Please Note: Before I get started, I wanted to let everyone know that there is a very good chance that I will have nothing here on Monday. We learned a couple of days ago that we will have out of town guests coming to visit us on Sunday afternoon around 4:00 pmand we will be going to dinner with them afterward. With the race probably ending after 2:00 pm CDT, I am not sure I’ll have time to gather my thoughts and write anything before they get here, and I would be considered very rude if I holed myself up in my mancave to write, just as they got here. At best, I may have something very abbreviated for Monday – but don’t expect the usual Random Thoughts if I have anything. – GP
And just like that, we have another race weekend upon us. The way the calendar fell this year, we get another race in the Month of May that is not on the grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This time the NTT IndyCar Series heads north to take on the streets of Detroit, for the Chevrolet Grand prix of Detroit.
I’ve seen on social media that some fans and even drivers are wishing the series would take a week off, after a grueling three weeks spent at IMS for the Sonsio Grand Prix, 500 Qualifying and then the Indianapolis 500. Do these folks not remember those years in the 2000s, where so much momentum from the Indianapolis 500 was lost because Texas Motor Speedway insisted that they be given a full two weeks to promote the 500 champion coming to race at Texas? Of course, it did them no good in 2011, when Dan Wheldon won the 500 in a 0ne-off effort. The closest Wheldon came to racing at Texas for that crazy double-header format was being in the Versus TV booth to watch Wade Cunningham crash the car he drove to victory at Indianapolis just two weeks earlier.
Long ago, the series traditionally headed to Milwaukee for the very next race after the Indianapolis 500. While I would still prefer that, I would much rather be racing in Detroit this weekend, instead of being idle this weekend. After all the goodwill gained from such a dramatic finish, I cannot imagine watching it all slip away as the teams sat still this weekend. The public is fickle and has a very short memory. Cash in on the momentum while you can.
This weekend will be the fourth version of the Detroit Grand Prix since they moved the circuit from Belle Isle, where it had been held since 1992, back to downtown. Originally, this race was a Formula One race that utilized a rough circuit around the Renaissance Center, the collection of one large and four smaller towers that has become the signature symbol for Detroit. Trendy people are now calling it the RenCen. Since I don’t like to follow trends, I’ll continue to call it the Renaissance Center. It doesn’t matter really, since General Motors moved its headquarters out of the aging structure earlier this year. Partial demolition of the Renaissance Center is planned in the not-so-distant future.
The new downtown circuit is still in the shadows of the Renaissance Center, but utilizes a unique layout that runs alongside the Detroit River. It has some fairly dramatic elevation changes for a street course, a few too many 90° turns for my liking, an exceptionally long straightaway that features the starting line before it leads into a very slow Turn Three that is usually the scene of a lot of pile-ups. A lot of carbon fiber bodywork tends to go flying, but few cars are ever knocked out of the race in that turn.
This track also features a very unique two-sided pit lane. The first time I saw it when the current layout first debuted in 2023, I thought it was a series of accidents waiting to happen. As it turns out, it has worked very well as the drivers adapted quickly to it.
Tempers tend to flare at this track, as they did one year between Santino Ferrucci and Kyle Kirkwood. Last year, it was Will Power and Kirkwood that got into it in practice. This season, those two are now teammates at Andretti Global.
Longtime readers of this site know that I was not a fan of Belle Isle, and that’s putting it mildly. Defenders of Belle Isle said I was criticizing it unfairly since I had never been to the scenic track. I will concede that TV can skew a viewer’s impression of a track from their couch. I could never understand how announcers kept describing Sonoma as beautiful, when all viewers saw was a dustbowl. Once Susan and I attended the 2018 IndyCar season finale at Sonoma, I saw what they meant. It actually was beautiful, although I still thought it was not a good track for IndyCar.
That was my main concern about Belle Isle. It tended to be processional unless someone put another driver into the too-close concrete barriers that surrounded the track on both sides. It was very boring to watch races there.
While some may question the validity of true racing at the new circuit, and it tends to be a crash fest like the first two Music City Grand Prix races in downtown Nashville – it is not boring, and I prefer the new circuit to the races at Belle Isle. I am probably in the minority in that stance, but every now and then, the series needs a wild card race to shake up the standings. The new downtown circuit at Detroit certainly fills that need.
Like Mid-Ohio and the downtown Nashville circuit, the finish line is in a different location from the starting line. The finish line is located in front of some of the most expensive suites on the property. Patrons will pay top dollar to witness the potential of a very close finish, although I wouldn’t expect anything like what we saw last week in Indianapolis.
The weekend officially gets underway with Practice One on Friday on FS2 at 3:00 pm EDT. Practice Two starts early Saturday at 9:00 am EDT on FS1. Qualifying will begin at 1:00 pm EDT on FS1. Sunday’s Morning Warmup will take place at 9:30 am EDT. Race coverage will begin on Big FOX at 12:30 pm EDT.
One interesting stat I’ve noticed is that since the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix moved to its new location on the downtown streets, each of the three races have been won by a Honda – spoiling the home track for Chevy each time. I think that will happen again this year.
Last year, Honda put Alex Palou in a Honda-based livery at Barber, which is considered a Honda track. Honda used to be the title sponsor at Barber, and the pace car each year at Barber is still a Honda. Palou won that race. This year, Honda has chosen Detroit as the place to run their HRC livery on Palou’s car – right in the middle of enemy territory with Chevy branding everywhere. Maybe I’m still suffering from Palou fatigue, but I don’t think they will have the same luck this time. I think Palou is a little frustrated with how things went this past weekend; starting on the pole and leading the most laps, only to finish seventh. Palou crashed in this race last season, after winning the Indianapolis 500 the week before. He won on this circuit in 2023, but I think he may be hitting a slight lull for late spring. For the good of the series, he needs to. Fans don’t want to see another Alex Palou beatdown of the rest of the field. I don’t think he will crash, but I don’t expect Palou to have a winning weekend either.
Another Honda driver who I’m convinced won’t be winning this weekend is Felix Rosenqvist. Even the most disciplined drivers have said that the whirlwind schedule that week after winning the 500 is too much. The last time a driver won the next race after winning the Indianapolis 500, was in 2000; when Juan Montoya won the Indianapolis 500, then the very next week won at Milwaukee. It’s been more than a quarter-century since it has happened. It probably won’t happen this year either.
Who will win? After a nice start to the season, Andretti Global had a rough Month of May, that saw Kyle Kirkwood fall from once leading the points to now falling to third after the Indianapolis 500. He is currently 49 points behind Palou, and trails second-place Davis Malukas by twelve points. This is the kind of track where Andretti Global excels. Any of their three drivers, Kirkwood, Will Power or Marcus Ericsson could win on Sunday, but I think Kyle Kirkwood will repeat his 2025 Detroit win on Sunday and will re-establish himself into the points race. We’ll see.
Remember – I will only have a very abbreviated write-up on Monday, if anything. Sometimes, life happens.
George Phillips
