Silly Season

Felix Rosenqvist said we should know his 2024 plans by next Thursday, if not before. Romain Grosjean says he’s not coming back to Andretti Autosport. Linus Lundqvist will run for Ganassi in replacement for fellow Swede Marcus Ericsson.

This week was full of silly season nuggets as we’re nearing the point to where 2024 plans will need to be known.

Penske is returning all 3 drivers in 2024. Andretti now knows 3 of their 2024 drivers and if Devlin DeFrancesco doesn’t get into the top 22 in leaders circle, then they’ll scale back to a 3 car team. Ganassi knows 3 of their 4 drivers but it could be a done deal with Marcus Ericsson nearing a deal to come back in 2024 but on a full-time scale.

David Malukas says he has a deal but won’t announce anything until the end of the season. All signs are now pointing to him replacing Rosenqvist in the No. 6 Dallara-Chevrolet for 2024 at Arrow McLaren Racing. His replacement at DCR is likely to be DeFrancesco.

McLaren is high on Malukas and Callum Ilott and I’ve been told by multiple people that McLaren and Juncos Hollinger Racing will form an alliance in the same way that Foyt and Penske did which allows McLaren to have both Malukas and Ilott now.

There’s plenty of more to be confirmed soon.

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Blomqvist, Vips Get Head Start, How This Could Affect Leaders Circle

A couple of NTT INDYCAR SERIES teams are eyeing the future while also hopeful of staying above a crucial cut line in points. On Monday, a couple of loose ends were tied up with Tom Blomqvist being named as the permanent replacement for Simon Pagenaud in the 60 ride for the final two races of the season and Juri Vips as the fill-in for Jack Harvey’s former ride in the No. 30 Dallara-Honda for RLL.

These two are tied for the final two spots above the cutline right now and with Blomqvist having 1 career start and 0 laps turned in race conditions (opening lap crash in Toronto), it makes Vips’ learning curve by comparison this weekend less extreme and less daunting.

So why experiment now with so much on the line? Only the top 22 in entrant points at seasons end get the bonus money and these two currently hold the final two spots. Is it worth the risk?

Not only do both teams think so, but they both also have eyes to the future endeavors too in hopes that these 2 rides aren’t in this position a year from now.

Blomqvist was already named as 1 of the 2 drivers for MSR a year from now. He knows he’ll be here.

Plus, I think it also shows that maybe Linus Lundqvist isn’t a part of their future for 2024 either. Rumor is that he’s heading to another team in the paddock for next season so I can see MSR not wanting to give that said team seat time for their driver. Why would they?

Why not just go ahead and put Blomqvist in this ride and off you go?

“I’ve got to thank Jim (Meyer) and Mike (Shank) for getting me in the car and looking ahead now to next season having been confirmed to drive with MSR next year,” Blomqvist said this week via a team release. “It’s a good thing to be getting these races under my belt before the season and working in preparation for my full program in 2024. I got a brief test in Toronto under very challenging circumstances – without any real preparation whatsoever.

“Now I’ve got a little bit more understanding and knowledge and I’m hoping it’s going to be easier this time. I’m going to have the opportunity to get into the simulator and I know a little bit more of what to expect in terms of the way the weekend runs. I don’t know Portland at all and I know everyone has been racing flat-out in the summer. It’s still going to be an absolutely huge challenge. The series is so, so competitive and I am still new to these cars. I’m not putting any pressure on myself and I’m just going to go out there and do my best. Hopefully I can do Mike and Jim proud and make progress with every session. Hopefully after these next two events I can be happy and put in some strong performances and go into winter break with more knowledge on the series and be able to build on this.”

Blomqvist has struggled this weekend. He’s been last in both practices and will start there on Sunday.

For Vips, Conor Daly did his part in Gateway to get this ride above the water (-2 entering, +1 leaving) and despite no starts here before, he’s been around the team for almost a year now learning behind the scenes and waiting in the shadows for this moment.

“To be honest, I haven’t,” Vips told me if he has any nerves or trepidation on making his first start in a race in over a year. “Maybe once I get there I’ll start feeling them, but at the moment there is almost no — there’s excitement, obviously, because I just haven’t been in a car for so long, and I haven’t raced for so long.

“But nerves are almost zero at this stage because I have so much to prepare and so much to do with media and with the engineers, simulators, and stuff. It’s organizing all of that that’s on my mind now, so it’s almost like I feel like I don’t have time to be nervous at the moment.

“I think that might change once I get to the track obviously because it has been a while, and it’s such a competitive series, so yeah we’ll need to do well.”

Vips comes with baggage so for RLL to take this risk, well it’s saying how much RLL values his talents. They could have anyone for this seat. It’s a paid ride. However, Bobby Rahal feels Vips has a value and the talent to compete here.

“Yuri came up on our radar screen by a friend of mine in Europe,” Bobby Rahal told me. “Of course, this was after the mistake that he made, after it was public, after he was released from his Red Bull contract.

“So he was kind of — although the team that he drove for knew him well, and they certainly believed that, yes, it was a mistake, but that was not emblematic of him as a person, and they still ran him the remainder of that year. That was the Hitech team.

“Anyway, I spoke to some friends that had worked with Yuri, and they were just very unbelievably impressed and supportive of him, with his skills. Knowing that, I know that, as I said earlier, also Yuri had already gone through diversity training in London with Dr. Lateesha Osbourne.

“I think he knew there was a lot more to do beyond that even, but we felt that certainly all the response we were getting from people who had been with him was very positive.

“Obviously sad that he made a mistake of this nature, and he paid a huge price for it, I might add, but was impressed because he set about correcting that and learning from that and continues to this day.

“So as I said, the opinions I got about him as a driver were extremely high, and he did do that test for us, and we were quite pleased with it at Sebring.

“So I guess I personally feel and I think Mike Lanigan, our team, feels that everybody makes mistakes, and you have to do what you can to repair and learn from those mistakes, but everybody deserves a second chance. I certainly feel strongly about that, so that’s why he is here.”

Vips actually drove an Indy car for the first time on October 12, 2022 at Sebring International Raceway in a test for the team and again at Barber Motorsports Park on March 13, 2023. He has also performed static simulator testing for the team during the season as well.

“I’m super happy to get the opportunity with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and very thankful to Bobby, Mike and everyone at the team,” Vips said. “I haven’t been driving all year so the anticipation for this opportunity has been immense but I’m really looking forward to starting again. We tested together at the end of 2022 in Sebring and it seemed like we just gelled. I got along with everyone and I really like the atmosphere at the team. Bobby’s also one to give second chances and I’m extremely grateful that he is giving me one and I really hope to bring a good result for him, Mike and the whole team.”

Vips is also stepping into a nice situation in that RLL’s best tracks this season have been on natural road courses. Between that and being emersed in the team already, this could be an easier transition period.

“I hope I can prove myself and most importantly get them into the Winners Circle, which is always my main mission,” Vips said. “I feel ready for these races, I think the tracks suit my experience and driving style and the car as well. I’ve already integrated myself with the team this year, doing some work for them on the simulator so I already know the people and feel very comfortable with everyone which is a big benefit for me as well.”

The thing is, he’s also not seen these next 2 tracks before, which makes them tough to honestly prepare for.

“There is not much you can do other than simulation and look at data so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been making sure that I will be as ready as I can to race. Obviously, I’ve only done two test days in the last 10 months so I haven’t done a lot of driving so that is definitely going to limit me but I’m doing absolutely everything I can to get as good of a result as possible.”

Vips was an impressive 15th in Friday’s practice, 19th on Saturday and qualified the car in 18th.

With 5 of the bottom 6 overall in the standings being rookies and 4 of the 6 being on the outside looking in first year drivers in general, why not make these moves ahead of time? They’re learning together and it’s not like someone is stepping in and using veteran experience to beat them.

“Well, I think there’s a couple of things about these next two events,” Rahal told me. “One that I think is a real value to us is the series test at Laguna Seca on Thursday before the race. So it’s more than just getting time at the two events themselves, but it’s getting a full day at Laguna in advance of the race.

“I think the amount of knowledge and comfort and everything that a driver needs to do his best, I think that is going to help that process a lot.

“I think Portland, that’s going to be a challenge, there’s no question about it, because you don’t have that much practice time before you go into qualifying. As we all know, qualifying is so intense and so close.

“I mean, you don’t have to be far off the pace, and you could be in the last one-third of the grid, so I do think there’s going to be a lot of demands this coming weekend.

“But having the two races weekend-to-weekend, having the test day, to me all of that made a lot of sense. And, of course, Yuri is from the road racing background, so going to an oval, especially an oval like St. Louis, would have been really I think an unbelievable experience never having done one before.

“But I would also say that I thought Conor did a super job for us this last weekend and really was very appreciative of his efforts. A real pro. So when we had three races to go, we just felt that that was the best solution to those three races.”

Vips likes what he sees in IndyCar and is hopeful this is just the beginning.

“I really like it so much,” he told me. “When you come to a race weekend, it’s just such a different atmosphere. Like, the paddock is very open. The fans get to see the cars, see the drivers, be really close to them. Be like — I don’t know how to say — maybe immersed, I think, in the experience much more.

“Yeah, the racing is awesome. That’s one side that I really like about it. You get such close racing. It’s very hard here, but when you watch the races, they’re super exciting.

“So, yeah, that’s the appeal I have for INDYCAR, and yeah, I think it’s just an awesome series.”

Agustin Canapino dropped from +5 to -1 with being 22nd while Devlin DeFrancesco’s 19th place result had him go from -3 to -4.

Standings With 2 Races Left

14. No. 15 RLL Honda +85

15. No. 21 ECR Chevy +78

16. No. 18 DCR Honda +71

17. No. 77 JHR Chevy +62

18. No. 14 Foy Chevy +28

19. No. 06 MSR Honda +25

20. No. 20 ECR Chevy +11

21. No. 60 MSR Honda +1

22. No. 30 RLL Honda +1

23. No. 78 JHR Chevy -1

24. No. 29 Andretti Honda -4

25. No. 51 DCR Honda -38

26. No. 55 Foyt Chevy -53

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Championships

Due to Josef Newgarden’s crash in last Sunday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500, it secured the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship for Chip Ganassi Racing. With 108 total points up for grabs over the final two races of the season, Newgarden is P3 in points but 125 out.

That means the championship race for the 2023 Astor Cup is down to Alex Palou and Scott Dixon. Both reside in the Ganassi camp and each are separated by 74 points.

1 will take home the title meaning that it will be Ganassi’s 15th Indy Car championship and 4th in the last 6 seasons.

MORE: How a conversation in PitFit indirectly led Lundqvist to Ganassi

For Dixon, he likely just has to win out. He’s won the last 2 races and wildly enough, Dixon has previously proven that he can unlock another gear, as he remains the only driver in the history of the sport to achieve three distinct streaks of three consecutive race victories (2020; 2013; 2007) in a single season.

“I’m definitely looking forward to Portland and it’s always good to go out west,” Dixon said. “The track has been an interesting one throughout the years and now this year is coming down to the championship fight. Obviously, the fight is far more widespread this year, and we need a big swing and we will be going for a win. But I always love going to Portland and I love the track because it’s pretty intense, especially turn one on the starts and restarts.”

The Iceman has earned two podium finishes (P2 in 2022 and 2021) in six career starts at Portland International Raceway. However, he’s also not won before at Portland (0-for-6) not at Laguna Seca (0-for-5) and is facing a must win at both.

He has pulled off the improbable before, winning the 2015 INDYCAR SERIES championship despite not sitting atop the points standings until the conclusion of the season finale.

Palou also has reason for optimism considering his 2021 victory from pole position at Portland International Raceway. 

“We’ve won at Portland before and I also got my first INDYCAR pole there, so it is a special place,” he notes. “The team is looking good for the championship, and we know that it will stay within the team, which is the most important thing. We have a chance to win it and seal the title there, so hopefully we can bring it home early.”

Palou, with a 74-point advantage in the championship standings, needs just a 54-point lead upon the conclusion of the Portland race to clinch the championship. A podium finish would guarantee the 2023 title for the American Legion Honda team.

The No. 10 pilot has mastered road course tracks since joining Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021. Across the 19 such races, he leads all drivers in podiums (12), laps led (274) and average starting position (4.6), and is tied for first with teammate Scott Dixon in average finishing position (6.6).

Chip Ganassi Racing has found plenty of pace at Portland International Raceway with three wins (Palou: 2021; Zanardi: 1998/1996), three pole positions (Palou: 2021: Montoya: 1999; Zanardi: 1996) and nine podiums (most recently, Dixon P3 in 2022).

Dixon starts 4th and Palou 5th.

The team isn’t just eyeing the championship, but they could be in position for their first 1-2 finish in the points standings since 2009 (Franchitti and Dixon) too.

Dixon is 51 points up on Newgarden for 2nd right now. If Dixon can gain four or more points on Newgarden this weekend, then he locks that feat up too.

Newgarden will start 8 spots behind Dixon in 12th.

Which would then shift to the possibility of a 1-2-3?

Marcus Ericsson is currently P6 in points but he’s 43 points behind Newgarden. Can he make up that much ground over a two race span? He starts 10th.

“Excited to head to the West Coast; it is always a fun trip,” Ericsson said. “I really enjoy driving on this track and I think it has some unique challenges, particularly the last section of the track with the last chicane and the fast corner. It’s very challenging, but it is fun to drive. Things are always very tight here between drivers and the cars. We need to bring our A-game and I believe we will. We have some good ideas on what to do and have improved our road course package throughout the year. It will be an important weekend and we want to maximize every opportunity at the end of the season here.”

Ericsson will aim for a strong qualifying session, as he has made gains throughout both of his previous two starts in Portland. In 2022, he finished P7 after starting P10, and in 2021, he finished P11 after starting P18. 

The No. 8 Huski Ice Spritz Honda pilot has led the more laps (51) this season than any other throughout his INDYCAR career. Ericsson is aiming to finish among the top-five in the points standings for the first time in his career too which is more realistic than getting to third. He’s only 29 points behind Scott McLaughlin for those honors.

Another feat for Ganassi is helping Marcus Armstrong earn Rookie of the Year honors. Despite not racing in any of the 5 oval races, Armstrong holds a 20 point advantage over fellow rookie Agustin Canapino for this distinction. With only two races left and both being on road courses, Armstrong is here for the duration.

“I’ll be doing my best to get on the pace as soon as possible and maximize the package we have,” said Armstrong. “I have the feeling that it may be a difficult track to nail down, so will try to adapt as best as possible. I think it can be a good circuit for me and it’s reasonably similar to what I’ve raced in Europe, as is Laguna. These tracks are constantly flowing and there’s no reason that we can’t get our best result yet.”

Armstrong is dialed in on bolstering his qualifying results and the results shined through in his last race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course he set a new career best with a P7 qualifying result. He missed out on advancing to his first Firestone Fast 6 appearance by a margin of just 0.0008 seconds.

Ganassi helped Felix Rosenqvist be Rookie of the Year in 2019 so this would in theory be their 2nd driver in 5 years to do that. It’s a nice cast of drivers though that have won Rookie of the Year for Ganassi as Armstrong could not only join Rosenqvist, but Juan Montoya (1999), Alex Zanardi (1996) and Eddie Cheever (1990).

Rosenqvist finished 6th in points, Zanardi 3rd, Cheever 9th and Montoya a champion. Armstrong is currently 20th overall which could be the lowest ROY finisher since Gabby Chaves finished 20th in 2013. However, Chaves ran full-time where Armstrong missed 5 races.

The last 3 ROY’s finished 14th in points and if you go back to 2017 so has 4 of the last 6. Armstrong is 72 points back of getting to that threshold.

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Race 3rd

While the Chip Ganassi Racing duo of Alex Palou and Scott Dixon have distanced themselves from the pack, the fight behind them is actually an intense one to keep tabs on. 43 points separates the 3rd-6th placed drivers in points.

At one point, it looked like Josef Newgarden was going to run away with being the top Penske driver but now, he only leads teammate Scott McLaughlin by 14 for that distinction.

That’s all predicated by two straight 25th place finishes over the last couple of races. Now, he’s in a real threat to lose out on not only third, but if this continues, Newgarden could realistically drop to fifth. The Tennessee native has finished 2nd in each of the last 3 points championships and 51 points out of doing so right now.

Can he make up 51 points on Dixon over the next two races?

For Portland, Newgarden is 4-for-4 in top 10 finishes here but hasn’t finished better than 5th in any of the 4 races either. On natural road courses this season, he’s also finished 15th, 7th, 2nd, 12th and 25th respectively. 

He’ll start 12th with Dixon 4th and McLaughlin 2nd.

Laguna Seca is his best bet to maximize points with being 8th, 7th, 2nd there. The track was repaved and at Road America back in June, another repaved surface, he too was runner-up. He’s also finished in the top 2 in 4 of the last 6 season finales including 3 straight years too (1st, 2nd, 2nd). 

However, can he truly stop the slide? The gap he has between he and Dixon (51) is similar to the gap (52) between he and 7th in points Will Power.

That’s why he may have to be looking behind him instead of in front at this point moving forward.

Last year, McLaughlin dominated this race in Portland and was sixth in the season finale. He’s once again coming on strong to end the season.

He’s had a top 8 finish in each of the last 9 races with results of 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 8th, 5th. Really, it’s the Month of May in Indy that’s been holding him back of making up progress.

His last two GMR Grand Prix finishes?

20th, 16th.

In three Indy 500 starts, he’s also only finished 20th, 29th and 14th respectively.

Outside of that?

He’s thriving.

Really though, if you think about it, Indy is what’s kept him from being closer in the championship right now.

It was just qualifying 16th and finishing there in May’s GMR Grand Prix and finishing 14th after starting there for the Indy 500. Take those two races out, his average finish is 6th. Even if you go back to the start of last season, take out the last two Indy 500’s and the last two GMR Grand Prix’s and his average finish is 6.35.

His average Indy 500 finish? 21st.

His average GMR Grand Prix finish? 18.0

His average Gallagher Grand Prix finish? 11.66.

Everywhere else? 6.35.

See the glaring weakness?

It’s truly astounding that in just his third full-time season that he has the potential to finish ahead of both multiple time champion teammates in the sport. Let that sink in for a moment. He’s on the verge of potentially doing so.

He’s qualified on the front row in 6 of the last 7 races.

We also can’t over look Pato O’Ward. He’s sandwiched between Newgarden and McLaughlin right now. O’Ward is three points clear of McLaughlin but 11 behind Newgarden.

The Arrow McLaren Racing driver has 3 podiums in the last 5 races and has finishes of 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 3rd on natural road courses this season.

He qualified 5th and finished 4th in Portland last year. He was then 5th and 8th in his two Monterey tries. O’Ward has 8 consecutive top 10 finishes on the season including improving in each of the last 4 races (10th to 8th to 3rd to 2nd).

The 24-year-old is 4th right now, the best non Penske and Ganassi driver. He’s finished 4th, 3rd, 7th in points in his first three years and on the verge of another top 5 finish this year.

He’s closing that gap to the big teams. The last 20 champions have hailed from the Penske, Ganassi or Andretti camps. Ganassi will make this 21 straight.

The last time a team other than the “Big 3” won a championship was Panther in 2002 with Sam Hornish Jr. 

His only issue is not having a win thus far. He’s winless in his last 20 starts. His crux this season has been being overly aggressive at times.

O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races of the season. He was 4th in 1 of the other 2 races. The one that he wasn’t was being overzealous in Long Beach.

The Indy 500 he was aggressive on the Lap 192 restart with Marcus Ericsson in Turn 3. He was first, slipped to third by time we got to Turn 1 and when trying to get back, he overstepped it. In Detroit, a bad pit stop while leading and pushing too hard to make up for it saw him catch the wall.

Take those three races out, his average finish on the season is 4.58.

That’s why McLaughlin and O’Ward are a dangerous combo to watch over the final 2 races.

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RLL’s Surge

Graham Rahal just gave Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing their 4th pole of the season. That’s as many poles in 16 races run this season than they had in the previous 202 races combined.

Rahal had a pole in 2017 at Belle Isle. Takuma Sato had 2 poles in 2019 and one in 2020. That was it.

Then Christian Lundgaard won the pole for May’s GMR Grand Prix. He then won the pole in July at Toronto. Rahal then returned the favor in last month’s Gallagher Grand Prix and did so again on Saturday in Portland.

That’s four poles in 16 races this season with all coming in the last 12 races.

It’s a nice resurgence for RLL and shows how close they truly are to breaking out. The only thing lacking is qualifying on ovals. On road and street courses, they’ve been strong.

Lundgaard has qualified 6th (Barber), 1st and 2nd (Indy road course), 7th (Road America), 5th (Mid-Ohio) and 17th (Portland) on natural road courses. Rahal has been 19th (Barber), 8th, 1st (Indy road course), 14th (Road America), 2nd (Mid-Ohio) and 1st (Portland).

On streets, Lundgaard has qualified 11th (St. Pete), 17th (Long Beach), 18th (Detroit), 1st (Toronto) and 13th (Nashville). Rahal has been 20th (St. Pete), 24th (Long Beach), 27th (Detroit), 27th (Toronto) and 15th (Nashville).

On ovals, Lundgaard started 27th (Texas), 31st (Indy 500), 20th, 21st (Iowa), 20th (Gateway). Katherine Legge qualified 30th at Indy too. Rahal was 24th (Texas), DNQ (Indy), 13th, 6th (Iowa) and 23rd (Gateway).