Category: Indycar

IndyCar’s Birmingham race at Barber Motorsports Park marks the last of the triple-header races in April, after this there will be a few deserved weeks off for both the drivers and teams. However, before that, they’ve all got to go racing again at Barber, a track that has been a staple of the IndyCar season since 2010.

Before we get onto the race this weekend, let’s take a quick look back to last week’s race on the streets of Long Beach which was won, in quite dominant fashion, by Alexander Rossi. The #27 Andretti driver led nearly every lap to take his win tally up to three, in the process silencing his critics who try to claim that he’s ‘fluke’. Following him home was Will Power who was lead Penske after both Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud had disappointing races. Last year’s Rookie of the Year, Ed Jones, impressed with a podium while Andretti’s latest rookie, Zach Veach, finished just behind Jones in fourth, somewhat pushing Robert Wickens out of the limelight that he’s enjoyed so far.

As for the eternal Honda/Chevrolet battle well, it was a rather convincing performance from Honda at Long Beach with Chevrolet again poorly represented in the top ten. All that could be turned on its head this weekend because Barber has traditionally been a Chevrolet stronghold yet, with the new universal aero kit, tradition doesn’t seem to stand for much this year. So far, at least, Honda have comfortably had the measure of Chevrolet.

This race last year was at a similar time in the season and was won by Penske’s Newgarden after the other Penske of Power suffered an unfortunate puncture while leading. Chevrolet didn’t have it all their own way as Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon put up a very strong fight to Newgarden, as seemed to be the story throughout the championship. Pole, unlike at Long Beach, generally has a good record at Barber; last year’s pole sitter was Power who did come to blows however, in previous years it has been a definite advantage.

Like Long Beach, Barber is a street course so the grouped qualifying method will be used and rookies should have an easier time of it than at ovals but, as the street races so far have illustrated, the walls are close and unforgiving should a driver venture too close!

Only one driver change to speak of this weekend, Rene Binder will take the wheel of the sole Juncos car from Kyle Kaiser for the Austrian’s second IndyCar race.

With it being Barber, you’d be foolish to rule out Penske this weekend because, despite their recent troubles, they’ve always been a force to reckon with around this track. It will be interesting to see if Honda can keep up their good form and take their first win around Barber since 2014 while Rossi will quite probably be the Honda driver to watch once again.

Each race seems to throw up a new, surprising contender, be it Wickens, Jones, Veach or one of the more experienced drivers like Graham Rahal, there always seems to be someone fresh in the mix.

As per usual, practice and qualifying can be streamed on IndyCar’s channels throughout the weekend while the race will be on its usual channel, BT Sport/ESPN. IndyCar will also be joined by Indy Lights and Pro Mazda whose races can all be streamed in all the same places as IndyCar practice and qualifying.

The IndyCar timings for this weekend are as follows:

Friday

Practice 1 – 5:15pm
Practice 2 – 8:50pm

Saturday

Practice 3 – 4:50pm
Qualifying – 9:05pm

Sunday

Race – 8:30pm

*all times in BST

image courtesy of teampenske.com

IndyCar headed back to the street courses and did not disappoint with four caution periods and multiple incidents all of which shook up strategy however, one man stood firm amongst the ensuing chaos, that man was . The #27 Andretti driver led 71 out of a possible 85 laps to take his most convincing win yet.

Qualifying on pole normally doesn’t help you at Long Beach with the last conversion coming back in 2007 but Rossi changed that after getting pole and following it up with a win that never looked in doubt. The American got a good launch off the start but that small lead was soon negated by the first caution of the day, caused by Simon Pagenaud. This proved to be a common theme throughout the race with Rossi surviving four restarts, all of which he pulled a significant lead in. He lost a considerable amount of time behind the soon-to-be lapped car of Zachary Claman De Melo but after this he learnt to be more patient with the lapped traffic, therefore reducing the amount of lost time. Despite undercut attempts from both Will Power and Scott Dixon, Rossi retained the lead, taking his win tally up to three with the other two coming at Watkins Glen last year and of course the 2016 Indy 500.

Power came in behind Rossi on the road after most his challengers fell away via one means or another. He was initially fighting with teammate Josef Newgarden but, with Newgarden on a three-stopper, he was soon out of the picture, leaving Power to push and try to do the undercut on Rossi. With hindsight, Power probably stayed out a lap too long because both he and Dixon encountered a lot of traffic on their last lap out but that’s an easy thing to say looking back on it! After that, Power ended up in a sort of no-mans-land; he couldn’t challenge Rossi for the lead but was well clear of the drivers squabbling for third. On the final restart, Power tried to draw Rossi into using his Push-to-Pass but that backfired with Power being left behind by the eventual race winner.

We had some very impressive performances from some of the younger drivers in the IndyCar field, chief among which were last year’s Rookie of the Year Ed Jones and Andretti’s rookie Zach Veach who finished third and fourth respectively. Neither driver qualified very well but they got lucky with the cautions, especially with the last caution caused by Sebastien Bourdais, which enabled them to climb up the order with Veach scoring his career-best result and Jones equalling his best after his third at the Indy 500 last year.

Last week’s winner Newgarden didn’t have a simple afternoon with the cautions really going against his strategy. The Penske driver suffered as a result of Chevrolet’s higher fuel consumption and opted, fairly early on, to go onto the less favourable three-stop strategy. While the second caution played into Newgarden’s hands and bumped him up the order, both the third and fourth hurt him badly, leaving him fighting with Tony Kanaan for seventh – a battle which the Penske driver won with four laps to go.

Having said that, Newgarden was not the most unfortunate driver of the day, in fact, there were four fighting for that unwanted honour. First to fall was Simon Pagenaud whose race lasted all of about 10 seconds; the #22 driver was tapped by Graham Rahal at Turn 1, spinning the Frenchman and sending him into the wall – ending his race there and then.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was another ill-fated driver at Long Beach, after being clipped by Dixon at Turn 1, the Andretti driver was forced to change his front wing and from there, his race only went downhill. The mid-part of his race was fairly uneventful but just as it was all settling down, Hunter-Reay got caught up in Bourdais’ accident, caused by Jordan King. Hunter-Reay suffered suspension damage as a result which dropped him to near last in the order, eventually finishing four laps down. Hunter-Reay himself labelled his race as a “complete nightmare”.

Bourdais’ race was first undone by his teammate De Melo’s crash which brought out a caution and meant that he couldn’t be serviced when he came into the pits. Before this, Bourdais had pulled off what had to be the overtake of the race, passing both Dixon and Matheus Leist into Turn 1, though he did have to give the place back to Dixon because he crossed the pit exit line. The Frenchman was unfortunately clipped by King on Lap 72 which spun him around and dropped him down to thirteenth in the order.

The final driver to come to blows on the streets of Long Beach was the high-flying rookie Robert Wickens who was brought back down to earth with a bump after gearbox issues compromised his whole race; this was only made worse when he was caught up in the previously mentioned Bourdais accident.

That’s two out of the three races done for the April triple-header with IndyCar now heading to Barber Motorsports Park. Rossi leads the championship with a 22-point advantage over Newgarden who has a further 11-points over Rahal but, with only three races done, it is all still very much to play for.

Full Race Result:

1. Alexander Rossi
2. Will Power
3. Ed Jones
4. Zach Veach (R)
5. Graham Rahal
6. Marco Andretti
7. Josef Newgarden
8. Tony Kanaan
9. James Hinchcliffe
10. Charlie Kimball
11. Scott Dixon
12. Jack Harvey (R)
13. Sebastien Bourdais
14. Matheus Leist (R)
15. Spencer Pigot
16. Kyle Kaiser (R)
17. Max Chilton
18. Jordan King
19. Gabby Chaves
20. Ryan Hunter-Reay
21. Takuma Sato
22. Robert Wickens (R)
23. Zachary Claman De Melo (R) – DNF
24. Simon Pagenaud – DNF

Feature image: Alexandra Rossi courtesy of Henry Mineur via wikipedia

IndyCar heads back to the street courses for the next three races, first up is Long Beach. We’re at round number three and there is still no definitive order with the previous races at St Petersburg and Phoenix giving rather contradicting results.

The last race was just a weekend ago at Phoenix, the first of the April triple-header. It was won by Josef Newgarden in about as dominant fashion as you’re going to get this season. Rookie Robert Wickens shined again to lead much of the race but was ultimately out-done by Newgarden at the final restart. Newgarden’s win was the first for both Penske and Chevrolet this season to make it one all in the battle of the manufactures. With the first two races down, it’s last year’s champion, Newgarden, who sits at the top of the standings tree, closely followed by Alexander Rossi and Sebastien Bourdais – not exactly the top three we expected coming into the season!

After the excitement, and challenge, of their first oval, the rookies are back on more familiar turf as IndyCar hits the streets on Long Beach however, learning the track is still going to be a hard ask for the first timers.

Long Beach is a temporary street circuit which is renowned for being tight, twisting and rather bumpy. The first corner is a very popular overtaking zone while the famous fountain and following section of corners usually provides some sort of action, especially on the first laps and restarts – as Will Power knows all too well.

Last year Long Beach was the second race of the season, as opposed to the third, and was won by James Hinchcliffe who took his first race win since his near fatal Indy 500 crash in 2015. The weekend was not dominated by either Honda or Chevrolet but Honda did take the brunt of the retirements, mostly through accidents. Power was lucky to get anywhere near the end of the race after he was shown the wall by Charlie Kimball on lap one with the latter’s race being ended by the rear suspension damage caused by the incident. Pole didn’t do much for Helio Castroneves who slipped to sixth in the opening laps before finishing tenth; that has been a common theme for all recent Long Beach pole sitters with the last conversion coming back in 2007 by Bourdais.

There are just two driver changes for this weekend; Zachary Claman De Melo is back in the #19 Dale Coyne after Pietro Fittipaldi took the wheel for Phoenix while Jordan King takes over the #20 Ed Carpenter car from Ed Carpenter himself.

As we’re back on the streets, we’re back on the street and road course weekend format so Practice 3 will play a pivotal role in qualifying which, be warned, doesn’t carry much meaning into the race. Pit strategy, accidents and cautions all shake up the order massively so where you start bears little resemblance to where you finish!

As always seems to be the way with IndyCar, predicting who will shine this weekend feels a bit like pulling names out of a hat! After Penske came back fighting at Phoenix, you’d expect them to carry this form through to Long Beach, preferably on more than one of their cars. If what we’ve seen so far this season if anything to go by, only a fool would count out Wickens, Rossi, Bourdais and probably Hinchcliffe as well but there will certainly be some surprise contenders thrown into the mix with them.

Practice and qualifying will be streamed on IndyCar’s various outlets as per usual while the race will be live on the BT Sport/ESPN channel. If you’re looking to catch the action, your timings, in BST, for the weekend are as follows…

Friday

Practice 1 – 6:00pm
Practice 2 – 10:00pm

Saturday

Practice 3 – 6:45pm
Qualifying – 11:30pm

Sunday

Final Warmup – 5:00pm
Race – 9:30pm