Less speed means no Toyota drivers in Top 5 at Pocono - MotorSportsTalk

Was this weekend a success or a failure for Toyota Racing Development at Pocono Raceway? It depends on how you look at it.

With TRD’s decision to de-tune their engines for this weekend’s race as well as next weekend’s race at Michigan International Speedway, the lack of horsepower proved costly as no Toyota drivers cracked the Top 5 in yesterday’s Party in the Poconos 400 – the first Sprint Cup race this year that didn’t see a Toyota driver finish there or lead a lap. Kyle Busch had a shot at a Top 5 at the end, but lost multiple positions on the final restart and wound up sixth.

But then there’s the fact there were no blown TRD motors for the first time in three weeks, which should be heartening for the manufacturer after another recent spate of high-profile engine failures.

TRD is striving for more reliability, which means everything in a series that puts consistency over all else. As we mentioned earlier this weekend, horsepower and performance has not been the problem for Toyota, but those two things mean nothing if all of their cars can’t be there at the end of the day regularly fighting for wins and Top-5 and 10s.

Still, at Pocono, the horsepower deficit didn’t make things easy for their drivers. Take Denny Hamlin for instance, who can ill-afford any problems with his engines as he tries to race for a wild-card berth in the Chase but nonetheless always wants to run up front.

“I think all of us had to play defense on the straightaway which is really tough, but I made the best of it,” said Hamlin, who finished eighth. “It’s about where I thought we would end up, but we need wins and we’re going to have to be aggressive and do everything we can to do that.”

With the Sprint Cup regular season now in the second half, Hamlin appears to be feeling more pressure to get himself into Chase contention (although for his part, he contended yesterday that he was “very optimistic” about his chances). But TRD knows that all the speed in the world will be of no help to Hamlin or their other drivers if the motors keep going back to the garage in smoking heaps.

It’s better for them to get their issues sorted and sacrifice a bit now – in hopes of a championship payoff later.

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports