An enjoyable Iowa Corn 300 from Iowa Speedway and the British Grand Prix are among the highlights of Stefan Johansson’s latest blog, which we’ve been chronicling throughout the year on NBCSports.com.
In his latest conversation with Jan Tegler, Johansson looks back at IndyCar’s last short oval race of the year at Iowa, how strong Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter Racing were, how Scott Dixon made the most of his car, and additional thoughts post-Silverstone.
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On Newgarden’s domination and what it means to a have a car hooked up like he did:
“I had a car that worked quite well but never that good. But when you have a car that’s hooked up on an oval it is the most fun racing you can do. It’s fantastic. You’re racing all the time, every lap.
“He’s been the new, young hope since last year when he won and was very impressive. He certainly hasn’t gone backwards this year. He’s doing a very good job and it’s no surprise that people are looking at him. I also think that Ed Carpenter’s team has done an amazing job, their engineering group is clearly on top of things.”
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On Dixon making the most of his day:
“Scott [Dixon] had a car like that last year on one of the ovals where he was absolutely dialed in. Unfortunately, the team missed the setup on the car at Iowa at the beginning of the weekend and eventually had to revert to last year’s setup. Scott basically ran it like that and improved it as much as possible through the race. On every pit stop they dialed it in to get a decent balance but at least the car was drivable.
“Scott finished third but didn’t really gain much in points. (Pagenaud finished fourth) Scott’s been very unlucky with DNFs, scoring no points. He probably would have won Race One in Detroit if the car hadn’t had a mechanical problem. And then again, at Elkhart Lake (Road America) he probably could have fought for the win or at least second place if the car hadn’t let him down.”
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On how fun IndyCar’s short oval races are:
“I agree with you that the actual racing in Indycar is hard to beat. It was a terrific race again. You can’t beat short-ovals. As far as the racing goes, it doesn’t get much better. There’s always action – non-stop. And the action isn’t just at the front. There are battles going on all through the field all the time.
“As I’ve said, the competition in IndyCar is the best out there right now. At almost any track, there’s hardly more than a second between the front of the field and the back.”
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And here are Johansson’s thoughts on both track limits penalties and the post-race penalty assessed to Nico Rosberg in the British Grand Prix:
“There are so many strange things going on all the time with this subjective rule making that it’s very difficult not to get worked up about it. A good example is this nonsense going on with track limits and white lines. At Silverstone they said if you put four wheels over the line in three of the corners there was a penalty, no compromise. But in all the others it was ok? (The FIA proclaimed a “zero tolerance” policy for exceeding track limits in “certain corners” at Silverstone).
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“Either you have radio communications or you don’t. With the complexity of these cars engineering was telling the drivers on every straight what settings to have for the next corner – which is ridiculous of course. So they then ban all kind of communication. Which effectively means that currently you can’t even tell a driver what to do even if there’s a technical fault on the car.
What does the radio ban have to do with advising a driver how to fix a fault? It’s not like Rosberg’s performance was going to be better than it was before the gearbox issue came up if the team told him how to resolve it, all it will do is allow him to finish the race.”
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There are several more great nuggets within Johansson’s latest blog, which you can view in its entirety here.
Previous linkouts to Johansson’s blog on MotorSportsTalk are linked below:
- 7/11: On Rosberg’s crazy week, and more
- 7/1: On Le Mans finish, F1 back-to-back in Canada, Baku
- 6/9: On Indy 500 and Monaco GP
- 5/26: On Verstappen, Mercedes and more
- 4/29: On rules, regs and female drivers
- 4/7: F1’s power struggle, Haas’ rise
- 3/24: Addressing fixes for F1, IndyCar
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Additionally, a link to Johansson’s social media channels and #F1TOP3 competition are linked here.