TEAM PENSKE
You wouldn’t want to be a Penske engineer this week because, even aside from the team’s (by Penske standards) disastrous qualifying runs – 13th, 22nd, 25th, 28th – there are also some real conundrums. Yet-to-conquer-indy Josef Newgarden has seemed unhappiest of the quartet with his race set-up, yet starts nearest the front. Helio Castroneves seemed confident and quick in race trim but starts nearest the back. Meanwhile, the two most recent winners of the 500 for The Captain, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, have said they’re very happy with the handling of their cars in race trim – but so many people have said that after poor qualifying runs that they can’t all be right, or at least not relative to each other.
Pagenaud seemed to have a pleasingly settled car in dirty air, and could also tow past other cars – yes, even Honda-powered ones. And this should help keep the dream alive that Chevrolet is more or less evenly matched with Honda at 1.3-bar race boost. Power, meanwhile, was consistently among the fastest in terms of average speed over a 30-lap run in practice, and being kind to tyres could be crucial… except some drivers believe the latest track-surface treatment means the extra weight of the aeroscreen is not too detrimental to the rubber.
On Sunday, there’ll be another dilemma, for race strategists. Say all four Penskes are running around the same place they started and there’s an early caution, around lap 15. Do all three of the lowly starters get called to the pits in order to go offstrategy, or do you cover more bases and pit one or two of them?
Watching how this works out for The Captain’s armada will be fascinating.
“CASTRONEVES SEEMED QUICK AND CONFIDENT IN RACE TRIM BUT STARTS NEAREST THE BACK”