NTT IndyCar Series

5th April 2019

IndyCar Birmingham Preview

Barber Motorsports Park is the venue for the third round of the 2019 IndyCar season, with Josef Newgarden heading into the weekend at the top of the championship. The 2.38-mile road course is in Alabama and has been Penske territory for the past few years.

Newgarden’s lead in the championship at this stage is not an unexpected one, but the driver in second is not someone who anyone expected to be anything like a championship contender. After his remarkable first win last time out at the Circuit of the Americas, Colton Herta sits in second place in the championship, 18 points shy of Newgarden but with the same margin over third place Scott Dixon.

IndyCar’s first time out at COTA was certainly drama-filled, as was the last time IndyCar came to Barber, though for rather different reasons. Last year, the race at Barber ended up taking place primarily on the Monday, the day after the race was due to run. This was because of torrential rain that caused dangerous levels of aquaplaning, meaning the race had to be stopped after just over 20 laps and then continued as a timed race the following day.

This didn’t stop Newgarden taking the victory, while his Penske teammates, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, had horrendous races, a trait that seems to have started to play into this season as well. This year, some showers are predicted throughout the weekend but, if the forecast is to be believed, there shouldn’t be anything like the downpours of 2018.

Barber is the third road course of the season, with the usual road qualifying and race formatting in place, as it has been for the last two races, meaning qualifying will again be the two groups of twelve halving until we reach the Fast Six.

Like COTA, there will be a 24-car grid for Barber, with only two changes since the last race. Kyle Kaiser and Juncos will not be present, and it is not known when either will be returning to the series. Ben Hanley and DragonSpeed are back on the grid after making their debut at St Petersburg, before they take a two-race break, returning for the Indy 500. Other than that, everyone else is where they were at COTA, with very few changes scheduled from now until the Indy 500.

As mentioned earlier, Penske has always been strong at Barber, winning every race here since 2016 and taking every pole since 2015. In that time, the pole-sitter has taken the win in two out of the four races, though last year was a bit of an anomaly. As for this year, one of the Penske drivers desperately needs a return to form; this is, as it has been for most of the last year, Pagenaud, who’s seat is looking more and more at risk with each disappointing race.

2018 Barber podium, L-R: Ryan Hunter-Reay, Josef Newgarden, James Hinchcliffe. Credit: Chris Jones/IndyCar

Elsewhere, Dixon and Alexander Rossi could both do with wins, or at least podiums, to really state their respective intentions to challenge for this championship, or they will run the risk of Newgarden getting a more comfortable gap at the front. Herta will be looking to carry on his momentum from COTA however, he is not really expected to be in the fight for the win or even the podium, but, then again, he wasn’t expected to be at COTA either.

None of the Road to Indy programme will at racing at Barber, meaning it’s just IndyCar for this weekend. NBC and Sky Sports F1 will be showing qualifying and the race as usual in the US and UK respectively, and all the timings you need for the weekend are as follows…

April 5

Practice 1 – 12:15pm (EDT) / 5:15pm (BST)
Practice 2 – 3:50pm / 8:50pm

April 6

Practice 3 – 11:45am / 4:45pm
Qualifying – 4:00pm / 9:00pm

April 7

Final Warmup – 12:10pm / 5:10pm
Race – 4:15pm / 9:15pm

Entry List:

#	Driver	Team
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske
4	Matheus Leist	AJ Foyt Racing
5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
7	Marcus Ericsson (R)	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Felix Rosenqvist (R)	Chip Ganassi Racing
12	Will Power	Team Penske
14	Tony Kanaan	AJ Foyt Racing
15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan
18	Sebastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing
19	Santino Ferrucci (R)	Dale Coyne Racing
20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske
26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport
27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport
28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport
30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan
31	Patricio O’Ward (R)	Carlin
59	Max Chilton	Carlin
60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing/Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
81	Ben Hanley	DragonSpeed
88	Colton Herta (R)	Harding Steinbrenner
98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport

Featured Image Credit: Stephen King/IndyCar

25th March 201925th March 2019

IndyCar COTA Report: Herta becomes youngest ever IndyCar race winner

Rookie Colton Herta now holds the title of youngest IndyCar race winner of all time, at the age of 18, after winning the inaugural IndyCar race at the Circuit of the Americas. Herta held off 2017 champion Josef Newgarden to take the win, while pole-sitter Will Power’s race unravelled after Felix Rosenqvist and James Hinchcliffe came together.

Herta qualified in a remarkable fourth place, making him top rookie and giving him a chance at challenging for his first podium, in what was only his third race. The Harding Steinbrenner driver passed Ryan Hunter-Reay on the first lap to take third place, a position which he held for the majority of the race. He briefly passed Alexander Rossi for second but was then shuffled back to third during the stops and stayed there until the race was turned on its head at the final stops.

Herta pitted earlier than leaders Power and Rossi, taking the lead when Rosenqvist and Hinchcliffe caused the race’s only caution before Power and Rossi had stopped. Herta has proved all the doubters wrong in a race where he thought the podium was as good as it was going to get.

Power had not put a foot wrong all weekend and had led all the laps up until the fateful final stops. Both him and Rossi were taking a risk by staying out in what is known as the ‘danger zone’, where a caution can ruin your race, and the gamble backfired. They both pitted during the caution and dropped back through the field – but Power never re-joined the race.

The Penske driver couldn’t pull away from his pit box and, despite the best efforts of the #12 crew, he was unable to get the car going, with what was presumed to be a driveshaft issue. As for Rossi, well he did get back into the race and, after some signature Rossi overtakes and saves, he came home in ninth, which was a good recovery but not what he was hoping for.

Unlike Power and Rossi, Newgarden and Hunter-Reay both benefitted massively from the timing of the caution and were shuffled up the order, despite being off the pace of the leaders all day. After fairly quiet and distant races, the pair filled out the final two spots on the podium, though they were unable to challenge Herta for the win.

Graham Rahal, Sebastien Bourdais and Marco Andretti also all lucked in with the caution and finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively. None of them had a good time in qualifying and it was looking to be an unremarkable race for the trio, but their luck finally turned, and they scored some of the best results any of them have seen in a long while.

Andretti’s race very nearly unravelled when Takuma Sato got a bit too close for comfort, but both drivers got away with it and finished the race. Sato came home in seventh after just getting past rookie Patricio O’Ward on the final lap. O’Ward’s race looked like it would end in something higher than eighth at certain points in the race, but a slow stop at the second round of stops hampered his progress, before he then struggled at the end of his last stint, losing two spots in the last ten laps.

Track limits, and the complete lack of enforcement of them, proved to be quite the talking point of the weekend and played a significant role in causing the race’s only caution. Rosenqvist and Hinchcliffe had been fighting in a group for a few laps after their third stops and both went very wide in the small straight between Turns 19 and 20. Rosenqvist went to turn back onto the track sooner than Hinchcliffe and they collided, sending the Swede into the wall just before pit entry and leaving the Canadian with a broken front wing and puncture. No action was taken by race direction, but the collision had huge consequences for the whole field due to the timing of it.

Reigning champion Scott Dixon was one of the drivers who fell foul of this, though he had struggled with pace all race – as had Chip Ganassi teammate Rosenqvist. Dixon was up to as high as third at one point, but ultimately came home in a rather disappointing thirteenth, a result that will do nothing to help his title defence.

That concludes what was a very eventful and surprising first race at COTA for IndyCar with the series next in action at Barber Motorsports Park on April 7.

Full Race Results:

Colton Herta (R)
Josef Newgarden
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Graham Rahal
Sebastien Bourdais
Marco Andretti
Takuma Sato
Patricio O’Ward (R)
Alexander Rossi
Jack Harvey
Spencer Pigot
Tony Kanaan
Scott Dixon
Ed Jones
Marcus Ericsson (R)
James Hinchcliffe
Matheus Leist
Kyle Kaiser (R)
Simon Pagenaud
Santino Ferrucci (R)
Max Chilton
Zach Veach
Felix Rosenqvist

DNF – Will Power (driveshaft)

Championship Top 5:

Josef Newgarden
Colton Herta (R)
Scott Dixon
Alexander Rossi
Graham Rahal

Featured Image Credit: Chris Jones/IndyCar

22nd March 2019

IndyCar COTA Preview

For round two of the IndyCar season, the series is heading to Austin, Texas for their only completely new track of the year. This new addition is F1 and MotoGP venue the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), a track on which only a handful drivers on the current IndyCar grid have raced at.

Josef Newgarden leads the championship going into the second round of the season by virtue of winning the first race at St Petersburg. The 2017 champion’s win was a relatively straight-forward one, with Newgarden dominating the race after the second round of pit stops. Reigning champion Scott Dixon could only manage second place, as he embarks on a challenge to defend his title for the first time in his IndyCar career.

Ed Jones has been cleared to race at COTA despite breaking his finger in a crash with Matheus Leist at St Pete, with the latter uninjured and also racing in Austin.

Since St Pete, Dixon, Alexander Rossi, Simon Pagenaud, Sebastien Bourdais and Colton Herta have all been out to Sebring, racing in the IMSA 12-hour race at the famous venue, though only Bourdais managed to bring home a trophy.

The first IndyCar race at COTA is an exciting event for all involved, and it has been highly anticipated for a number of years, even before it was officially confirmed to be on the 2019 calendar. Road course rules apply to COTA so qualifying will be the same as it was in St Pete with the grid split into two groups of twelve, based on practice times, and the fastest six from each then fighting for places in the Fast Six.

The driver with the most experience around COTA is by far and away Marcus Ericsson who, despite being one of the newest drivers to IndyCar, has competed at the track for the last five years in F1. Rossi also raced at COTA back in 2015 during his very brief spell in F1 and a selection of the other drivers have competed in an IMSA race or two at the track. Generally speaking, it is not a track that a lot of drivers have much experience on, meaning it should be a fairly level playing field throughout.

The grid is broadly the same as it was at St Pete with only three notable differences. Reigning Indy Lights champion Patricio O’Ward takes over from Charlie Kimball in the #23 Carlin for his first race of the season, after his Harding deal fell through earlier in the year. Kyle Kaiser and Juncos are making their first appearance for 2019 in what is their only confirmed race for this season, so far at least. The only other change is the omission of Ben Hanley and DragonSpeed, who will return to the grid next round at Barber Motorsports Park.

There is no form book for this track, so any predictions on who will go well here are merely educated guesses. At St Pete, Honda clearly had some reliability issues and they’ve been very quiet about them since, with no notion as to whether they’ve actually found what the problems were. Based on the form of one race, Chevrolet seems to have the upper hand, but that could all change at COTA. All drivers will be hoping for a good race in Austin, but only time will tell who will shine and who will struggle.

NBC is broadcasting the race in the US while in the UK it will be on Sky Sports F1 again, though this time hopefully with fewer coverage breakups and adverts! Indy Lights are the only of the three Road to Indy series racing at COTA with their two races held on Saturday and Sunday. The times you’ll need to watch the action this weekend are as follows…

March 22

Practice 1 – 11:15am (EDT) / 3:15pm (GMT)
Practice 2 – 3:05pm / 7:05pm
Practice Warmup – 4:10pm / 8:10pm

March 23

Practice 3 – 11:00am / 3:00pm
Qualifying – 3:00pm / 7:00pm

March 24

Race – 1:30pm / 5:30pm

Entry List:

#	Driver	Team
2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske
4	Matheus Leist	AJ Foyt Racing
5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
7	Marcus Ericsson (R)	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing
10	Felix Rosenqvist (R)	Chip Ganassi Racing
12	Will Power	Team Penske
14	Tony Kanaan	AJ Foyt Racing
15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan
18	Sebastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing
19	Santino Ferrucci (R)	Dale Coyne Racing
20	Ed Jones	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing
22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske
23	Patricio O’Ward (R)	Carlin
26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport
27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport
28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport
30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan
32	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing
59	Max Chilton	Carlin
60	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing/Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
88	Colton Herta (R)	Harding Steinbrenner
98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport

Featured Image Credit: Stephen King/IndyCar

11th March 2019

IndyCar St Petersburg Report: Newgarden fends off Dixon to take first win at St Pete

Josef Newgarden took the first win of the 2019 season at St Petersburg, a win that marks his first around the demanding track and Penske’s first there since 2016. He held off a late challenge from defending champion Scott Dixon in what as an action-packed season opener.

After being shuffled back at the start, Newgarden didn’t come to the lead until the second round of pit stops, but there he out-foxed the rest of the leading group and emerged from the pits with a near five-second lead over Marco Andretti, who was doing a good job of holding up the rest of the field. With the help of Andretti once more in the closing stages of the race, Newgarden came under threat from Dixon with the lead dropping to as low as 1.2 seconds but, once Andretti was out of the picture, Newgarden rebuilt his lead to take the win.

Dixon was forced to settle for second-place having not led a single lap of the race. He managed to pass Will Power during the first Andretti hold up, taking second place and allowing him to have a chance at fighting Newgarden for the win. However, the lead Newgarden had built up was big enough to act as an effective buffer, even when Andretti came back into the mix. It wasn’t quite the perfect start to Dixon’s title defence, but it was good enough.

For a while, it looked like the other Chip Ganassi of Felix Rosenqvist would be going for the win, but he got caught out and dropped back by the second round of stops. Rosenqvist passed Newgarden going into Turn 1 on the first lap, putting him in second and in a position to fight Power for the lead. The Swede took the lead after the first restart and went onto lead 31 laps in his debut race, the most bar race winner Newgarden. He came home in a respectable fourth place and showed that he’s ready to take it to teammate Dixon this season.

After starting on pole, Power had to settle for a podium in third with his nemesis, like so many others, being the second stops and Andretti’s rather wide car. He couldn’t clear Andretti after the stops and was passed by Dixon who then disappeared up the road, meaning Power was unable to improve his position in the final stages of the race, but he was still happy with his result, given how badly St Pete has treated him over the past two years.

Alexander Rossi was another driver who was forced to settle for a position probably lower than he was hoping for, especially after he came so close to the victory last year. Like last year, a rookie got the better of him, though this time it was Rosenqvist and not Robert Wickens, meaning Rossi couldn’t do much better than fifth having led two laps during the pit stop sequences.

Wickens attended the race with his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team to support their drivers and celebrate his thirtieth birthday with his fellow drivers. Attending St Pete was one of Wickens’ many goals on his road to recovery after his enormous crash at Pocono last season, with the Canadian a welcome figure in the paddock once more.

On track, SPM didn’t have such a good weekend with James Hinchcliffe finishing in sixth after getting the better of Penske’s Simon Pagenaud in what was a race-long battle. On the other side of the garage, Marcus Ericsson didn’t even see the chequered flag with a water pressure issue cutting his IndyCar debut short. Their sort-of-teammate Jack Harvey finished tenth in the #60 Meyer Shank supported SPM entry, in his first of ten races this season.

Rosenqvist may have taken the title of top rookie but fellow rookies Colton Herta and Santino Ferrucci were not to be forgotten in the first race of the season, finishing eighth and ninth respectively. Herta’s the only Harding driver after they failed to get an engine lease for their second car and Ferrucci lost teammate Bourdais 11 laps into the race, meaning the two rookies had to go it solo, but still delivered more than respectable performances.

One recurring feature of the race was Honda engine failures, of which there were four with Ryan Hunter-Reay, Takuma Sato, Ericsson and Bourdais all suffering issues that led to their retirements. While Honda had four failures, their rival Chevrolet had none, meaning the former really needs to step up on the reliability side of things, otherwise the Chevy teams could be leaving them well behind.

That concludes the season opener at St Petersburg with IndyCar back in action on March 24 at the Circuit of the Americas.

Full Race Results:

Josef Newgarden
Scott Dixon
Will Power
Felix Rosenqvist (R)
Alexander Rossi
James Hinchcliffe
Simon Pagenaud
Colton Herta (R)
Santino Ferrucci (R)
Jack Harvey
Spencer Pigot
Graham Rahal
Marco Andretti
Zach Veach
Tony Kanaan
Max Chilton
Charlie Kimball
Ben Hanley (R)

DNF – Takuma Sato (gearbox), Marcus Ericsson (R) (water pressure), Ed Jones (collision), Matheus Leist (collision), Ryan Hunter-Reay (engine), Sebastien Bourdais (engine)

(Featured Image Credit: Karl Zemlin/IndyCar)