The race two weeks before the Indianapolis 500 has carried many names. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Angie’s List Grand Prix, IndyCar Grand Prix presented by Sea-Doo, GMR Grand Prix and new for this year – the Sonsio Grand Prix (which had been the name of the IndyCar race at Road America for the past couple of years). This year was the tenth anniversary of the event and the tenth running, since it was not held in 2020. In ten races, there have only been five winners – Simon Pagenaud, Will Power, Rinus VeeKay, Colton Herta and Alex Palou.
Like any event, there have been some very good races and there have been some duds. From the perspective of someone on site watching the race on Saturday, the 2024 edition was a dud. It happens. St. Petersburg this season was a dud, and Long Beach was extremely entertaining.
Defenders of Saturday’s race will point to fourteen lead changes among eight drivers. That statistic is true. But most of those lead changes came on green-flag pit stop shuffles. There were only two effective leaders of this race – the winning car of Alex Palou and the third-place car of Christian Lundgaard. Though he drove another strong race and finished second, Will Power never led a lap on Saturday. Lundgaard led thirty-five, while Palou led thirty-nine. There were only two laps of caution – when the Dale Coyne Racing’s Luca Ghiotto stalled in Turn Ten on Lap 66.
It was a good crowd. Fans were treated with blue skies and pleasant temperatures with a cool breeze. When the scattered clouds covered the sun, it was actually a little chilly, but the sun was not obscured that often and it was warm sitting in the Tower Terrace stands, overlooking the main straightaway facing west.
A year ago, this race kick-started a run of four wins in five races for Alex Palou. Had it not been for Rinus VeeKay running Palou into the pit-lane wall on Lap 93 of the Indianapolis 500, he could’ve won five in a row. After winning at Detroit, Road America and Mid-Ohio last year, clinching the championship by Portland was just a formality. The championship was essentially over by the Fourth of July. For the sake of the series, I hope that doesn’t happen again.
But congratulations goes to Alex Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing. He won from the pole, made a slight mistake on the start and drove a masterful race from there. He deserved the win.
TV Coverage: While we were out by the track for most of the time Indy cars were on-track, I was able to catch some of the TV coverage in the media center, as well as listening to Practice One while driving up Friday morning. They had a nice tribute to Wally Dallenbach after the race, but it may have shown more than once. As usual, I thought Kevin Lee did a nice job in the pits, and I’ll say the same about Marty Snider – at least from what I was able to catch. Their biggest task of the season is about to start Tuesday, when they have to fill up hours of air time during practice for the 108 Running of the Indianapolis 500 mile race.
National Anthem: I am not a fan of over-stylizing our National Anthem. Maybe one reason for that is that those that try to put their own spin on it, don’t have a very good singing voice to begin with.
Some might actually be surprised that I was impressed with the voice of Indianapolis native, Maeta. Not surprisingly, I had never heard of her and sort of rolled my eyes when I saw the release early last week that she would be singing it. I was expecting the worst. Yes, she put her own spin on it, but she actually pulled it off with her strong singing voice. A thumbs-up overall.
Flyover: While the National Anthem was a pleasant surprise, I can’t say the same for the flyover. I realize this is not the Indianapolis 500, and you can’t have the Thunderbirds at every race; but the flyover we got on Saturday was just plain lame. It was a single helicopter. One. It took it forever to lumber the length of the main straightaway. As it got closer to us, you could see that it was emitting red and blue smoke. (Photo: George Phillips)
We have seen this done at other events in other series, but usually with five choppers flying in V-formation – and with a lot more smoke. If one helicopter is all you can get, I think no flyover at all would’ve better than what we got.
Is it Almost Over? Aside from asking the Team Penske drivers about the suspensions that were announced last Tuesday morning, the Media Center was not really buzzing about the P2P scandal nearly as much as it was at Barber. We were right in the middle of driver introductions before Saturday’s race. Scott McLaughlin and Will Power received no boos from fans that I heard, and I was listening for them. Josef Newgarden got a slight smattering of boos from the crowd, but there were also a lot of loud cheers of support.
That may change during driver introductions for the 500, but for Saturday’s much smaller crowd – either they flat-out didn’t know about the scandal, they didn’t fully understand it or they simply didn’t care about it. Maybe the fans and the paddock are finally ready to move on.
In His Head? As the NTT IndyCar Series left Long Beach, it appeared that Josef Newgarden had finishes of first and fourth in the first two races of the season. He was leading the championship and was showing early signs of a strong season ahead. Then that Wednesday, his win at St. Petersburg was taken away and he was disqualified from the event. He plummeted from leading the points to eleventh in the championship.
Fast-forward three weeks and Newgarden’s promising season reads; DNQ, fourth, sixteenth and seventeenth – which currently puts him at an anemic seventeenth in points heading into defending his Indianapolis 500 win from last year. He finds himself just one point ahead of rookie Kyffin Simpson.
Newgarden’s teammates seem to have shaken off the taint of the scandal. Power finished second at Barber and was runner-up again on Saturday. Scott McLaughlin won at Barber and finished a respectable sixth on Saturday. Power is second in points. Had he not been penalized ten points at St. Petersburg, he would only trail Palou by two points instead of twelve. McLaughlin has climbed back from twenty-ninth in points after the disqualification to now sit in sixth in the championship.
This is a team sport and it is not all on Newgarden. He struggled in practice on Friday, but was able to get into the Firestone Fast Six in qualifying and started fourth. We were behind Newgarden’s pit during his second stop. His right-rear tire changer had a problem. I don’t know how many seconds it cost Newgarden, but it was a lot. He was a non-factor from that point on.
Is the scandal messing with Newgarden’s head? Is it in the head of his crew? Is it both? Whatever the problem is, they need to get it resolved early this week id they ever want to entertain thoughts of being the first back-to-back winners of the 500 since 2001-02.
The Magic Continues: After a disastrous season for Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) in 2023, and a not-so-great season for Felix Rosenqvist; not many people knew how it was going to go when Rosenqvist joined MSR for 2024. The duo raised eyebrows at St. Petersburg. It continued at Thermal, though no points were on the line. The magic continued through Long Beach and Barber.
Qualifying did not go well at IMS on Friday afternoon, as Rosenqvist missed the Firestone Fast Six and qualified tenth. He was shuffled back at the start and it looked as if Rosenqvist and MSR were finally headed to a dismal outing. But the team stuck together and Rosenqvist was able to crawl back into the Top-Ten and salvage a tenth-place finish. Rosenqvist now sits fifth in points as we head into practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Tuesday.
Drive of the Day: Many drivers overcame poor qualifying on Friday to have good results on Saturday. The aforementioned Felix Rosenqvist comes to mind, after he was shuffled back early in the race. Romain Grosjean started twenty-third, yet manage to claw his way up to twelfth.
But, in my opinion, the drive of the day belonged to Colton Herta. After a miserable qualifying session that saw Herta qualify in twenty-fourth; he raced his way to an unbelievable seventh-place finish. That’s hard to do, when there is only one caution in the race.
All in All: In all honesty, I normally don’t have high expectations going into this race. If we get a dud, I’m not disappointed. If it ends up being even mildly suspenseful – that’s just a bonus. There was not a whole lot of suspense on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable. The sun was out, there were Indy cars on-track at IMS and I was there to experience it. When we went under the tunnel for the first time in May on Friday and popped out on the other side with The Pagoda to our right and the Media Center to our left – suddenly all was right with the world. I got that same feeling I had fifty-nine years ago, when I first attended the Indianapolis 500 in 1965. That feeling never leaves you.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 