“Championship Implicated.”
IndyCar hit their mission objective. When this calendar turned around, even before Nashville switched to their Superspeedway, we all knew why they stuffed the backend of their calendar with ovals. They wanted unpredictability and drama to tell the story down the stretch. And it’s hard to argue after Gateway that they haven’t done just that. A short oval that on paper, Penske dominated, but reading between the lines, they were just as responsible for the chaos that unfolded. Let’s get into it.
Battle Lines Drawn
There were two main stories that dominated the early running of this race after Rinus Veekay brought out an early caution that took out Kyle Kirkwood and put both Juncos Cars of Grosjean and Daly a lap down. At the front, it was Penske using their usual short oval to take control of the early running, with Will Power leading the early running from the front, with David Malukas being the in-between antagonist.
The memelord has always been brilliant in Gateway, with podiums in both of the last two years, and he led 11 laps of his own at the front as the race’s main non-Penske antagonist, while Scott Dixon, one of several contenders was running an alternate strategy by pitting early on and gaining 10 laps of tyre delta. It turns out Gateway’s tyre wear had gone up by account of the fact that the cars weigh nearly 50 kilogrammes more in the hybrid era and what many thought could be a 3-stop race ended up as a 5-stop race by nightfall.
The key flashpoint that changed the direction of the race was Lap 196 of 260, when Josef Newgarden, running second on the road with the leader’s strategy was chasing down McLaughlin, and in his haste to try and clear traffic, spun out but was able to avoid the wall, bringing out a caution. He only dropped to fourth as a result of the caution, but it set up the rest of the race.
With 20 laps to go, Will Power, defending from Malukas, pinches him at the apex of Turn 2, forcing Malukas to take the kerb to avoid contact, with the American spinning into the outside wall for another caution. Power wasn’t punished. With it, the field took their final round of pit stops, and race leader Scott McLaughlin was beaten off pitroad by Josef Newgarden, now in the lead of the race, essentially getting a free stop due to staying out at the time of Malukas’ hit.
On that next restart, Alex Rossi drives over the back of Will Power’s car, clattering him into the wall with Grosjean and Jack Harvey. Power is out and he is LIVID. He bollocked Malukas after he was out of the race for no good reason, he flipped Newgarden the bird too. Why? Because it looked on the onboard like Newgarden might have dragged his brakes on the restart to squeeze a little more regen out of his hybrid for the restart, even after the green had dropped to restart the race. Newgarden’s restart was investigated, but no further action was taken.
The final restart was a relatively quiet affair, the fuel saving Colton Herta could take a splash and push hard off a free stop, racing Linus Lundqvist for third initially, but was then hit with a blocking penalty which dropped him down to fifth post-race. Newgarden takes his second win of the year in comfortable fashion with McLaughlin second and Lundqvist with his second podium of the season.
And in fourth… Alex Palou, who despite starting 16th, and not really having much in terms of pace having to save fuel constantly, ended up in P4 simply by keeping his nose clean and staying on the lead lap at the end. A “Champions” drive by Palou, who extended his lead in the Championship fight up to 59 points. Looking at the standings:
Alex Palou – 443
Colton Herta (-59)
Scott Dixon (-65)
Will Power (-66)
Scott McLaughlin (-73)
Pato O’Ward (-98)
Once again, Palou is the big winner. Herta’s now second in the standings but lost ground on track. Scott Dixon gambled on strategy but lost and ended up two laps down in 11th. Power crashed out, McLaughlin was already back a mile and lost 10 points potentially to his teammate who’s not in the title race, and Pato O’Ward’s engine failed via a leak in his coolant system. For all the sauce about Palou’s ovals being a weakness, he’s had three top five finishes, including a podium. Funny that.
And Portland is up next, arguably Palou’s best track, with two wins there in the past. One more big swing and it’s likely game over.
Charter Up
Also, it looks like the new charter system has been drafted publicly into place, and like this race, this is likely going to end up messy. As hinted at, Marshall; Pruett nicknamed it the “3/22/25/27 system”, ie:
3 – Charters per team going forward
22 – The Leader’s Circle prize money that’s about to be given out
25 – The amount of total charters to be given out, which will be protected
27 – A hard 27-car limit for road and street courses on the day
So good news, the scary news about guaranteed 500 spots won’t happen. But this still leaves some question marks. With only 27 cars allowed going forward, Chip Ganassi Racing’s going to have a hard time deciding which three cars it wants to keep. Dixon and Palou are nailed on, but they’ll only be one car between Marcus Armstrong, Linus Lundqvist and Kyffin Simpson. Simpson looks unlikely after a largely anonymous rookie season, but while Lundqvist has had the bigger finishes with two podiums, Armstrong’s 18 points ahead of Lundqvist, and can fund his own ride. It’s a genuinely tough decision that Chip has to make here and I’m not sure who I’d choose.
Meanwhile, where does this leave PREMA, who are going to be bringing a two-car team in 2025? Well, they’re liststed as the two “unofficial” entries. With the field cut down to 27 due to Chip having no incentive to run a third and fourth car, it fits that Prema make up the full 27-car grid. But it also means they cannot get a Leader’s Circle contract OR a charter, even if they make the Top 22 on points next year. It also means that if another team, like Ed Carpenter or Rahal Letterman Lanigan wants to run an extra car like Juri Vips is at Portland, they’re going to have to pre-qualify to make the field.
They’ll also be a hard cap on entrants per car, which is the main point of dissention with the teams, with the series pushing for a three driver limit on a car for the season. It’s been nicknamed “The Dale Coyne” rule given nine drivers have represented them this year, and if it was already in place, Nolan Siegel wouldn’t have been able to race for McLaren this year. Going to be interesting to see how much of this sticks.
My thoughts? Most of this makes sense, but what’s the incentive to Prema, or for any new team to enter the series now? Only 25 charters are being given, and while it’s understandable its for the loyal teams to get protection, Prema is the only recent team who’s been keen to enter your series and they’ve been left relatively on the cold. Not sure I can get behind that one, but we’ll see how the formalities develop over time.
The Lightning Round
It’s funny that two weeks after Alex Rossi had Sting Ray Robb drive him by accident in Iowa, he did the same thing himself to Will Power.
David Malukas is heading to AJ Foyt for 2025 on a mulitple-year deal. I think Foyt has pulled off a genuine heist on a talent I would have thought Meyer Shank would have been keen to keep. But it does open the door for them to go get Alex Rossi, who’s the best free agent left by a comfortable distance. Apparently Roger Penske had a big hand in getting Malukas with a team that is affiliated with his own. Has Roger chosen his future project I wonder?
Once again, it needs to be asked, what’s the call on the stewarding here?! Will Power blatantly pinches David Malukas (And the latter admitted there was contact), and Power dodges an avoidable contact penalty. Newgarden’s restart causes a four car wreck, and he gets away with it. But Colton Herta puts down an aggressive but ultimately fair block and he gets hit with a position drop. I don’t get it, I really don’t, and it’s those questionable decisions with Penske at the heart of the action twice that makes people think the series is in the pocket of its biggest team. It doesn’t help when the series’ own future ex-broadcaster is actively putting out statements where a large portion of the paddock believes exactly that.
Bryan Herta of Andretti was seething: “It’s a growing feeling in the paddock,” Bryan Herta continued. “Maybe I’m the first one to say that, but it’s what people feel. If Colton deserved a penalty, the other one certainly should have been a penalty. That’s my whole point. Colton blocked Linus. That’s fine. They gave him a penalty. Fine.
But how do you not penalize the guy that checked up the whole field and caused a crash, how is that not worse? How is causing a three-car accident with a car flying through the air not worse than a guy throwing a block with a lap to go. How is that not worse?”
Sting Ray Robb ended up ninth. On merit. No bullshit involved. Somewhere I think FP1 Will just reached for a bottle of baby oil. HUGE for his Leader’s Circle push with Juncos replacement Conor Daly “only” managing 13th.
PS: I know how bad this is going to sound, but I risk it anyway – Louis Foster has won five out of the last six in Indy NXT and now has a 91 point Championship lead. He’s a year two driver, just like Jamie Chadwick his teammate. And by all accounts, it seems Chadwick is getting pushed hard for a full-time seat. I’m not sure how I should feel about it.
Dre’s Race Rating: 6/10 (Decent) – This was for lack of a better term, a messy bitch. The early action was aggressive and fun, but it quickly died down into processional racing for long periods, until the really messy racecraft kicked in towards the end. And this wasn’t fun drama, it was: “Really?” kinda drama. Not for me. But still fine.
