Are Honda Teams Playing For 4th On Back?
Honda just picked up their 9th win in 14 races the last time out on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. They’ve won literally 9 of the 10 races run on street or road courses. Chevrolet however, is the one with the advantage on Sunday though. They’re undefeated (4-0) on ovals this season.
Chevy teams have also dominated on short ovals lately in general. Out of the last 15 races on them, they’ve won 13 times. They’ve also won 5 of the 7 races since the return here and look primed for another win in Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network).
Chevy won at Texas, Indianapolis and Iowa this season all with Josef Newgarden. They went 1-2-3-5 in Race 1 at Iowa and 1-2-4-5 in Race 2. In fact, they led 494 of 500 laps that weekend overall.
Can the Honda teams close the gap this weekend?
I mean how do you really upgrade what you have with one race left? Also, Andretti and Ganassi, the top two teams within the Honda camp, have largely struggled here.
Since 2001, Andretti is 0-for-10 while Ganassi is 1-for-10. Penske by comparison is 7-for-10.
For Ganassi, they actually qualify well here, they just don’t finish.
Scott Dixon has won (2020) but was also 15th, 2nd, 3rd, 20th, 5th, 19th and 8th in his other starts. He’s not led a lap in any of his last three races here. While he’s been solid at Iowa (6th in both races last mont)h, he’s also 0-for-19 too.
Alex Palou has finished 11th, 8th, 7th, 20th and 9th here and has never led a lap. In Iowa, the Spaniard has finished 11th, 14th, 6th, 13th, 8th and 3rd respectively. Progressively getting better.
Marcus Ericsson has been 16th, 5th, 23rd, 9th and 7th. He’s led three total laps here. At Iowa, he’s been solid, but not great. Ericsson was 9th, 9th, 8th, 6th, 4th and 9th. On ovals this season, he’s finished 8th, 2nd, 4th and 9th too.
Ericsson has started 14th, 4th, 7th, 6th and 2nd respectively here.
Dixon has started 5th, 7th, 1st, 8th, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 6th respectively.
Palou has started 11th, 14th, 21st and 5th respectively.
This season though, they do have with have 3 of the top 4 point scorers on ovals this season too so maybe they can contend for some top fives.
Takuma Sato may be their sleeper in the back pocket. He won in 2019 and has finished in the top 10 for six straight races including finishes of 9th, 1st, 2nd, 9th, 6th and 5th respectively. Now, he has a Ganassi car. His laps led in that span are 4, 61, 14, 66, 0 and 22 respectively too.
In Andretti’s camp, they showed improved speed in 2021 but the finishes lacked. They’d admit though that these are their worst tracks and don’t expect to shine this weekend.
Romain Grosjean was 14th as a rookie with Coyne in 2021 and 13th last year. Ryan Hunter-Reay was also though 15th, 20th, 8th, 7th, 11th and 7th in that same car Grosjean is driving now prior. Likewise for Kyle Kirkwood who was 17th last year with Foyt. But, his car Alexander Rossi had driven was 6th, 2nd, 13th, 22nd, 14th, 17th and 25th himself. Colton Herta has finished 5th, 14th, 21st, 22nd, 18th and 11th in 6 Gateway starts. While Herta did lead 101 laps in 2021 I just don’t trust them yet. Devlin DeFrancesco qualified a respectable ninth last year and finished 12th.
Even their 2 satellite cars struggled. Helio Castroneves was 15th and Simon Pagenaud in 20th. Pagenaud previously had 4 top 8 finishes in 6 tries including 3 of which being in the top 5. Castroneves had three top four finishes previously in as many tries including a win in 2003.
At Iowa, Andretti is 0-for-12 since winning 7 of 9 to start Iowa off with. They’ve not been close here either. While Romain Grosjean was 7th and 9th as a rookie in 2022, he was 11th and 12th last month. Devlin DeFrancesco was 17th, 15th, 22nd and 21st in his four Iowa starts while Colton Herta was 24th and 12th in 2022 and 19th and 7th this year. Alexander Rossi was 13th and 18th last year with Kirkwood 7th and 11th this year.
For MSR, Pagenaud finished 23rd in both races a year ago after qualifying 21st and 16th respectively. Castroneves was 16th and 21st respectively after starting 25th and 24th himself in those same two races.
Is Day Time The Right Time?
Last year this race was scheduled for a late Saturday afternoon start. Rain moved the race to finish under the lights. It wasn’t an ideal time no matter what. Now, this race is even earlier in the day 2:30 locally, 3:30 ET and barring any weather, will easily run to completion before the lights are even needed.
However, is day time the right time at the World Wide Technology Raceway?
The cars look so much cooler under the lights and it’s a better product for the fans to sit in the night time temperatures rather than baking in the late summer heat. It’s no secret that this race thrives under the lights also.
The stands have always been more packed at night than during the day races here.
However, TV dictates things.
It’s hard to run completely under the lights here because if this race remains in August, the suns not setting until around 8 locally. That’s a 9 ET start at the earliest. That’s probably too late.
Plus, NASCAR has even shown that Saturday night viewership isn’t very good, hence their shift to more day races and even Sunday night’s. That plus Daytona being run on the Saturday night of this weekend, INDYCAR and WWT Raceway had no choice but to make this a Sunday show.
It’s good in the fact that fans can come over and get back home at a decent time, even on a Sunday, but I wonder how much it hurts the track for Saturday’s attendance. Do fans come over for a pair of practice sessions and qualifying on Saturday or choose to do a one-day show by coming over Sunday morning for the race and heading home after?
Why Doesn’t The Pole Sitter Thrive On Short Ovals?
Pole winners have had some bad luck not just here, but at the other short oval in Iowa too. You would think since qualifying means a lot, the pole winner would have success. However, it’s been the exact opposite.
There’s not been a pole winner here since Helio Castroneves did it in 2003. For Iowa, the pole winner is now 1-for-19.
What’s wild about that fact is the point that we’ve seen 9 straight Gateway winners coming from a top five starting spot and 8 of the last 9 from the top 2 rows.
Why Do Only The Best Win At Gateway?
For some reason, you don’t see many fluke names win at the World Wide Technology Raceway. Josef Newgarden, a two time series champion, is the only driver to ever win on the 1.25-mile track multiple times. I mean, just look at the other drivers to have won on this track.
Names like Paul Tracy (1997), Alex Zanardi (1998), Michael Andretti (1999), Juan Pablo Montoya (2000), Al Unser Jr. (2001), Gil de Ferran (2002), Helio Castroneves (2003), Josef Newgarden (2017,2020, 2022), Will Power (2018), Takuma Sato (2019) and Scott Dixon (2020) all won on the 1.25-mile oval heading into this weekend.
Why is that?
One of the reasons why is due to the nature of Gateway being towards the end of the season. Normally, the best drivers by time we get to World Wide Technology Raceway are the ones vying for wins on a regular basis.
“I think in my case, from what I’ve seen, couple lucky yellows can make anyone a winner really. So I don’t know,” Conor Daly told me.
“If you start up front there, I feel like, if you’re quick there, no matter what, I don’t know, it seems to be one of those places that if you’re pretty bomb proof up front, you got a quick car, it’s going to be really hard to make that pass.
“I remember watching Josef try to win, door slammed Pagenaud out of the way. Sometimes maybe that’s what is going to have to happen. Josef is a champion. That’s what it’s going to take.”
Alexander Rossi agreed. He went a bit further in saying that the way that they determine the starting lineup is always by qualifying but qualifying lineup is set by entrant points. The best of the standings go towards the end of qualifying while the worst go at the beginning.
“I mean, I think the guys that are winning champions late in the year are qualifying up front,” he said to me. “That’s pretty much everything these days. If you’re in championship contention, you have a draw that goes later, you’re starting in the top five, it’s pretty hard not to kind of stay there unless crazy situations obviously.
“It is a very difficult place to pass. If you have a good car, you can pretty much maintain what you’re doing.”
He’s not wrong in the sense that this is a tough race track to pass on and the faster cars on the season are towards the top of the points. In saying that, they have the best qualifying draw which means they’re starting closer to the front. With fast cars being in the front on a track that’s hard to pass on, the only way by is for them to make a mistake. But, there’s a reason they’re up in the top of the standings and that’s because they’re usually on top of their games and their mistakes are by the minimum.
Hence champions winning here.
How Will Alternate Tire Play Out?
This has been a topic that’s been discussed lately, but with short ovals being somewhat tough to pass on, Firestone has adopted an alternate tires for these tracks like they do for road and street course races.
It will debut this weekend. How does that play out?
Think about the strategy that it would open up. If a tire is quicker early, but you’re stuck in traffic, it could make life difficult and force you to make moves because it would degrade quicker in the end of the stint compared to the primary tire for which you could stay more level.
However, by having to use 1 set of each during the race, it opens up so much more strategy plays which as a result, helps also to improve the show as well.
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