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Author: Tucker White

  • Cup race postponed to Monday

    Cup race postponed to Monday

    If you have a personal day, use it.

    NASCAR postponed the Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway to Monday, due to unyielding rain. The Cup Series’ annual trek to the Monster Mile will start at noon, ET. FOX Sports 1 will carry the TV broadcast and PRN/SiriusXM will carry the radio broadcast.

    After rain washed out practice and qualifying, Saturday, NASCAR used its competitive metric to set the field. As a result of his win at Talladega Superspeedway, Kyle Busch will lead the field to green.

    This is the second year in a row rain pushed a Cup Series race at Dover to Monday.

  • NASCAR suspends Cody Ware, indefinitely, after arrest

    NASCAR suspends Cody Ware, indefinitely, after arrest

    NASCAR suspended Cody Ware, indefinitely, Monday, following his arrest on felony assault charges.

    Ware was arrested, Monday, in Iredell County, North Carolina, on charges of “assault by strangulation — inflict serious injury” and “assault on female.” Furthermore, he’s being held on a $3000 bond. At press time, no details were released on the incident(s) that led to his arrest, or if he posted bond.

    Ware sat out Sunday’s Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Rick Ware Racing said, Saturday, he would miss the race, because he was “focusing on a personal matter.”

  • Three Big Stories: COTA (2023)

    Three Big Stories: COTA (2023)

    Matt Weaver summed it up best.

    Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas showcased NASCAR at both its best and dumbest. With the former, you witnessed two generational talents duke it out for the victory. Furthermore, the lack of stage breaks added layers of strategy that road course races in NASCAR lacked for years. With the latter, however, a great race turned into a face palm-inducing crash fest.

    So without further adieu, let’s dive into the Three Big Stories of the NASCAR Cup Series at COTA.

    1. A master class of driving between two generational talents

    AUSTIN, Texas – MARCH 26: William Byron, driver of the #24 Liberty University Chevrolet, and Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Monster Energy Toyota, lead the field on a pace lap prior to the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 26, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

    On the Lap 44 restart, Tyler Reddick overshot Turn 1, and William Byron drove underneath him to retake the lead. For much of the remaining laps, they put on a battle that showcased NASCAR at its best.

    “We made it a battle for sure every time with crossovers, out-braking each other… that was a lot of fun,” Byron said.

    With five to go, Byron got loose off Turn 10 and Reddick pounced. He pulled to Byron’s inside in Turn 11, drag-raced him down the backstretch and ran him off the track to take the lead.

    To borrow a line from former NASCAR Chairman and CEO, Brian France, this was “quintessential NASCAR.” Only instead of a poorly handled fustercluck over three races, it was two generational talents using every inch of real estate and an aero package on the razor’s edge of control to fight it out for the victory.

    2. The return of strategy to road course races

    AUSTIN, Texas – MARCH 26: William Byron, driver of the #24 Liberty University Chevrolet, and Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Monster Energy Toyota, lead the field on a pace lap prior to the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 26, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

    Before a caution on Lap 40 put the field onto equal tires, multiple pit stop strategies played out.

    Byron, on a two-stop plan, pitted from the lead on Lap 24. Reddick, on a three-stop race, pitted from the lead on Lap 32. Byron cycled back to the lead, but with an eight-lap tire difference, Reddick reeled in Byron with ease. He cut the lead by three seconds, in the span of two laps.

    On Lap 39, Reddick overtook him with ease in Turn 1.

    None of this happens if NASCAR throws a caution to end stages.

    “Well, it certainly allows the race to play out more naturally, which I feel like in the spirit of road course racing, in my opinion, that’s what it should be more about,” Reddick said. “We had the natural cautions towards the end there with people having tire failures and issues to bring out the cautions to have the exciting green-white-checkered finishes.”

    All stage breaks did, since 2017, was interrupt the flow of a race and removed an element of strategy. As a result, the quality of racing at road courses (and to an extent, Pocono Raceway) diminished. After all, why short-pit, when you’d get two free pit stops with stage breaks?

    “From my perspective, I enjoyed it more today,” Reddick said. “It was about maximizing your pace on the racetrack and minimizing the mistakes because depending on what strategy you had, if you made a mistake, you’re going to be costing yourself track position as the race just played out.”

    With five more road course races left on the Cup Series schedule, you’ll have a strong case for NASCAR doing away with stage breaks everywhere.

    That was some dumb, dumb, DUMB racing at the finish

    AUSTIN, Texas – MARCH 26: Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Monster Energy Toyota, and Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, lead the field to an overtime restart during the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 26, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images

    If everything I mentioned above was some of NASCAR at its best, then the overtime calamities were some of NASCAR at its dumbest.

    Three separate times, cars accordioned into each other and spun others out at the crest of Turn 1. Once or twice, I get it. It happens. But after three times, on each overtime attempt, I just think, “What the hell are we doing, guys?”

    “The end of the race became a typical NASCAR road course race,” Austin Dillon said. “It was just a mess.”

    Honestly, I don’t know how you fix it.

    Perhaps single-file restarts in overtime cuts down on it, but in that scenario, what’s to stop the driver in second from dive-bombing the race leader in Turn 1?

    NASCAR won’t penalize drivers for contact (well, up to an extreme point) like IndyCar and Formula 1 do. Bumping and banging are woven into the league’s DNA. So unless there’s a seismic shift in thinking from the heads in Daytona, that’s a non-starter.

    Well, we’ll see if this also happens in a few months at Sonoma Raceway.

  • News analysis: Hendrick penalties

    News analysis: Hendrick penalties

    None of you asked for it, but I’ll break down the news, its significance and un-answered questions of Hendrick Motorsports’ penalty.

    The news

    NASCAR handed HMS an L2-level penalty, Wednesday, for unapproved modifications to the body of its cars, last weekend, at Phoenix Raceway. Each car’s crew chief (Cliff Daniels, Rudy Fugle, Alan Gustafson and Blake Harris) was handed a four-race suspension and fined $100,000. Furthermore, NASCAR docked each team 100 owner/driver points and 10 playoff points. Excluding the No. 9 team, which Josh Berry (who earns points in the XFINITY Series) drove in place of the injured Chase Elliott.

    These penalties drop Alex Bowman from the points lead to 23rd, William Byron to 29th and Kyle Larson to 32nd. Aside from Byron, this reset Larson to zero playoff points. Byron, however, resets to three.

    HMS announced it plans to appeal the penalties, but won’t request deferrals of suspensions. So four substitute crew chiefs will sit on the war wagons, this weekend, at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

    Its significance

    On a scale of 1-10, this is a five.

    For most teams, this is a 10. With Hendrick, however, I doubt this holds them down. Considering that after NASCAR confiscated the parts, it still dominated Sunday’s race at Phoenix.

    SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 6 OF “MY HERO ACADEMIA”

    For NASCAR’s all-time winningest team, this isn’t Izuku Midoriya fighting Muscular during his forest lodge trip training. Rather, I suspect this will be Deku jobbing Muscular.

    I’ll go a step further and predict that by the halfway point of the season, Bowman, Byron and Larson make up the points they lost with this penalty.

    Un-answered questions

    I can’t really think of anything Wednesday’s penalty announcement left un-answered. This was pretty cut-n-dry and NASCAR confiscated the parts, before it let the Hendrick cars race, Sunday.

    That’s all, for now.

  • Late caution ruins Harvick’s run to Phoenix victory

    Late caution ruins Harvick’s run to Phoenix victory

    Ten laps.

    Kevin Harvick needed to complete 10 more laps to score his 10th career victory at Phoenix Raceway. He pulled to a five-second lead over Kyle Larson, who led a race-high of 201 laps, when he powered under him in Turn 2 on Lap 270 and his long-run strength made him all but untouchable.

    Then the caution flew.

    AVONDALE, Ariz. – MARCH 12: Harrison Burton, driver of the #21 DEX Images Ford, spins down the frontstretch with 10 laps to go in the NASCAR Cup Series United Rental Works United 500 at Phoenix Raceway on March 12, 2023, in Avondale, Arizona. Photo: Ron Olds/SpeedwayMedia.com

    Just ahead of Harvick, Harrison Burton spun at the start/finish line, cut a tire down and shed debris on the track. Everybody came down pit road, but six cars took just right-side tires, while he took four.

    “It’s what I would have done (taking four tires),” he said. “I’d always rather be on offense.”

    Compounding the matter, his car was geared towards long runs, and struggled on short runs. So on the ensuing restart with three laps to go, he pulled up along the outside of Denny Hamlin, but was boxed in by him and Ross Chastain ahead.

    “Kind of lost our chance,” he said. “Still thought I had a chance there at the end.”

    And he got another shot, after AJ Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs and a few others tangled in Turn 2 and forced overtime.

    In overtime, Harvick chose the outside line, but the same song and dance played out.

    “Those cars were quite a bit slower,” he said. “They get all jammed up.”

    He made up a measly two spots as William Byron scored his sixth NASCAR Cup Series victory and he brought his car home fifth.

    “That’s the way it goes,” he said. “Just smoked ‘em up until the caution. They did a great job with our Hunter Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang. Didn’t need the caution at the end.”

    While it’s no silver lining for the all-time wins leader at Phoenix, Harvick extended the series record for most consecutive top-10 finishes at a single track to 20. Furthermore, he leaves Phoenix second in points. Just three behind points leader Alex Bowman.

    He’ll have one more chance to score win No. 10 at Phoenix in November. Where he could retire as one of just six drivers to win 10 or more races at a single track.

  • Tales from the beat: A deer in headlights

    Tales from the beat: A deer in headlights

    On Aug. 25, 2013, HBO aired an episode of “The Newsroom,” titled “Red Team III.” In its third act, Will McAvoy recounts to the team of Atlantis Cable News’ defense attorneys about various historical figures and events: Claudette Colvin, Guiseppe Zangara and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He caps off each tale with “what if” scenarios revolving around how if one or a few tiny variables changed, then it would have a colossal knock-on effect on the trajectory of the United States.

    I mention this, because I sometimes ponder the night of Sept. 9, 2017, and how a misplaced headset, a Sheetz cup of coffee, drowsiness and a Virginia state trooper prevented me from smashing into either a deer or guardrails.

    One night in Virginia

    About an hour earlier, I wrapped up my coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway. Kyle Larson took the checkered flag and set the field for the playoffs. That was after, of course, I went back up to the press box to retrieve a Racing Electronic headset that I accidentally left up there, came back down and found the door to the infield pedestrian tunnel padlocked. Thus, I walked around the Turns 1 and 2 grandstands to the infield vehicle tunnel on the backstretch.

    At this point, I’m roughly 30 minutes from the interchange where Interstate 64 merges with I-81. At this point, I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours straight and had another two hours of driving to get to my Airbnb in Roanoke, Virginia. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim (can you tell I like “Hotel California?”). So I stopped at a Sheetz for coffee.

    Fast forward roughly 20 minutes later, I cruise down I-64, barely awake. A woman in a white jeep flashes her brights to signal she wants to pass. So I shift over to the outer lane and she speeds by me.

    Now if you’ve ever driven down I-64 going to or from Richmond, you’ll know how the Virginia State Police loves to hide its cars in between the giant trees that separate I-64’s east and westbound lanes. Sure enough, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a black-hooded Ford Taurus. A few seconds later, I see red and blue lights flash in my rear-view mirror. Thinking it’s for me, I flip my turn signal and prepare to pull over. As my foot hovers over the brake pedal, however, it zooms by my car and pulls over the white jeep.

    I breathed a sigh of relief and kept driving. Thankful I wouldn’t have to call my parents in the middle of the night to explain why I was pulled over and got a ticket in Central Virginia.

    Shake hands with danger

    Roughly a minute later, I’m about a mile from the interchange. As I round a turn, I spot a deer in the middle of the road. My eyes widen and I scream, “Oh shit!” I yank the wheel to the right and avoided the deer, but now my 2013 Ford Fusion’s pointed at a guardrail. So I jerk the wheel to the left and spin out. All the while, thinking, “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”

    Eventually, my car stops.

    My hands trembled and I was breathing heavily. Once it occurred to me the car was motionless, I breathed another sigh of relief. Then my relief turned to terror when I realized I was on the road, sideways. With the driver’s side facing the direction of oncoming traffic. So then I slowly turned towards the window.

    Not another car in sight.

    Promptly, I pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, hopped out and circled the car. I spotted no damage and no flat spots on the tires. Satisfied nothing was wrong, I got back in and drove away.

    Piecing the puzzle

    It wasn’t until a year or two ago that I thought back on the night and realized the chain of events that both put me in and avoided a greater mess. The time I lost retrieving my headset, the cup of Sheetz coffee, the woman in the white jeep and the happenstance of the presence of a state trooper.

    All of it coalesced into placing me in that exact moment of spacetime.

    Change any one of these variables even slightly, and I’m either not in that position at all, or I or the white jeep plow into a deer or guardrail.

    Maybe it’s only interesting to me, but those kind of minute details fascinate me.

    Talk about tales from the beat.

  • Pagenaud out-duels Rossi to win 103rd Indy 500

    Pagenaud out-duels Rossi to win 103rd Indy 500

    INDIANAPOLIS — All the talk about Simon Pagenaud entering the Month of May was his slow start to the season and that he’d be out of his ride at Team Penske if things didn’t turn around. After sweeping the Month of May, he’s now the points leader.

    On the final restart of the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500 with 13 laps to go, Pagenaud pounced on race leader Alexander Rossi to take the lead heading into Turn 1. Rossi replied in kind the following lap, and Pagenaud took it and held it for the next seven laps. Coming to three to go, Rossi drafted and passed him on the front stretch to retake the lead. On the backstretch with two to go, Pagenaud followed suit, took it from Rossi for good, snaked his way down the backstretch on the final lap to break Rossi’s draft and score his fourth career victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

    “It’s been such an intense race. I believe we led the most laps of the race. The car was just on rails. The yellows came out perfectly. The stars are aligned. Man, wow, I’m seeing myself on TV with this. It’s pretty amazing. It’s a dream come true, a lifetime of trying to achieve this. So I’m just speechless. It’s just incredible.”

    It’s his 12th career NTT IndyCar Series victory in 127 career starts. He led a race high of 116 laps.

    2016 race winner Rossi finished runner-up and earned his 14th career podium in 56 career starts.

    In the end, the difference was “horsepower.”

    “That’s unfortunately the way it is,” he said. “(Pagenaud) did a great job. Obviously, he was on pole and led the most laps, but I think we had the superior car. We just didn’t have enough there at the end.”

    2017 race winner Takuma Sato, who was at one point a lap down, rounded out the podium (10th of his career).

    “My race, one stage it looked really tough,” Sato said. “We got some little issues after the first pit stop, so we had to come back, and then I think it got a lap down in 31st place.

    “But I think we had to do head down the job and recalculate. Our team did a great job to stretch the field and then get back to the pack. I think it took more than 100 laps. But I think it was brilliant, and after the restart, it was very exciting. Pato, P6, P5, P4 and finally got P3, and then I got everything I had. Obviously I have on board Alex, but we were just flying all over the place with the temperature, and it was a great battle. It is a little bit of a pity that we couldn’t challenge for the win, but we got third under some very difficult circumstances, I think.”

    Josef Newgarden and defending race winner Will Power rounded out the top five.

    Ed Carpenter, Santino Ferrucci, 2014 race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2013 race winner Tony Kanaan and Conor Daly rounded out the top 10.

    Race summary

    Simon Pagenaud led the field to green shortly before 1 p.m. Pagenaud led the first 32 laps before making his first stop of the day on Lap 33. Four different drivers took over the race lead before it cycled back to Pagenaud.

    This pattern of lead changes during green flag pit cycles continued until Lap 151, when Newgarden slingshot past Pagenaud entering Turn 3 to make the first on track pass for the lead of the race. He held serve until he pitted with 29 laps to go. During this pit cycle, a five-car wreck brought out the fourth caution of the race and set up the run to the finish.

    What else happened

    Colton Herta brought out the first caution of the race on Lap 6 when his car stalled on the access road in Turn 4.

    Kyle Kaiser brought out the second caution on Lap 73 when he got loose, overcorrected and hit the wall in Turn 4.

    Marcus Ericsson brought out the third caution on Lap 138 when he spun on entry and hit the inside pit wall.

    Who had a good day

    Santino Ferrucci earned his career best finish of seventh.

    Who had a bad day

    Scott Dixon, who entered the race second in points, was caught up in the five-car wreck with 22 laps to go and suffered front wing damage.

    Nuts and bolts

    The race lasted two hours, 50 minutes and 39 seconds, at an average speed of 175.794 mph. There were 29 lead changes among 10 different drivers and four cautions for 29 laps.

    Pagenaud leaves with a one point lead over Newgarden.

    IndyCar returns to action on Saturday on the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit, as part of the two-race weekend double-header Detroit Grand Prix.

  • Rossi comes up short in Indy 500 bid

    Rossi comes up short in Indy 500 bid

    INDIANAPOLIS — Alexander Rossi was asked what made the difference in the end that cost him in his duel with Simon Pagenaud in the closing laps of the 103rd Indianapolis 500.

    He said it was the horsepower differential between Chevrolet and Honda and the straight-line speed.

    “Obviously the 22 guys fully deserve it,” Rossi said. “They were on pole. He led probably 70 percent of the laps. Yeah, I mean, he was a deserving winner for sure.”

    The last caution particularly hurt him, as he was going to cycle out to the lead at the conclusion of the green flag pit cycle, having passed Pagenaud for said spot.

    “We were doing a lot better on fuel mileage than (Pagenaud) was, so that was the first kind of nail in the proverbial coffin.”

    On the final restart with 13 laps to go, Pagenaud pounced on him coming to the line and took the lead heading into Turn 1. He was able to match him for a few laps, and even took the lead with three laps to go. But with two to go, Pagenaud overtook him for the final time and won.

    “We didn’t have the speed out front,” he said. “I mean, I was flat for the last 15 laps, and there’s not much more you can do.”

    Bad luck basically sums up the day for Rossi at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In addition to the untimely caution, he suffered a slow stop because the fuel pump wouldn’t connect to his car. Then came his battle with the lapped car of Oriol Servia, who blocked him for multiple laps.

    “I think it was one of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever seen in a race car, to be honest,” he said. “He’s a lap down and defending, putting me to the wall at 230 miles an hour. It’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for him, and it’s unacceptable that INDYCAR allowed it to happen as long as they did.”

    At the end of the day, it was an excellent race to the win that he and Pagenaud put on. Maybe in time, he said he could take solace in that aspect.

    “Ultimately it was a good day for the team,” he said. “You know, I think that we put a huge focus all month as we always do on the race car. The car was by far the best in the field in terms of what we could do and pass at will when I needed to. I didn’t see anyone else doing that. So a huge testament to the whole Andretti Autosport organization for really my fourth year here giving me a car that was capable of winning.

    “So that’s a great thing, and I’m very, very thankful for that.

    “But as I said, leading up to this many times, once you’ve won this thing once, the desire to win just ramps up exponentially every year, so it sucks to come this close and really have nothing that we as a team could have done differently. I’m proud of them. I’m proud of the effort that they always put in, and yeah, when we get No. 2, it’s going to be probably a huge explosion of emotions because we all want it really bad.”

    He leaves Indianapolis third in points, trailing new points leader Pagenaud by 23.

  • Windscreen coming to IndyCar in 2020

    Windscreen coming to IndyCar in 2020

    INDIANAPOLIS — Ever since Justin Wilson’s death at Pocono Raceway in 2015, windscreens on race cars in the NTT IndyCar Series was an inevitability. Five years later, that inevitability becomes a reality.

    In the midst of Carb Day festivities at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar announced that Red Bull Advanced Technologies will develop a windscreen, dubbed the Aeroscreen (though IndyCar President Jay Frye implied during the announcement that a different name is coming) as a means to enhance driver cockpit protection. The Aeroscreen makes its debut in 2020.

    “…we’ll have a prototype in probably 30 days, and we’ll have real pieces in another 60 days,” Frye said. “Get them on cars this summer to test, and then at some point we’re going into the off-season around November so we’ll have one for each entry.”

    According to the press release announcement, it will be “a polycarbonate laminated screen that includes an anti-reflective coating on the interior of the screen, an anti-fogging device through an integral heating element and possibly tear-offs…” It’ll be supported by a titanium framework, similar to the Halo design currently used in Formula 1.

    Scott Dixon says the piece that comes down in front of the driver’s view is “something you won’t notice too much.”

    “It’s very similar to the addition that we have right now as far as line of sight for the driver,” he said. “But I think it — until we get it into running conditions through the summer months, we’ll obviously pick up some differences. But I think this adds more to it. It’s structurally more sound. It is higher, creates obviously more room for error, as well. So I think it’s just a far better piece that has been improved from the original concept.

    The “addition” that Dixon’s referring to is the Advanced Frontal Protection (AFP), the three-inch trapezoid placed just in front of the driver that’s designed to deflect debris, such as tires, away from a drivers head.

    What happens to the AFP in 2020?

    “The AFP device comes off, and the frame for this screen just bolts on to it, so it’s in the same spot,” Frye said. “So that’s already been done. So the cars are already equipped to take on this frame by taking off the AFP device.”

    The Aeroscreen — in development since 2016, as Red Bull was working with the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) — is similar in design to those tested in 2016 at ISM (Phoenix) Raceway. The proposed design, however, is taller in the rear to provide greater protection to the drivers head.

    “So part of our work has been to study previous crashes in the IndyCar Series and to detect where the helmet position was during those crashes,” said Ed Collings, Red Bull Advanced Technologies head of composites and structures. “One of the important parts of our design is that we don’t put a very rigid structure in a position where the helmet could make contact in a high-G instant. So in order to deliver that, we’ve created an exclusion zone where this device, this protection system does not come into — doesn’t enter that zone so it wouldn’t impede the driver’s head. So it’s important that we haven’t introduced any compromises by adding this assembly on to the car.”

    Unlike the windscreen tested in 2016, this design might produce a little drag on the cars. While IndyCar will test to see if that difference can be mitigated, the safety value outweighs the drag factor.

    While it deviates a ways away from the “traditional open cockpit look” that’s a hallmark of open-wheel racing, aesthetics were taken into consideration and IndyCar thought Red Bull’s design “looked very cool.”

    “Remember when we did this car a couple years ago, we would put out sketches of the car to the fans to see what their opinion was, and then we’d put out a rendering of the car, so this car, remember we kind of reverse-engineered it where we did esthetics first and the performance was second,” Frye said. “So obviously we put all that effort into the aero kit, so we wanted to make sure the screen matched that, and they’ve done a phenomenal job. It looks, I think you see, it has a fighter jet kind of look to it, so we’re excited about that.”

    The designing of a windscreen came as a result of Wilson’s death at Pocono in 2015, when he was struck in the head by a nose cone that came off Sage Karam’s wrecked car.

  • Pagenaud ends drought in the rain at Indy

    Pagenaud ends drought in the rain at Indy

    INDIANAPOLIS — During his time with Peugeot Sport’s sportscar program, Simon Pagenaud was forced to test in wet weather conditions (be it natural or manually wetting the track) to practice racing in the wet.

    “…we did days and days of reliability just going around the circle, and we would do days in the rain, days in the dry, days on soft tires, days on medium, days on hard,” Pagenaud said. “It was amazing the amount of testing we did and the laps. So I did drive a lot in the rain in my career, but quite frankly, in France, it rains all the time, especially where I’m from. So I’ve done a lot of laps in the rain in my career. I always loved it. The first few laps I did in rain I crashed a lot, but I was fast, so I just had to figure out how to dial it back a little bit, and it’s working.

    He demonstrated the results of said testing, as he went from fifth to first in the final 17 laps on the Grand Prix course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

    Following the final restart of the sixth annual IndyCar Grand Prix, Pagenaud commenced his drive through the field. With six to go, with only three seconds of push to pass (P2P) remaining, Pagenaud used it, outbraked and overtook Jack Harvey heading into Turn 1.

    “…when it started raining, obviously had no knowledge of the track, no knowledge of our setup in the rain,” he said. “I thought, okay, the sports cars have been racing a lot in the rain, a lot of racing in the rain, so I thought I’m just going to attack right away and see. And right away I noticed our car was much better now that it’s on the braking, so I could really attack and get the tires hot quickly, and that’s how I jumped a lot of people right away, and then I gained confidence.

    “Then I noticed that other people were struggling with tire wear, and we didn’t. So then I kept on pushing but was still trying to keep the tires underneath me. But yeah, it was just incredible to see the pace we had in the rain conditions. I took a lot of risks for sure, maybe more than Dixon needed to take some risk because we were in a position where I can take some risks right now and the car was so good that I just gave it 100 percent, 100 percent every lap.

    Then he turned his attention to race leader Scott Dixon. He cut the lead from 5.1 seconds with six to go to 3.9 with five to go, then 1.8 with four to go and half a second with three to go.

    With two to go, he pulled to Dixon’s bumper at the end of Hullman Boulevard (Turn 7). As they rounded Turn 8 and 9, he powered around Dixon’s outside and usurped the lead and drove on to his 12th career victory in the NTT IndyCar Series.

    “Honestly in the last two laps to go, I almost started out saving second, and then all of a sudden I realized, wait, I’ve got too much pace for this, and we caught Scott by a lot, and I guess you call it the penultimate lap, the one before the last, and when I realized that I had a shot, but I was out of Push-to-Pass, so my only chance was to get him on the infield,” he said. “But quite frankly, none of the passes I made today I planned. I just drove with full instinct mode, and it worked out.”

    It’s his third career victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and first since Sonoma Raceway in 2017 (snaps a 22-race winless streak).

    Dixon, who led a race high of 41 laps, finished second for the 43rd time in his career.

    “…it was generally a pretty good day,” Dixon said. “We had some good pace.

    “Conditions were really tricky all day, but a lot of fun actually. I think it’s always hard to tell with a circuit like this, especially after the kind of sealant they put on some of the portions of the oval, how tough it’s going to be once you start to get some moisture on there. But all in all, the Firestone red tires, I never got to the blacks, had a ton of grip and it was a lot of fun.”

    Harvey, who’s previous career best finish was 10th, rounded out the podium in third.

    “It was a bit more of a handful than I probably would have hoped for,” Harvey said. “It looked like we were running pretty good in the dry. I mean, I thought it was the best start I’ve had in IndyCar, too; to be able to split Felix and Scott at the start was pretty solid. And then I think we ran on pace, top 3 in the dry. Car was great.

    Matheus Leist and Spencer Pigot rounded out the top five.

    Ed Jones, Will Power, Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal and Santino Ferrucci rounded out the top 10.

    Race summary

    Rosenqvist led the field to green at 3:50 p.m. After a caution for a wreck in Turn 14, Dixon bested his teammate on the restart and took the race lead.

    “The start was a little tricky, kind of misjudged it with Felix, and actually the 60 car had a great start,” Dixon said. “So kind of just fought in line there and was seeing how it was going to play out. The restart we got that really good jump, got both the 60 and the 10, kind of set us out.”

    From there until the final caution, drivers pitted for new tires at random intervals to maintain as much grip as possible, with the threat of rain looming.

    Tony Kanaan was the first to jump to full wets on Lap 55, but was roughly 30 seconds slower than the race leader.

    Helio Castroneves followed suit on Lap 60, but spun on pit exit and stalled his car in the grass in Turn 1. Everyone ducked onto pit road within seconds of his spin to switch onto wets, before the caution flew on Lap 61. This set up the run to the finish.

    Who had a good day

    After starting 21st, Matheus Leist earned his career best finish with a fourth.

    Who had a bad day

    It wasn’t a great day for the two drivers at the top of the standings.

    Alexander Rossi’s day was all but ruined on the start, after contact with Patricio O’Ward.

    Later in the race, points leader Josef Newgarden’s crew lost control of a tire and it rolled out of the box and stopped next to the outside pit wall.

    He was sent to the tail-end of the field on the ensuing restart, as a result.

    Nuts and bolts

    The race lasted two hours and 26 seconds, at an average speed of 103.254 mph.

    There were 10 lead changes among six different drivers and three cautions for 15 laps.

    Newgarden leaves with a six-point lead over Dixon.