TEAM PENSKE ACING INDYCAR SEASON
Summer isn’t officially here, but the Verizon IndyCar Series is warming up. A few Chevrolet teams are hot, and most Honda teams are not.
Team Penske has another Indianapolis 500 victory and the inside track on winning another championship. But Chip Ganassi Racing still has Scott Dixon, and he’s formidable.
A midseason report card:
GRADE: A
Team Penske
This mega-team with four championship-contending drivers should have more than three wins at this point, but that’s hardly a demerit, as one of those wins was in the Indianapolis 500 by Juan Pablo Montoya.
Penske drivers are first, second and fourth in the standings, setting the table for a record-extending 14th series title. Montoya is driving with great confidence, and Will Power is within striking distance to repeat as champion. Don’t count out Helio Castroneves.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
This is a single-car team using a Honda aero kit, yet it’s fifth in points and beating some of the best combinations in the sport.
Graham Rahal thinks he should be much closer to the front, and he’s probably right. He was flagged for avoidable contact in the season opener in St. Pe- tersburg, Fla. — a tough call. And he was the victim in a crash in Detroit’s first race.
GRADE: B
Chip Ganassi Racing
The Indy 500 was a mixed bag. Dixon won the pole but couldn’t win. Charlie Kimball finished a career-best third. Tony Kanaan led but crashed late. Rookie Sage Karam and fifth driver Sebastian Saavedra crashed, too.
But Dixon has two wins, Kimball was fifth and third in the two Indianapolis races, and Kanaan was strong on the two big ovals. Karam has been told to throttle back his aggressiveness, and Saavedra will fill in for him this weekend in Toronto.
KV Racing Technology
Sebastien Bourdais is having one of his best seasons, winning the second Detroit race, finishing fourth in the Indianapolis road race and consistently qualifying well on the road courses.
Stefano Coletti has been a work in progress, not surprising given it’s his first IndyCar season.
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
This is another of the small Honda teams, but this one has a race victory.
James Hinchcliffe won in the rain at NOLA Motorsports Park.
SPM nearly delivered a onetwo finish in the inaugural trip to Avondale, La., but Castroneves shuffled James Jakes back to third in the closing laps. Jakes was strong at Texas Motor Speedway, too, and Conor Daly had a pair of strong runs in Detroit.
The season has been overshadowed by Hinchcliffe’s life-threatening injuries incurred May 18 in a crash during practice for the Indy 500. Hinchcliffe probably is out for the season.
GRADE: C
Andretti Autosport
Ryan Hunter-Reay has only one top-five finish (fifth at Barber Motorsports Park) and has not led a lap. Marco Andretti’s only laps led have been the result of going off strategy from the leaders. Carlos Munoz scored his first series victory with the same approach in Detroit.
Justin Wilson qualified sixth in the 500, but a late fuel stop forced him to finish deep in the field. Simona De Silvestro finished fourth in Avondale in the best of her three outings.
CFH Racing
For all the positives accompanying the offseason merger and Josef Newgarden’s first career win (at Barber), the all-important 500 was a major struggle with two tub-breaking crashes.
Two more crashes in Detroit added hits to the budget. Both drivers (Newgarden and Ed Carpenter) retired from the Texas race just past the midpoint. J.R. Hildebrand showed well at Indy, further evidence of his talent.
A.J. Foyt Racing
Honda’s struggle has impacted this team, too.
Pairing Jack Hawksworth with Takuma Sato was expected to give the team a lift, but Hawksworth’s highlights are three seventh-place finishes. As expected, Sato has been strong some places, deep in the pack at others. He seemed poised to win in Detroit before time expired in the second race.
Bryan Herta Autosport
The first season with Indy Lights champion Gabby Chaves has gone about as well as could be expected on a single-car Honda team. He hasn’t made mistakes and has kept the car clean. He was the 500’s rookie of the year.
Dreyer & Reinbold/Kingdom Racing
The 500 effort for Townsend Bell was well-prepared, but the 14th-place finish was ho-hum.
GRADE: D
Dale Coyne Racing
The frequent rotation of drivers has made this team difficult to judge.
Carlos Huertas was diagnosed with an inner-ear issue after qualifying 18th for the 500. Rodolfo Gonzalez had contact in two of his three events, and Francesco Dracone was no better than 21st in any of his five races.
The bright spots have been Daly’s last-minute stand-in in Long Beach and Tristan Vautier’s recent runs. But sending James Davison into the path of Pippa Mann on pit road in the 500 led to injuries to two crewmembers.
INCOMPLETE
Lazier Partners Racing
Buddy Lazier’s team started late at Indy and missed the 500. That’s not the way a former winner and series champion should see the late stages of his career.