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Stefan Johansson’s latest blog: St. Pete, Sebring wrap, Melbourne prep

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DIxon at speed. Photo: Honda

Veteran driver and manager Stefan Johansson has posted his latest blog, which recaps the last two race weekends in Florida as the Verizon IndyCar Series tackled the streets of St. Petersburg and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship completed the grinding Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

In his latest conversation with Jan Tegler, Johansson looks back at these couple events while also looking ahead to this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, which kicks off the 2017 Formula 1 season.

At St. Petersburg, while Sebastien Bourdais won, Scott Dixon among others was caught out by the timing of a yellow flag which closed the pits. Dixon eventually rebounded to third in the IndyCar opener, but it was a result short of another possible win thanks to the bad timing.

Johansson writes this will continue to be an issue as long as this rule is in play, but hailed Dixon’s comeback.
“Every time you have a closed-pit rule when there’s a full course caution, you’ll end up with the same problem,” he wrote. “The race often falls into the lap of guys who started at the back or are running at the back as they have more freedom to roll the dice in a situation like that, and the guys up front are basically screwed. It’s just part of the game in IndyCar or any other series using the same rules. On the whole though, it tends to even out over the course of a season.

“It’s frustrating at the time for the guys who get caught out, and especially if you know you have a winning car, which was definitely the case for Scott. His car was really fast all weekend, in every session and the race. None of the guys who were on the same strategy as him finished in the top ten positions. Interestingly, no one – not even the media – seemed to notice but I think he drove one of his best races ever. He had to save fuel for most of the race after the second caution and his first pit stop to get onto a different strategy. As usual, he managed to stretch his fuel for a lap or two compared to the other competitors and he was still passing cars along the way. He literally drove his way back up to 3rd, by going faster than the guys in front.”

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Sebring also took place; Dixon’s team finishing just off the GT Le Mans class podium in fourth after contact on the final lap while the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 team (Christina Nielsen, Alessandro Balzan, Matteo Cressoni) finished second in the GT Daytona class.

“Overall, I think it was a very good race. The new prototypes definitely look great on-track and they sound great. The Cadillacs were good and their teams are very good and definitely make a difference as well.

“With the Ferrari (Scuderia Corsa) we had a pretty decent race finishing 2nd. It looked like we could win it for a while but we didn’t quite have the pace of the Mercedes there at the end either.”

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For Melbourne this week, Johansson says Ferrari looked strong in testing, but also ponders why the regulations were changed as they were.

“Predictably, as we mentioned before the launch of the cars, they all look pretty much the same with minor variances here and there. That’s just the way it is now because the regulations only allow teams to work within in a small window.

“When you look at these new cars and the new rules, you have to ask, why? Was it really necessary to have these new rules? The cost of creating these new cars is mind-boggling for every single team. I’m not sure what the exact reasoning was for these new rules to be put in place to begin with and I’m not so sure anyone else really does.

“Was it because the racing was not exciting enough, did they think the old cars were too slow. Did they not like the look of the cars? Were they too easy to drive? Whatever the reason, I don’t think these new rules have been particularly well thought out. They feel like another band aid solution to some knee jerk reaction based on a few minor issues rather than a big picture solution to the complete philosophy of what a modern F1 car should be.”

You can read the full blog post here, for even more insight.

A 2016 archive of Johansson’s blog posts is linked here.

Additionally, a link to Johansson’s social media channels and #F1TOP3 competition are linked here.