IndyCar championship possibilities

By Sep 17, 2019, 8:03 PM EDT
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MONTEREY, California – There is a simple way to the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series championship for three of the four-remaining contenders who are still mathematically alive:

Win Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey and hope the other contenders falter. Even then, that may not be enough.

In Scott Dixon’s case, he has to hope for an earthquake, a terrible flood and locust to besiege his rivals because at 85 points out, there is little chance for him to score his sixth career NTT IndyCar Series championship.

Team Penske driver and 2017 IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden has a 41-point lead over Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi and a 42-point lead over Team Penske teammate and 103rd Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud. But, Sunday’s race at WeatherTech Racing in Laguna Seca pays double points, which means a victory is worth twice as much and a miscue is twice the penalty.

A win in 15 of the 17 races is worth 50 points. Second place is worth 40, third is worth 35 and so on. But in the double-points format used in the Indianapolis 500 and in the season finale, a win doubles to 100, second to 80, third to 70, fourth to 64, fifth to 60 and so on down the list.

Drivers also can accumulate bonus points in the race (which are not doubled), with one point being awarded for the pole position, one point for leading a lap and two points for leading the most laps.

Beyond that is where it gets complicated.

According to INDYCAR, there are more than 255,000 finishing orders for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey and nearly 75 percent of those eliminate the three drivers — Alexander Rossi, Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon – pursuing current leader Josef Newgarden in the championship standings.

Thanks to INDYCAR Vice President, Communications Mike Zizzo and his staff including Kate Davis, Curt Cavin and Arni Sribhen, they have taken all of the guesswork out of the ins and the outs of the championship scenarios.

As much as this intrepid reporter would like to take credit for this, balancing a checkbook becomes a confusing mathematical task.

With all due respect, here is what INDYCAR has calculated:

Championship Scenarios – Short Version

Newgarden not only controls his own destiny, but he’s the key to the chances of the other three contenders as well.

Quite simply, Newgarden clinches the championship if he finishes fourth or better regardless of how the others fare. He can get away with a fifth-place finish provided his two closest challengers don’t score additional bonus points for pole, leading a lap or leading the most laps.

For Rossi or Pagenaud to win the championship, Newgarden must finish sixth or worse if they win the race.

The good news for either is that they have won on a permanent road course this season (Rossi at Road America, Pagenaud at Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and Newgarden’s average finish on road courses this season is 7.2.

Rossi and Pagenaud could get away with Newgarden finishing fifth if they score two (Rossi) or three (Pagenaud) more bonus points than Newgarden while winning. Either of them winning the championship by finishing second or third is feasible (see below).

Dixon’s path is much more complicated. He must win and have Newgarden finish 23rd or worse and have Rossi and Pagenaud finish sixth or worse. In addition, Dixon can’t lose any bonus points to any of them. Dixon will have a tiebreaker over both Rossi (more wins) and Pagenaud (same wins, more seconds) with the win, but not Newgarden (fewer wins), which may be needed in this scenario.

Rossi and Pagenaud have average permanent road course finishes of 7.5 and 8.5, respectively, so an average day for either likely helps Dixon.

The longshot in this scenario is Newgarden finishing 23rd or worse. He hasn’t finished worse than 19th this season and his last finish outside the top 20 was Texas in 2016.

Championship Scenarios – The Long Version

This still hinges on where Newgarden finishes and how the bonus points are distributed.

Remember, only one driver gets the pole point and the two points for leading the most laps, but multiple drivers can get the lap led point. The one-point difference between Pagenaud and Rossi is irrelevant when it comes to how many points, they’ll need to overcome Newgarden, so they’re effectively tied.

However, Pagenaud will need an extra bonus point in some situations to make up the extra point deficit to Newgarden.

If Newgarden finishes…

… 4th place or better: Locks up the championship, putting him 105 (Rossi) and 106 (Pagenaud) points up, which is too much for either of them to overcome.

… 5th place: Without any bonus points, this puts Newgarden up 101 over Rossi and 102 over Pagenaud. Newgarden has the tiebreaker over both (more wins than Rossi and more seconds over Pagenaud), which means they must win and score +2 (Rossi) and +3 (Pagenaud) bonus points over the weekend to steal it.

… 6th place: Without bonus points, it’s as simple as win the race, win the championship for Rossi/Pagenaud since Newgarden will only be 97/98 points ahead finishing here and 100 for the win will overcome him. However, that is close enough for Newgarden to secure the championship if he is +3 (Rossi) or +2 (Pagenaud) with bonus points. Again, Newgarden has the tiebreaker on both of them.

… 7th-9th place: Bonus points don’t matter. If either Rossi or Pagenaud win, they win the championship.

… 10th place: This is where Rossi/Pagenaud don’t have to win the race to win the championship. Tenth for Newgarden puts him ahead 81/82 points, respectively, so If Rossi/Pagenaud finish second and are +2/+3 on bonus points, Newgarden loses the championship.

… 11th place: Newgarden will be 79/80 points ahead, respectively, with tiebreakers. Rossi can break even on the bonus points and win with a second. Pagenaud will need to be +1 on the bonus points with at least a second-place finish.

… 12th-14th place: Bonus points don’t matter; second place will do it for Rossi or Pagenaud.

… 15th place: With +2/+3 bonus points, third place will win the championship for Rossi or Pagenaud.

… 16th place: Newgarden will be up 69/70 points, so Rossi wins with a third-place finish and a break-even on bonus points. Pagenaud wins with a third and +1 on bonus points.

… 17th-22nd place: Various similar scenarios where either Rossi or Pagenaud have a chance of winning the championship by one of them finishing fourth (Newgarden finishes 17th/18th), fifth (19th/20th), or even sixth (21st/22nd) depending on bonus points. Newgarden finishing one or two positions up or down in this range will be significant in this situation.

… 23rd/24th place: In an extreme scenario, Rossi could sweep the bonus points (+4 to Newgarden) and finish seventh, ahead of Pagenaud and without Dixon winning the race to capture the championship.

Sound simple?

There will be a “Pop Quiz” in the morning.

Will Power says IndyCar field toughest in world: ‘F1’s a joke as far as competition’

By Jun 4, 2023, 1:46 PM EDT
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DETROIT – With the 2023 Formula One season turning into a Red Bull runaway, Will Power believes the NTT IndyCar Series deserves respect as the world’s most difficult single-seater racing series.

“It’s so tough, an amazing field, the toughest field in the world, and people need to know it, especially compared to Formula One,” the defending IndyCar champion told NBC Sports during a media luncheon a few days ahead of Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. “Formula One’s a joke as far as competition, but not as far as drivers. They have amazing drivers. And I feel sorry for them that they don’t get to experience the satisfaction we do with our racing because that is the top level of open-wheel motorsport.

“I think Formula One would be so much better if they had a formula like IndyCar. I love the technology and the manufacturer side of it. I think that’s awesome. But from a spectator watching, man, how cool would it be if everyone had a Red Bull (car)?”

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

It probably would look a lot different than this season, which has been dominated by two-time defending F1 champion Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman won Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix from the pole position by 24 seconds over seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. It’s the fifth victory in seven races for Verstappen, whose 40 career wins are one shy of tying late three-time champion Aryton Senna.

Along with being a virtual lock to tie Senna’s mark for titles, Verstappen is poised to break his own record for single-season victories (15) that he set last year.

“You simply know Max is going to win every race if something doesn’t go wrong,” Power said. “Imagine being a guy coming out as a rookie, and you probably could win a race. It would be really cool to see. But you know that would never happen with the politics over there.”

Verstappen’s F1 dominance has been a stark contrast to IndyCar, where Josef Newgarden just became the first repeat winner through six races this season with his Indy 500 victory.

Team Penske (with Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin), Chip Ganassi Racing (with Palou and Marcus Ericsson) and Andretti Autosport (with Kyle Kirkwood) each have visited victory lane in 2023. Arrow McLaren (which has past winners Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi and Felix Rosenqvist) is certain to join them at some point.

Meanwhile, Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez (two wins) have won every F1 race this season with the two Red Bull cars combining to lead more than 95% of the laps.

The primary differences are in the rulesets for each series.

While F1 teams virtually have complete autonomy to build their high-tech cars from scratch, IndyCar has what is known as a spec series in which the cars have a large degree of standardization.

IndyCar teams all use the Dallara DW12 chassis, which is in its 12th season. The development of the car largely has been maximized, helping put a greater emphasis on driver skill as a differentiator (as well as other human resources such as whip-smart strategists and engineers).

Alex Palou, who will start from the pole position at Detroit, harbors F1 aspirations as a McLaren test driver, but the Spaniard prefers IndyCar for competitiveness because talent can be such a determinant in results.

“Racing-wise, that’s the best you can get,” Palou said a few days before winning the pole for the 107th Indy 500 last month. “That’s pure racing, having chances to win each weekend.”

Of course, F1 is the world’s most popular series, and the 2021 IndyCar champion believes its appeal doesn’t necessarily stem from being competitive.

Though the ’21 championship battle between Hamilton and Verstappen was epic, F1 has grown its audience in recent years with the help of the “Drive To Survive” docuseries on Netflix that has showcased their stars’ personalities along with the cutthroat decisions of its team principals (IndyCar started its own docuseries this year).

“I don’t think the beauty of F1 is the race itself,” Palou said. “I’d say the beauty is more the development that they have and everything around the races, and that they go different places. But when we talk about pure spectacle, you cannot get better than (IndyCar).

“You can feel it as a driver here when you first come and jump in a car. When I was in Dale Coyne (Racing), we got a podium my rookie year. It wasn’t the best team, but we were able to achieve one of the best cars at Road America (where he finished third in 2020). It’s not that I was driving a slow car. I was driving a really fast car. I think we can see that across all the teams and the drivers.”

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, who will start second at Detroit, is in his third season of IndyCar after winning three championships in Supercars.

The New Zealander said recently that IndyCar has been “the most enjoyment I’ve ever had in my career. I had a lot of fun in Supercars, but there were still things like different uprights, engines, all that stuff. (IndyCar) is spec. Really the only things you can change are dampers and the engine differences between Honda and Chevy.

“I have a blast,” McLaughlin said. “Trying to extract pace and winning in this series is better than I’ve ever felt ever. I’m surprised by how satisfied it feels to win an IndyCar race. It’s better than how it ever has felt in my career. I’ve always liked winning, but it’s so satisfying to win here. That’s why it’s so cool. There are no bad drivers. You have to have a perfect day.”

Qualifying might be the best example of the series’ competitiveness tightness. The spread for the Fast Six final round of qualifying on Detroit’s new nine-turn, 1.645-mile downtown layout was nearly eight 10ths of a second – which qualifies as an eternity these days.

Last month, the GMR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course produced a spread of 0.2971 seconds from first to sixth – the fourth-closest Fast Six in IndyCar history since the format was adopted in 2008. Three of the seven closest Fast Six fields have happened this season (with the Grand Prix of Long Beach ranking sixth and the Alabama Grand Prix in seventh).

While the technical ingenuity and innovation might be limited when compared to F1, there’s no arguing that more IndyCar drivers and teams have a chance to win.

“The parity’s great, and no one has an advantage, basically,” Power said. “The two engine manufacturers (Honda and Chevrolet) are always flipping back and forth as they develop, but we’re talking like tenths of a second over a lap. There’s not a bad driver in the field, and there are 20 people all capable of being in the Fast Six every week. Maybe more. It’s incredibly competitive. There isn’t a more competitive series in the world. I’m sure of that.

“If you want the ultimate driver’s series, this is it I’m from a big team that would benefit massively from opening the rules up, but I don’t think (IndyCar officials) should. I think this should always be about the team and driver getting the most out of a piece of equipment that everyone has a chance to do so. That’s the ultimate driver series. Who wants to win a championship when you’re just given the best car? It’s just ridiculous.”

Power believes the talented Verstappen still would be the F1 champion if the equipment were spec, but he also thinks there would be more challengers.

“There’s got to be a bunch of those guys that must just be frustrated,” Power said. “Think about Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Lando Norris, (Fernando) Alonso. Those are some great drivers that don’t get a chance to even win. They’re just extracting the most out of the piece of equipment they have.

“All I can say is if everyone had a Red Bull car, there’s no way that Max would win every race. There are so many guys who would be winning races. It’d just be similar to (IndyCar) and different every week, which it should be that way for the top level of the sport.”