Indycar 2017 Phoenix Grand Prix

2017 Phoenix Grand Prix

Simon Pagenaud got his first oval victory on the one mile oval of Phoenix Raceway.  Pitting late on a pit sequence gained him a lap on most of the field and he dominated the majority of the race leading 116 of the 250 laps.  Will Power finished second,  finally earning a good finish that has eluded him all season, and JR Hildebrand was impressive finishing P3 while driving with a broken hand.

 
 

2017 Phoenix Grand Prix

POLE SITTER:  Helio Castroneves

TOP 10

1. Simon Pagenaud: His first win on an oval!

2. Will Power: His second podium finish at Phoenix.

3. JR Hildebrand : A great finish for JR and for Ed Carpenter Racing.

4. Helio Castroneves: Another fourth place finish has him up to 6th in points.

5. Scott Dixon:  Another Top 5 but also his lowest finish so far this season.

6. Tony Kanaan:  His lowest finish in five starts at Phoenix.

7. Ed Carpenter:  A good return on ovals to start his season.

8. Charlie Kimball:  His first Top 10 of the season.

9. Josef Newgarden:  His fourth Top 10 of the season and still 3rd in points.

10. Carlos Munoz: The 25th Top 10 of his Indycar career.

Different Teams (4):  Penske, ECR, Ganassi, AJ Foyt

Different Countries (6):  France, Australia, USA(4), Brazil(2), New Zealand, Colombia)

 

Fun Facts

4 Lead Changes among 4 Drivers

(Pagenaud, Castroneves, Power, Newgarden)

Average Speed: 144.058 mph
2 Cautions for 32 Laps
 

Next Up...
THE MONTH OF MAY
The GP of Indianapolis on Saturday, May 13th
and
The 101st Running of the Indianapolis 500
Sunday, May 28th

Mid Ohio Indycar 2016

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is best known to the Indycar nation for its high speeds and many turns.  As Indycars took to the track that so many call Scott Dixon's playground, Graham Rahal looked to defend his 2015 win there.
  As the green flag dropped, Simon Pagenaud, the pole sitter, led the field through the first corner for the sixth time this year.  He took the early lead as he and teammate Will Power pulled away from the field.  Around lap ten, strategy calls were made as teams decided to gamble and come to the pits early.  After pit stops, top contender Scott Dixon had contact with the #3 of Helio Castroneves, and Dixon's day was over.  At the restart, Josef Newgarden got clipped from behind and lost a rear bumper pod (sounds familiar).  He had to come into the pits, and lost a lap, but battled the leader and got back onto the lead lap around halfway through the race.  As strategy started to play out, Mikhail Aleshin took the lead and was driving away from the field.  Rookies Conor Daly, RC Enerson and Spencer Pigot all spent time near the front of the pack.
 As the end of the race neared, Mikhail Aleshin's team sent him out of his pit box and into Josef Newgarden, thus ending Aleshin's hopes at his first Indycar win. 
Simon Pagenaud regained the lead, and teammate Will Power put up a fight, but at the end, Pagenaud took his 4th win of the season.

Top Ten

1. Simon Pagenaud: Back on top for his fourth win of the season.

2. Will Power:  Has not finished lower than second in the past five races!

3. Carlos Munoz:  A great run all day for his second podium of the season.

4. Graham Rahal:  Another strong finish at his home track.
5. James Hinchcliffe:  His seventh Top Ten in 12 races this season.

6. Conor Daly:  Led 22 laps for a total of 56 laps led this season.

7. Spencer Pigot:   The best finish of his young Indycar career.
8. Charlie Kimball:  Ran strong after starting fifth.  His 8th Top Ten this season.

9. Takuma Sato:   A great run till a incident with Bourdais took them both out of the Top Five.
Sorry @TakumaSatoRacer . I just got too close and locked up behind, my bad...

— Sébastien Bourdais (@BourdaisOnTrack) July 31, 2016

 10. Josef Newgarden:  A great run to finish tenth after two incidents that were not his fault, had him fighting from the back all day.

Different Teams: 8 ( Penske, Andretti Autosport, Rahal-Letterman, Schmidt Peterson, Dale Coyne Racing, ECR, Ganassi, A.J. Foyt Racing)

Different Countries: 7 (France, Australia, Brazil, USA (5), Canada, Japan)

 

FUN FACTS

 Average Speed:  110.853 mph

 Time: 1 hour 50 Minutes

2 Cautions for 10 Laps

Lead Changes: 7 among 5 drivers (Mikhail Aleshin, Pagenaud, Daly, Montoya, Power)

Best Lap: 105.728 mph by Helio Castroneves

THOUGHTS:

RC Enerson did a fantastic job all weekend in his first Indycar race.  The nineteen year old got up to speed quickly in practices and racing strong till he unfortunately ran out of fuel.

Huge shoutout to my teammate @RCEnerson , the dude was fast all weekend and made no mistakes. Should be really proud of that #USA #youngguns

— Conor Daly (@ConorDaly22) August 1, 2016

Mikhail Aleshin ran a super race and we really hoped to see him win his first Indycar race.

Kudos to Roger Penske for letting his drivers race out on the track and not giving any team orders.
 

GP of Indianapolis 2016

The third running of the Indianapolis GP started similar to the previous two with a crash in Turn One.

Tony Kanaan and Sebastian Bourdais got together and luckily everyone else got through fine.

And similar to the previous two Indycar races this season,
Simon Pagenaud won the race.
 

1.  Simon Pagenaud   Won his second pole in a row and sits comfortable atop the season points standings with 3 wins and 2 seconds in five races.

2.  Helio Castroneves   His highest finish of the season heading into his attempt to join the Four Time Winners Club at the Indy 500.

3.  James Hinchcliffe   A fantastic drive for his first podium since his near fatal practice accident at Indy last year.

4.  Graham Rahal    His third Top 5 of the season.  Sits 5th in season points standings.

5.  Charlie Kimball    Consistency.   His third 5th place finish at five Indy GP

6.  Conor Daly   Passed Helio to lead 14 laps mid race!  Ran out of 'Push to Passes' and fell a few spots at the end.

7.  Scott Dixon    His highest finish at the IMS road course.

8.  Juan Pablo Montoya  His fifth Top 10 of the season has him 3rd in the points.

9.  Ryan Hunter Reay  A decent run, he sits 9th in points.

10.  Alexander Rossi  Had the fastest race lap at 126.240 mph.  His best Indycar finish. 

Different Teams: 6 (Penske, RLL, Dale Coyne Racing, Andretti, Schmidt, Ganassi)

Different Countries: 6 (France, USA, Colombia, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand)

 

Fun Facts

 

 Lead Changes among Drivers: 7

Different Race Leaders: 5

Average Speed: 108.784

Fastest Lap 126.240

Penalties: 6

5 Americans finished in the Top 10
We loved seeing Conor Daly lead laps in the race.

Next Up
INDY 500 !!!


 

 

Long Beach Indycar 2016

Minimal Passing
A Caution-free Race
and a Controversial 'non-call'
gave Simon Pagenaud his first win driving for Roger Penske.



We really like Simon Pagenaud, and we don't know how many others drivers may have cut across the yellow line at the end of the pits but Scott Dixon lost the race when Simon Pagenaud did it and didn't get penalized.

GP of Long Beach TOP 10

1. Simon Pagenaud : After over a year of trying, and runner up finishes in the first two races of the season, he finally gets a win for Roger Penske.

2. Scott Dixon: Very disappointed with second, but still off to a super start this season.

3. Helio Castroneves: Sat on pole and led the most laps but just wasn't his day in the end.

4. Juan Montoya: His fourth Top 5 in five starts at Long Beach

5. Takuma Sato:  Highest finishing Honda and put on a great show trying to finish fourth.

6. Tony Kanaan:  A win at Long Beach still eludes him.

7. Will Power:  Climbed to eighth in points despite missing the first race of the season.

8. James Hinchcliffe:  Started 7th for his 3rd Top Ten in 6 starts at Long Beach.

9. Sebastien Bourdais:  Biggest mover of the race after starting 14th.

10. Josef Newgarden:  A problem in the pits cost him a few positions.  Started 9th.

 

Different Teams: 6 (Penske, Ganassi, ECR, KV, Schmidt, AJ Foyt)

Different Countries: 8 (France, New Zealand, Brazil, Columbia, Japan, Australia, Canada, USA)

 

 

Fun Facts

 

6 Lead Changes among
4 Different Race Leaders

Average Speed: 100.592 (the fastest in Long Beach history)
Fastest Lap 104.702 by Charlie Kimball

Thoughts
Helio did a great job grabbing the pole after Will Power went into the runoff area during the Firestone Fast Six

It was fun to watch Takuma Sato making a run up the field and trying desperately (albeit unsuccessfully) to pass Juan Montoya for fourth in the last few laps

Great to see Simon Pagenaud still leading the points after a win and two second place finishes this season.  Things are certainly clicking for him at Team Penske after a rough 2015 season.

NEXT UP:
Grand Prix of Alabama
at Barber Motorsports Park

 

 

Josef update at Mid-Ohio

Josef had one of the best races of his Indycar career at Mid Ohio.

He qualified 2nd in wet conditions, then went on to stay up front and raced for the lead all day, Battling with the likes of Scott Dixon and Sebastien Bourdais.

Unfortunately (there seems to always been an 'unfortunately' in our Josef posts....) there was an error in the pits on his last pit stop.  A hose was laying in the middle of his pit box and he couldn't avoid hitting it.  He got a drive through penalty that ruined his day.

He finished 12th.

 

 

 

 

Apparently the race results did not dampen Josef's usual fun self or appetite as he hit the Indiana State Fair with Mikhail Aleshin, Simon Pagenaud, Robin Miller and Dave Furst the next night.

 

AND

 

On his off weekend of August 10th Josef took part in and won the Formula F 45th Anniversary Race at Barber Motorsports Park.

 

 

 

Now if he can continue that winning momentum at the Milwaukee Mile this weekend.

 

Josef Newgarden at the Pocono 500

We saw Josef at the Pocono Indycar 500! 
Again and again and again.

And it was great because he led 8 laps of the race!!!
Which was terribly exciting for Alex even though we broke it to her that he had to stop for fuel.

Josef finished 8th!...
which isn't fantastic but was great considering the bad luck (and finishes) he's been having recently. 
(You'll note that we never did a Josef update from Houston because it was not good 
and he finished 20th in both races.)

 

Alex was happy, okay, ecstatic, that we got to see and talk to Josef within moments
of arriving in the paddock.  He seriously was walking behind the van
that we were riding in and even though he was in a hurry to get to his car
on pit lane for the practice session he stopped a moment
for the obligatory photo with Alex.
Thanks Josef!
 



Watching Josef get ready to qualify
(She's still trying to forget about his run, the crash was very upsetting for her)
 



That's Josef waving to Alex after we yelled to him as he drove by for driver introductions.

Alex with Josef's dad, Joey Newgarden
(technically he's not Josef, but he is Josef's dad,
and he told her stories of Josef and Josef's rescued kitty, Simba so she really likes him)
Mr. Newgarden, I hope you don't mind we used your picture but Alex really wanted it in the post.

Josef at the raceday autograph session
(we  told Alex that we would not wait in line for his autograph, since we already have it,
so she was content to get his attention and he waved to her)



Josef in the pits
(we had lots more of him in the pits, but we decided to narrow it down)

Josef in the pits talking (or is it dancing) with Simon Pagenaud
 



Josef's crew working on some stuff after the race. 
 Alex thought that they were making dinner. Seriously.
We explained that it's like a garage in the bottom of the hauler, not a kitchen




 

Alex by Josef's pit.....

we spend way too much time peering through fences looking at Josef's pit box

(even when he and his car aren't in it.)

If she wasn't only 7 we'd just leave her there all day and she'd be content.

 

 

Josef's car being pushed back after the race
(isn't it a beautiful shot, with the flag in the background and Josef' banner waving in the wind)

Watching for Josef in his garages after the race.
(We didn't see him, but we did see his crew members, his gear and his car...
way too many times except for Alex.)

And our favorite picture of the Pocono 500...
JOSEF LEADING THE RACE!

GP of Houston

Breaking News!

 

 Houston we have a problem...

 

That was probably heard by a lot of teams this weekend as 2 crazy indycar races took place on the streets of Houston.

 

The GP races 1 and 2 held lots of chaos, finger pointing and exciting racing. 
Saturday's Race 1 got off to an interesting start in the rain. taking out drivers like Mike Conway, Simon Pagenaud, Takuma Sato and Mikael Aleshin. 
Josef Newgarden slammed the wall halfway, as did many others when their tires hit a wet spot or two.  We interviewed one of his biggest fans, Alex in Pa, and she was not happy. 
 

The really interesting part of the race was when the rookie Carlos Heurtas won. 
He was the first Indycar driver to win in his rookie year since Marco Andretti in Sonoma in 2006.
 Juan Montoya finished 2nd, and Carlos Munoz, another rookie finishing 3rd,
which made for a Columbian podium sweep,
the first in Indycar History.






Race 2 was just as exciting and crazy, despite no rain.

Race 2 began with a rolling start, and all was pretty status quo until the mid-way point when perhaps the intense heat and humidity started to affect the drivers and crews.
 

Lots of contact and wild racing ensued including pole sitter Helio Castroneves who crashed while running in second.  Josef Newgarden had a wheel come off after his final pit stop, Sebastian Bourdais ran the last twenty laps with a broken front wing (and still finished 5th) and points leader Will Power finished 11th after a problem with just a lap and a half left.
 

The winner?

 Simon Pagenaud, for the second time this year, and
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports who had there first one two finish ever
with rookie Mikael Aleshin finishing second.
The podium was rounded out with another rookie, Jack Hawksworth( Who had a great battle with Juan Montoya) finishing third.

So if you're keeping tabs,

All four (full season) Indycar rookies finished on the podium this weekend! 
Wow!








 

 

 

The top ten:

 

Race 1:

* 7 Hondas and 3 Chevys
* 3 Rookies

* 5 teams
* All the Andretti Autosport cars

 * A Columbian Podium Sweep

 

* Carlos Heurtas

* Juan Montoya

* Carlos Munoz

* Sebastien Bourdais

* James Hinchcliffe

* Jack Hawksworth

* Ryan Hunter-Reay

* Marco Andretti

* Helio Castroneves

* Justin Wilson

Fun Facts:

* 7 drivers had DNF's
* Marco Andretti got penalized for holding up Takuma Sato
* 5 different drivers led
* There were 6 lead changes

 

 

 

Race 2:

* 8 Hondas and 2 Chevys
* 2 Rookies
* 6 teams


* Simon Pagenaud

* Mikael Aleshin

* Jack Hawksworth

* Charlie Kimball

* Sebastien Bourdais
* Ryan Hunter-Reay
* Juan Pablo Montoya
* Ryan Briscoe
* Marco Andretti
* Tony Kanaan

Fun Facts:

* 5 drivers had DNF's
* 2 different drivers led
* There were 3 lead changes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drivers in carts

Do Indycar drivers race Indycars or golf carts?

 Ryan Hunter-Reay
(well, the back of him anyway, we'll get a better one)

 Helio Castroneves
(on Will Power's cart!....is this allowed?)

 

 

Helio, on a bike this time.
And still smiling!

 Tony Kanaan defending 500 champion
(love his shoes)

James Hinchcliffe
(glad he recovered from the hit in the GP)

Simon Pagenaud
(congrats on the Indy GP win)

 Rick Mears - 4 time 500 winner!!!
(got his autograph!)

 Ryan Hunter-Reay
(we told you we would get a better one)

 Dario Franchitti - 3 time 500 winner
(miss him on the track but great to still see him at the track!)

 Jack Hawksworth rookie
(awesome helmet)

 

Carlos Huertas a

(another rookie)

 

 

 

 

 

Pagenaud Wins Grand Prix of Baltimore

The top 6.

 

Pagenaud (his second win), Newgarden (his highest Indycar finish ever), Bourdais, Justin Wilson, Simona De Silvestro, Kimball.

During the race there was no way to predict who would be where since there were so many crashes.

 

 

Second Place Finisher, Josef,  pre-race. 

(Josef is looking at us because, as always, we shouted his name really loud).

 

Pagenaud, Justin Wilson, and Josef. 

 

Josef Newgarden's first podium in Indycar. 

Alex is watching intently.

 

 

 

Josef's #1 fan ecstatic he finished 2nd.

 

 

A tough day for some of the championship contenders, like Ryan Hunter Reay. 

Helio increased his lead to 49 points over Scott Dixon and Pagenaud moved into third, 70 points back, with 3 races remaining.

 

 

The GP of Baltimore won't be back on Labor Day weekend in 2014, but hopefully they can get in on the schedule somewhere.

 

WE LOVED THIS RACE AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE WEEKEND!