IndyCar series visits Texas
The eyes of the motorsports world will be watching Jimmie Johnson’s bright-blue No. 48 Carvana Honda this weekend, as the seven-time NASCAR Cup series champion returns to oval racing in open-wheel form. But with the most Indy cars on-track at Texas Motor Speedway in a decade (including seven newcomers), possible shaky track conditions and the potential end of a relationship that’s held strong since 1997, there’s plenty more to keep an eye on.
Will oval rookies bring on-track chaos?
Sunday’s 27-car field comes with a unique combination of experience and unfamiliarity with the 1.5-mile tri-oval. The grid will include drivers that have won the last 10 races and 15 of the last 20 – coming from seven drivers overall. For seven others, Sunday’s early afternoon race will be their Texas introduction, including the oval debut for six of them.
Two years ago, we saw a similar level of Texas and general oval inexperience – three true rookies and two Texas newcomers – and for some, it was ugly. Then-rookie Rinus VeeKay crashed twice, once in practice and once in the race, and in the latter, took out fellow rookie Alex Palou.
Though all five rookies (Kyle Kirkwood, Devlin DeFrancesco, David Malukas, Callum Ilott and Christian Lundgaard) tested just last week at TMS along with fellow track newcomer Romain Grosjean, running the venue in race conditions, as well as all-out qualifying runs, is a different beast. Race 1 a year ago saw veterans succumb to TMS’s unique track difficulties (more on that farther down), as Josef Newgarden sailed into the back of Sebastien Bourdais to end the No. 14 car’s day early before Felix Rosenqvist’s daring pass on James Hinchcliffe on entry to Turn 2 pushed the former Andretti driver into an eventual spin.
Race 2 hadn’t even officially started before six drivers’ days had ended when
Pietro Fittipaldi jumped the green flag and sent the back of the pack into a frenzy.
There’s a different level of nerves in play and that much higher a need for perfect driving when it comes to racing on an oval that’s so difficult to pass on. Several contenders (Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi and Newgarden) started on the wrong foot in St. Pete and will be eager to catch-up, and one of the several drivers who started strong is bound to have a frustrating qualifying run. When all that comes to a head Sunday afternoon, we’re bound to see some fireworks.
Potential race-winners to watch
If you need a driver to make a wager on, look no further than the six veterans at Penske and Ganassi. The two teams have combined for 14 of the last 18 racewinners at TMS – including five of the last six. Scott Dixon stands as the winningest IndyCar driver at the track, including three of the last five. Before
O’Ward’s win in Race 2 a year ago, Dixon, Newgarden and Will Power had combined to win the five most recent IndyCar races at the track.
Add in Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, the St. Pete winner who finished 2nd in his oval debut at TMS a year ago, and Alex Palou, who took 4th and 7th a year ago, and you start to build a formidable group you’d expect to make up a good chunk of the top-5.
Outside them, my eyes are on two other drivers: O’Ward and Graham Rahal. The former has made a stunning start to IndyCar oval racing, with seven top-4 finishes making up his 10 starts. His last six (dating back to WWT Raceway in 2020) run 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th and 2nd. For all the short-comings Arrow McLaren SP showed in the seasonopener, O’Ward’s oval strength and willingness to toe the proper side of “daring” makes a track like Texas an optimal one.
Much of the same can be said for Rahal, who won here in 2016 and since has rattled off finishes of 4th, 6th, 3rd, 17th (largely caused by a technical glitch that didn’t allow him to start the race on time), 5th and 3rd. It seems like I write this before just about every race, but the 33-year-old is bound to break through for his first win in nearly five years and Texas makes as good of sense as anywhere.
How IndyCar may create a 2nd lane
Some of this could change before cars take the green flag Sunday, but IndyCar continues to deal with poor track conditions that threaten the quality of its racing at TMS. Ever since NASCAR elected to apply the PJ1 traction compound to the outer lanes of the track for its 2019 Cup races to give them more grip for cars to run two or three-wide, IndyCar has struggled to run even two abreast in the corners.
Described at times as “icy” and “slippery”, those portions of the track has been scrubbed several times, but remnants of the material remain and what was originally laid down stained the surface so that it absorbs more heat faster – meaning the Firestone tires have substantially less grip when running at race speeds.
IndyCar has dealt with it since it first showed up for the 2020 race, and since then, no usable fix has been found between the track, the sanctioning body and Firestone.
Now down-to-the-wire before the fourth open-wheel race on the surface, IndyCar is still scrambling to find a way to bring grip to the higher lanes that would allow more passing and an altogether more enjoyable race.
During this week’s team manager meeting, the series proposed adding 30 minutes of practice following the midday qualifying session where teams willing to partake would be given a set of old tires (one per racing team, not per car) and allowed to strap on far more downforce to keep the cars better suctioned to the ground.
Then, they’d be asked to run solely over the PJ1-stained portion of the track, which at high enough speeds would deposit rubber onto that section that would then, in turn give it more grip.