Grand Prix prelude to Indy 500
Fifth IndyCar Grand Prix revs up this week
INDIANAPOLIS – Before Indianapolis 500 hoopla can shift into high gear, one of the newest May traditions needs to kick it off.
Now entering its fifth year of existence, the IndyCar Grand Prix has been folded into the fabric of the month building up momentum to Memorial Day weekend. Although it remains a challenge for Verizon IndyCar Series drivers and teams to keep focused on the road course race and not begin to anticipate the crown jewel of the season, they must resist that urge and hunker down on the fifth race of the 2018 campaign.
The IndyCar Grand Prix has historically been conquered by the driver who nabs the pole on Friday, but there’s reason to believe that won’t be the case this year. Things to watch heading into Saturday’s IndyCar Grand Prix (3:30 p.m., ABC):
Winning the pole won’t guarantee victory this year: In three of the four IndyCar GPs, the pole-sitter has gone coast to coast. Team Penske’s Will Power achieved the feat in 2015 and 2017, while Simon Pagenaud took the pole and checkered flag in 2016 en route to a series championship. Only 2014 polesitter Sebastian Saavedra was unable to make hay with the primary position, though he never had a chance after his car stalled on the start. So will we know who’s going to take the checkered flag Saturday after qualifying wraps up Friday evening? I don’t think so.
While passing has never been easy on the Indy road course — there were just 118 over 85 laps last year — there’s reason to believe we might see twice that much action Saturday.
Through the first four races, the new universal aero kits have helped produce nearly twice as many passes (999) this year than in the final year of the competitive aero kit era (544) last season. With the field getting shuffled up so much, it could be more difficult for the pole-sitter to hang on through all 85 laps.
On the other hand, Josef Newgarden won the most recent race (at Barber Motorsports Park) from the pole, while Alexander Rossi achieved the same feat at Long Beach. But I’m chalking that up to coincidence and predicting that for just the second time in five races, the IndyCar Grand Prix pole-sitter will not win.
First lap will still be an adventure: In its four-year history, the IndyCar Grand Prix has never produced a clean pass through lap one.
In the inaugural race, Saavedra stalled and was rammed by Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin. The next year, Helio Castroneves drove into the rear of Scott Dixon coming out of Turn 1 and caused a ripple effect that Sebastien Bourdais would later dub “the massacre on Lap 1, Turn 1.” Two years ago, Bourdais collided with Tony Kanaan on the first turn, ending Kanaan’s day and forcing Bourdais to retire later because of mechanical issues. So what’s with all of the carnage in that first turn? It’s the result of putting 20-plus Indy cars on a superspeedway straightaway that allows them to build up to speeds in excess of 190 mph just before they slam on the brakes to make a sharp right turn.
Last year, all 22 cars made it through the first turn undamaged, but it turned out the turmoil was only momentarily delayed. Ed Jones ran into the back of Kanaan in Turn 7, which also caused Marco Andretti to veer into the grass. None of them recovered, as Andretti finished 16th, Jones 19th and Kanaan 20th.
With the field so jam-packed together, many drivers are tempted to try something clever that winds up ill-fated and costing them the race.
Castroneves will be a factor this weekend: At this point, the only IndyCar race that means anything to Castroneves is the Indy 500. Starting next week, he will again begin his dogged pursuit of racing immortality as he looks to add his name to the elite class of drivers (A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears) who have conquered the 500 four times.
Although Castroneves’ full-time IndyCar career might be over, there’s no extinguishing the competitive fire that burns within him — especially in May, which he kicked off by winning his first sports car race since shifting to Penske’s IMSA program.
Wickens wins the IndyCar Grand Prix: Robert Wickens is due. Actually, he’s long past due. If not for a crash in the penultimate lap in the season opener in St. Petersburg, Fla., and wise strategy play by Newgarden at Arizona, the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports rookie would have opened the season with back-to-back victories. Since then, he endured a rough outing at Long Beach but bounced back at Barber with a fourth-place finish.
Meanwhile, teammate James Hinchcliffe is one of only three other drivers to rack up top-10 finishes at all four races (Newgarden and Graham Rahal are the others), proving that SPM is competitive at every type of track the series visits — road course, street course, ovals.
The IndyCar Grand Prix has also been a favorite of SPM over the past four years with Pagenaud winning the inaugural race in 2014 before moving to Team Penske and Hinchcliffe finishing third two years later.
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