Five thoughts on the 500, from overlooked talent to a Team Penske rally,
Hunter-Reay, Hildebrand can make a run
FIVE THOUGHTS ON THE INDIANAPOLIS 500:
Not enough people are talking about Ryan Hunter-Reay
and JR Hildebrand. The world is enamored with Fernando-mania; Alexander Rossi is the reigning champion and starting on the front line; and Takuma Sato and Marco Andretti earned spots in the Fast Nine. The headlines detailing the exploits of Andretti Autosport abound, yet none seem to be about the race’s champion of 2014. Hunter-Reay is heading into Sunday the forgotten man on his own team and a favorite no one is talking about.
Not only has he won this race before, but his 10th-place qualifying effort — he posted the fourthfastest four-lap average speed at 231.442 mph — demonstrated he’ll be driving one of the top cars for the top team in the field.
Hildebrand is the other contender flying under the radar. The Californian has been overshadowed by the stellar performance of his teammate and adopted Hoosier Ed Carpenter. Carpenter, who will be starting in the middle of Row 1, has more than earned the attention he’s garnered, but Hildebrand was only slightly slower on Pole Day than his boss and has an Indianapolis résumé that can’t be ignored.
Hildebrand would already have his face on the Borg-Warner Trophy if not for the heartbreaking last-lap crash he endured in 2011 as a rookie. Instead he settled for runner-up and in the years after has tallied three more top-10 finishes. Starting on the outside of Row 2 — the best starting spot of his career — and with one of the top Chevrolets in the field, Hildebrand is poised to pull down victory lane Sunday afternoon. Fernando Alonso has made
fans of all of us. This could have gone very differently. A rock star from the world’s premier openwheel series, Alonso could have crossed the Atlantic and gone full-on prima donna.
But that’s not what has transpired. Alonso has embraced the madness from the moment he stepped off the plane in Indianapolis.
What’s more, there have been no whispers that the smile he readily flashes for American cameras disappears behind closed doors. Or that his enthusiasm for the race is anything but genuine.
“At no point, it seems, has he
said, ‘I’m Fernando Alonso, a twotime world champion, and I’m above all of this,’ ” NBC IndyCar and Formula One play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffey said. “He got here and said, ‘Count me in. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’
“He’s been a terrific lesson for everybody on how you handle yourself with grace. I know he’s not a huge fan of media commitments, but the way he’s handled this 500 campaign has been wonderful for the young drivers watching him.” Team Penske will not go
away quietly. They’re not happy. This is a team and an owner that are never happy, never satisfied until they’ve won everything there is to win, but Pole Day was bad, and it has IndyCar’s perennial power in somewhat uncharted territory.
During a media luncheon Thursday, every member of Penske’s fearsome five mentioned their disappointment with how qualifying went down; only Will Power occupies a spot in the first three rows.
But it would be a mistake to count out a group this talented. It just seems impossible to imagine that a garage that includes a three-time 500 winner (Helio Castroneves), a two-time winner (Juan Pablo Montoya), the defending series champion (Simon Pagenaud), the hottest driver in the series (Power) and one of the best young drivers in the sport (Josef Newgarden) won’t have a say in how this race shakes out. Pagenaud told The Indianapo
lis Star on Thursday that while he’s unhappy about not having the speed of some rival Honda drivers, he’s confident his team and those of his teammates will have strategies that will help them close the gap.
Doubt him at your own risk. A couple of Honda cars are destined for (engine) failure. There’s no way to know which car it will strike or when, but it’s going to happen. It seems almost inevitable, as the manufacturer has seen several engines blow up in May — from those of Charlie Kimball and Sebastien Bourdais in the IndyCar Grand Prix to those of Graham Rahal, Bourdais again and Oriol Servia during 500 practice — and it has yet to understand the root causes of the failures.
Rossi, Hunter-Reay, Andretti and other Honda drivers each said Thursday that there’s nothing they can they do but hope it doesn’t happen to their car during the race. Each said Honda is working hard to address the issue, but none could say with certainty that the problem has been fixed.
“The Hondas seem to lack some durability to a degree,” Newgarden said. “How’s that going to play out in the race? I don’t know. I mean hopefully they’re not too reliable. We feel comfortable with Chevrolet that we have a good reliable package. It’s been very consistent, so we know what we’ve got. But with Honda, yeah, it could be very difficult. Maybe they have an incident that puts out a couple of their cars. For us, that’s not a bad thing.”
IndyCar and IMS deserve a ton of credit for making 101 the success that it is. Forget Alonso. This race didn’t need Alonso. Don’t misunderstand. IndyCar and IMS are extremely happy and proud to have him here, but they didn’t need him to make this race a success. Remember, IMS President Doug Boles predicted the race would exceed 300,000 fans well before the Alonso deal came together. Months later, he stated this race will be the most well-attended 500 in the last 15 years with the exception of last year. That’s quite an achievement after the massive success of the 100th running.
Last year, three-time 500 champion Bobby Unser spoke for many when he said, “I’ve never seen excitement like this for the race in my life. But you know what I’m worried about? I’m afraid this is just going to be a flash in the pan, a one-year thing. I’m really worried about next year.”
No need to worry, Mr. Unser. Before Sunday’s race even begins, it’s already been a huge success.