Karam wins IndyCar’s first iRacing Challenge race
INDIANAPOLIS – By virtue of iRacing experience, Sage Karam was the heavy favorite.
Even outspoken sim-racing supporter Felix Rosenqvist, dubbed by many in the IndyCar paddock as the likely winner of Saturday’s first of six iRacing Challenge events, agreed.
But noticeably throughout the week, the part-time Dreyer and Reinbold driver, who got into iRacing at the platform’s forefront in 2007, kept turning lap times in the middle of the pack of 25 drivers entered in Saturday’s race on a virtual Wakins Glen road course track.
Rosenqvist went to bed Friday with a small dose of butterflies – the nerves ahead of the prospect of a win of any kind catching the 28-year-old Chip Ganassi Racing driver by surprise.
But then Karam dropped the race’s fastest qualifying time and rode it to a relatively simple victory, 3.6 seconds ahead of Rosenqvist, who shadowed the 25-year-old nearly all afternoon but could never close the gap while weaving in and out of lapped traffic down the stretch.
In the end, maybe Karam’s most successful technique all week, while hopping on and off calls, texts and FaceTime
chats with drivers across the paddock, was what he called a heavy dose of “sandbagging” his way through the week’s series of open practice runs.
It was important to Karam, who understood he might have a half-step on the field entering Saturday’s initial race in the Challenge, to help the rest of the field get up to speed – helping guys build their sim setups, linking up drivers with the right equipment and even giving tutelage when it came to the actual driving. But he could still stay ahead by just not showing his own hand.
“I was an open book. I had a lot of best friends this week. Everyone knew I was a sim guy, and there were so many guys setting up rigs and calling me. I was a pretty popular guy there for a bit,” he said. “But (sandbagging), that was so hard. I just couldn’t put a lap in ’cause I knew these guys on the podium with me, if they saw me put in a 24.6(-second lap), they were gonna sit there all night till they put one in.”
It’s also why he was curiously missing during Saturday’s prerace practice – opting to run offline on his own to perfect his qualification effort, rather than to flash it for the paddock to see.
And to his credit, the second-place Rosenqvist confirmed Karam’s intuition after the race.
“Whatever lap time someone makes,
you have to try and beat it (during the week),” he said. “It doesn’t really matter which track or who it is. If someone is making a time, that’s the danger with the sim. You can spend endless hours to get quicker and quicker.”
In the end, Karam executed his prerace plan – qualify first, lead 45 laps and pray – to a T, edging out Rosenqvist and third-place finisher Will Power, who finished in their qualifying spots. Karam ran away from the field early – so much that the race broadcast streamed on indycar.com and its YouTube and Facebook Live platforms rarely showed his car.
But it didn’t mean he was without some fireworks.
Near the end, with Rosenqvist yo-yoing between a 2.5- and 3.5-second gap as the two wove around lapped traffic, Karam found himself behind Road to Indy phenom Kyle Kirkwood, driving Ryan Hunter-Reay’s No. 28 Andretti Autosport car. All of a sudden, the Indy Lights driver spun, forcing Karam to pick a side and hope.
All four drivers would stay close the rest of the way, sweeping fourth through seventh as the only other drivers finishing on the lead lap (Scott McLaughlin-47.9 seconds back, rookie Oliver Askew-50.4, Simon Pagenaud-1:22.7 and Josef Newgarden-1:26.4).
Alexander Rossi (17th) found his car careening through the air during an opening-lap crash while trying to pass Newgarden in the chicane, while Zach Veach and others weathered early accidents.
IndyCar’s and iRacing’s YouTube streams consistently combined for 45,000 fans throughout the race, with more on other platforms. Tweaks will follow in the coming weeks – new tracks and selection processes and a flurry of other IndyCar and guest drivers.