reds didn’t typically fall off as much. So, the strategy was on which stints do you run the reds vs. the blacks.
This past May however, it swapped.
At that time when eventual race winner, Alex Palou, strapped into his No. 10 Dallara-Honda for the morning warmup practice session on race day, the race plan was already tentatively in place. They were just going to use this 30-minute session to confirm it.
However, what they quickly learned swayed them another direction.
“Well, we were going to do a bigger gamble before warmup, which was starting on used reds,” Palou said.
That session showed he and his team that reds were going to react a lot differently this year compared to the past. See, in most years, the reds had minimal fall off. They were the preferred tires. This year, they weren’t.
So, they decided to start on fresh reds and then go blacks the rest of the way. They were the only ones up front that decided to start on the alternates. That confused them. Among the top seven starters, they all went with the primary tire option. Palou didn’t.
“We knew that since practice, honestly, that we wanted to start on reds. I was surprised that not other people at the front started on reds,” he admitted.
“For us it was clear. We were struggling a little bit more than some of the guys on used reds in the warmup. But still it’s not like they were amazing. We knew that we didn’t want to use used reds. That’s why we started on new alternates, try to get the lead, try to get a big gap, like two, three, four, seconds, then work on our pace on blacks.
“Once I saw the starting grid with the tires, we were like, Okay, we’re in a good place. Still, you have to do it. We knew we were on the right strategy for the 10 car, but you still had to do it on track.”
Pole sitter Christian Lundgaard went primary to start, then red, red, black to the finish. Pato O’Ward, who finished second, went primary at the start, red, black, red to finish. Alexander Rossi started on the alternates in 10th and went reds, then reds again, then blacks, then reds.
Now, what happens this weekend?
If you go back to 2021, Conor Daly brought out the opening lap caution, but the rest of the way went green. From Lap 4 to Lap 85, it was all green flag racing. In turn, that meant this was a three-stop strategy race like we all thought it would be. The difference would come down to tire selections.
The pole sitter that year, Romain Grosjean, started off on the Firestone Alternate tires. They were the quickest and lasted as long as the Firestone primaries, so the guys that started on the Blacks pit early to get on the Reds. Well, Grosjean went with two straight stints on the Reds. The second one on scuffed reds.
Eventual race winner, Rinus VeeKay, started off on the primary tires and pit for the Reds on Lap 12. Grosjean, didn’t pit for his first stop until Lap 25. VeeKay, would pit again on Lap 36 for scuffed reds. Grosjean pit on Lap 43 but had to go to Blacks.
That was the difference.
VeeKay got him and made his move for the lead among their sequence. He’d be able to go with Reds the final time but already hold the lead while Grosjean was too far back before he could do anything about it.
Third place finisher that day, Alex Palou, went on the Reds until Lap 25 then put on Blacks on Lap 40. He’d go Blacks again on Lap 62 as he was one of three guys to finish the race on the primary tires.
That’s just a prime example on how this race played out on strategy and I expect a similar debate again this time around.
Qualifying
Qualifying is everything here. 13 of the 14 races on this layout were won by a top 8 starter. The only one not was Colton Herta in the rain back in May of last year, who started 14th in the rain.
In fact, 4 of the last 7 races here were won via a front row starter but 3 of those 4 were from the second placed starter though. Palou won from third in May.
Just once in the last 9 races here has the pole sitter actually won. They were 4-for-5 (all 4 consecutively) prior.
It’s not just here, it’s natural courses everywhere (All these stats prior to Mid-Ohio)
Starting positions for natural road courses lately (since 2016) 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 7th, 1st, 5th, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 20th, 1st, 4th, 1st, 8th, 2nd, 8th, 2nd, 1st, 7th, 9th, 7th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 7th, 5th, 1st, 2nd, 1st and 1st, 2nd, 14th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 11th, 4th, 3rd and 3rd. That’s 45 of the last 49 (91.8%) coming from the top 10 including 22 from the pole and 38 of 49 (77.5%) from the Fast 6.
Since 2020, the year the Aeroscreen debuted, 13 of the 24 races (54.1%) have been won via a front row starter including 9 of the last 14 (64.2%) and 5 of the 9 (63%) last year. 18 of the 24 (75%) were won from a Fast Six starter while 22 of the last 24 (91.6%) from the top 10.
If you fail to get out of the first round on Friday, you basically have no shot at a win. You also have a very little shot at a podium too. Out of the 42 combined podium trophies up for grabs here (counting the May races too), 36 of them were taken by top 10 starters (85.7%). In fact, the summer race has seen podium finishers of only starters from the top 4 Rows to where at least in the first race, it has opened up plays to see someone come from behind in 3 of the last 4 years.
Podium Starters Of Spring Race Since 2014:
2014: 4th, 3rd, 10th
2015: 1st, 17th, 4th
2016: 1st, 13th, 3rd
2017: 1st, 4th, 8th
2018: 1st, 18th, 2nd
2019: 8th, 2nd, 3rd
2020 (July): 7th, 4th, 20th
2021: 7th, 1st, 4th
2022: 14th, 20th, 1st
2023: 3rd, 5th, 19th
Podium Finishers Of 2nd Race Weekend Here
2020 Race 1 (October): 2nd, 8th, 1st
2020 Race 2 (October): 1st, 2nd, 3rd
2021: 2nd, 3rd, 5th
2022: 2nd, 6th, 4th
Favorites
Alex Palou
He was 3rd in May 2021, had a fast car in May 2022 before going off course in the rain, had a podium going before his engine blew in Aug. 2021 and won by 16.8-seconds this past May. Palou has won each of the last three races on natural road courses at that. He has the 2nd most podium finishes (13) on natural road courses since 2020 but double the amount of wins (7) than the next best (3). Coming into the race weekend, he’s finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd in the last 7 races. He starts 8th.
Graham Rahal
Rahal has 12 top 10’s in his last 13 tries too and has finished worse than 7th just once here since 2020 (8 races). He qualified 8th and finished 10th in May. He was on the front row in Mid-Ohio too. Now, he’s on the pole.
Christian Lundgaard
The front row has won the return trip in all 4 races. That means it could come down to Rahal vs. Lundgaard on Saturday.
Lundgaard has been stout here in 4 starts here which includes a runner-up last July and a pole and fourth place fun this past May. He’s also qualified 4th, 8th, 6th and now 2nd. On natural road courses this season, he’s qualified 6th and finished there in Barber as well as qualifying 7th and finishing there in Road America. The last time out in Mid-Ohio, he qualified 5th and finished 4th.
Pato O’Ward
O’Ward has two 5th placed finishes in his last 6 starts here and runner-up this past May. O’Ward also has six top 5 starting spots in his last seven starts here, but three of those finishes have also been 12th or worse. Still, he was fourth in Barber, runner-up in Indy, third in Road America and 8th at Mid-Ohio this season, I think he will be a threat despite only 2 top 5 finishes in the last 8 races on the season.
Alexander Rossi
Rossi won the last time out here in July, was third after starting 10th this past May and has 6 top 7 finishes in his last 7 tries here including 5 of which in the top 4. He’s finished eighth, third, 10th and 10th respectively on natural road courses in 2023. The problem is, since Road America, he’s finished 10th, 10th, 16th, 10th, 15th and 19th respectively. Now though, he starts 3rd.
Sleepers
Felix Rosenqvist
His teammate started 10th and finished on the podium here in May. Can Rosenqvist do the same? Rosenqvist was 6th and fifth the last two in May’s and 9th last July.
Colton Herta
He should have pulled off the road course sweep last year. After leading 50 laps and winning last May’s race, he led 17 more laps and well on his way to victory in July before a gearbox failed him while leading towards the end. Herta has 5 top 4 finishes in his last 8 Indy road course starts. 7 of his 9 qualifying efforts here have seen him start in the top 10 too. He has 3 wins on natural road courses. Can he turn around his misfortunes again? He’s finished 9th, 7th, 21st in the last three races.
Kyle Kirkwood
He was with Foyt last year but now driving the car that Rossi won with last July and Kirkwood won with last Sunday. Rossi had 5 top 7 finishes in his last 6 tries in this ride including 4 of which in the top 4. In the Road to Indy, Kirkwood had 5 top 4 finishes including a pair of runner-up finishes and a win in six tries. He qualified sixth in May and has finished in the top 10 in 4 of the last 7 races on the season.
Romain Grosjean
Runner-up in both races in 2021, starting to find his groove again and rolls off 6th.
Marcus Armstrong
2nd time seeing a track and starting 7th.
Fade
Scott Dixon
The good? 12 top 10 finishes in 14 starts. The bad? Just one of the last six finishes here have been better than 8th either (6th in May). Prior to that, he did have four consecutive top two finishes here. It’s qualifying that’s holding him back with his last seven qualifying efforts being 12th, 15th, 16th, 26th, 21st, 20th, 9th and now 16th respectively. Dixon has also finished 7th, 6th, 4th and 2nd respectively on natural road courses in 2023 and finished 6th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th since May.
Marcus Ericsson
He finishes well, but not always in the top 5 here. In 9 starts, he has 6 top 10 finishes. However, just 1 of those 6 he’s finished in the top 5 (4th last May). Qualifying has been his crux too. He’s started 9th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 15th, 11th, 18th, 25th, 7th and 18th respectively. Ericsson finished 10th, 8th, 6th and 27th respectively on natural road courses this season too. He also has just 1 top 5 finish since his Indy 500 runner-up (7 races) too.
Josef Newgarden
He has just 1 podium in 13 Indy road course tries too. Out of his last five Indy road course races, he’s led just two laps. He was seventh in May. On natural road courses this season, he’s finished 15th, 7th, 2nd and 12th respectively. On the season, he does have 8 top 10 finishes in the last 9 races including 4 top 5’s in the last 6 but rolls off 19th on Saturday too.
Scott McLaughlin
3 of his 4 career wins have come on natural road courses. He also only has two top 10 finishes in 5 tries here too including finishes 23rd, 20th and 16th in his others. While he won at Barber and was also eighth in Road America and fifth at Mid-Ohio too. McLaughlin had 4 straight front row starts on the season but hasn’t won from any of them either and now starts 11th.
Will Power
Only starting 17th and winless all season.
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