Depth leading to unpredictability
Six different winners across first seven races of season
Elkhart Lake, Wis. Competitive balance has defined the opening portion of this IndyCar season.
Road America’s history suggests that trend will continue Sunday.
The first seven IndyCar races have featured six different winners. The points lead has changed hands six times. There’s been eight different pole winners, the most since 1961, for each of the first eight events; Alexander Rossi added his name to the list at Road America.
“It says a lot about the series at the moment,” Indianapolis 500 champion Marcus Ericsson said. “There’s so many good drivers, so many good teams. It’s so hard to get it right week after week. Every weekend there’s at least, I would say, like 15 cars that can win that race they have their day.”
Ericsson is second in the standings — three points behind leader Will Power — heading into Sunday’s race at Road America. The permanent road course has featured a different winner in each of its last five IndyCar events.
Power took over the points lead by winning last week at Belle Isle. Ericsson
won the Indy 500 a week earlier. Josef Newgarden is the circuit’s only two-time winner this season with victories at Texas and Long Beach. Scott McLaughlin won the opener at St. Petersburg, Pato O’Ward won at Barber and Colton Herta won on the Indianapolis road course.
The list of winners doesn’t include Rossi, who has been mired in a 44-race losing streak dating to Road America in 2019. But he won his first pole since 2019 in qualifying and is trying Sunday at Road America to end his drought.
Advantage up front
IndyCar has never had a Road America winner come from farther back than 13th, done by Alex Tagliani in 2004. Since the IndyCar series returned to Road America in 2016, all the winners have started ninth or better.
Field includes two women
Simona de Silvestro and Tatiana Calderon are both competing Sunday, marking the first time an IndyCar event has included two female drivers since de Silvestro and Pippa Mann entered the 2015 Indianapolis 500.
Rosenqvist returns
Felix Rosenqvist missed last year’s race after he was injured a week earlier in a crash at Detroit. Rosenqvist is back now and hoping to replicate his 2020 success — which could help his quest to keep his job. The Swede is in a contract year with Arrow McLaren SP
.
Coming back from injury
Callum Illott and Kyle Kirkwood are both racing this weekend with injured hands. Illott missed Detroit with a broken bone in right hand suffered in a crash at Indy. Kirkwood hurt his right wrist last week when he crashed into a tire barrier at Belle Isle.
Road America awaits first makeover since 1995
This will be the last IndyCar race at Road America before it gets repaved, though the course has a full 2022 schedule that includes a NASCAR Cup Series stop July 3. It’s the first time Road America has been repaved since between the 1994 and 1995 seasons.