Hey, y’all, guess what?
It’s Maaaaayyyy!
May is my favorite month for a lot of reasons: the weather is getting better and will (hopefully) stay that way, everything is turning green, it’s my birthday month — and next year that will fall on Race Day — and of course, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing will take place in just under four weeks.
Because of my job, it looks like I will only be at the track on 5/14, 5/19, and Race Day, but if you’d like to say hello hit me up on Twitter @15daysinmay.
But before we get to the month that will officially crown Alex Palou as one of the best drivers on the planet, let’s look back at the weekend that was at Barber Motorsports Park.
I absolutely loved the race. It was big-boy racing at its best, with the drivers racing hard in tough conditions, and there were a lot of elbows and chrome horns flying.
The one thing I really like about this race is that it’s the perfect distance so that multiple strategies are in play. Among the top 12 finishers, five of them (including the entire podium) ran the race on three stops, while the other seven only took two.
It’s one of those races where either one works, and while I know a lot goes into the distance of a race, with the television window being one of the factors, I think IndyCar could make a few races more exciting if they set them up with the kind of race distance where either strategy can bring home a good result.
Here are a few other thoughts:
Who impressed me
Scott McLaughlin. Of course, we all know that his race week didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, but did he ever rebound. After being disqualified from St. Pete and falling all the way to 29th in the standings, the Team Penske Kiwi won the pole and led a race-high 58 laps to win the race for the second year in a row.
Linus Lundqvist. The 25-year-old from Sweden hit the podium for the first time in his brief IndyCar career, and his third-place result was actually his first official top 10 as well. Unlike fellow podium-mates McLaughlin and Will Power, who rode front-row starts to their top-two finishes, Lundqvist started back in 19th and pitted for the first time on Lap 7. He then went the rest of the way on two stops and worked his way up through the field to become the highest finishing Chip Ganassi Racing driver.
Colton Herta. OK, he didn’t have the greatest of weekends, starting P15 and finishing eighth, but he did leave the weekend as the overall points leader, so he’s got that going for him…which is nice.
I mentioned on social media that through three races Herta is reminding me a lot of Will Power when he won the 2022 championship. He’s focusing on the big picture, taking what the race gives him, and making the most of things when a weekend doesn’t go his way. We know he’s fast, we know he can win, but can he put 17 races together and win a championship? So far it looks good for him.
who struggled
Josef Newgarden. Not going to mince words: the reigning Indy 500 winner and two-time series champion had a shitty week.
Of course, just like his teammate, McLaughlin, he started the week with a big DQ next to his name in the record book. But it got worse from there.
Even though he led the first practice session, he wasn’t himself, and that manifested itself when he started P8 and was never a factor in finishing in 16th place. I think he will come to the Month of May revitalized, but I’m just questioning what went on all of last week.
While McLaughlin and Power jumped ahead of the story and put out statements spelling everything out, and — in McLaughlin’s case — saying he made a mistake and accepted the penalty, Newgarden sat radio silent and decided to address the media on Friday morning.
As the face of the franchise, and, to a point, the series, it was something Newgarden had to do, and I thought he handled it well. But, I’m not sure why he kept insisting that he thought that the rule had been changed and that’s why his push-to-pass was working.
If he had wanted to have thrown that down earlier in the week, fine, but with the outstanding reporting done by Nathan Brown and Marshall Pruett detailing the how’s and why’s of the entire process, it came across as a bullshit excuse.
I just don’t buy the fact that if that rule had in fact have been changed, that no one would have been informed of it. You mean to tell me a major rule and strategy piece had been changed and not a single person had made that public?
It wasn’t in the media, it was never talked about on TV, and while I’ve only been to a NASCAR Xfinity driver’s meeting and never an IndyCar one, that was never covered at any driver’s meeting or any other meetings they’d had before the season began.
If he’d refrained from making that excuse, I think he would’ve come out the other side better off, but I definitely give him an “F” for trying to think the rest of us would believe that explanation.
Arrow McLaren. I’ll have a little more on McLaren in the next couple of days, but the weekend was an absolute nightmare for the entire team.
Theo Pourchaire, in only his second IndyCar race, was the highest-finishing driver on the team in P22. Pato O’Ward, who actually punted Pourchaire out of the way on the final lap, completed all 90 laps but with a penalty finished behind his teammate in 23rd, and Alexander Rossi was the victim of a huge pit road blunder when his crew failed to screw the left-rear tire tight, and he came home P25.
Then, come Monday morning, the team sacked David Malukas, who had never run a race with the squad after injuring his wrist in a mountain biking accident.
Here’s a foreshadowing of what I plan to write: O’Ward’s brilliance at times helps cover up a team that has some major issues. Those issues need to be fixed…quickly.
What did you think of Sunday’s race? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Your INDYCAR Experience 