Oilpressure

I will admit, I went into this weekend wanting to be kind to the new downtown circuit. I had my reservations over the layout, but I had been so unkind to the Belle Isle circuit over the years – I was cautious about coming across as a hater of the Motor City.

Other than passing through their airport, I’ve not been to Detroit since 1972, when I was thirteen years-old. My only real recollections of that family vacation was touring the Henry Ford Museum, which at the time was un-air-conditioned. Fifty-one years later, that is my only vivid memory of Detroit.

When CART moved from the downtown circuit to Belle Isle in 1992, I was not a fan. I found it too tight and confining for Indy cars – just ask Paul Tracy, who was subbing for the injured Rick Mears that day. He was bouncing his No. 4 Marlboro car between the walls like a pinball. I’ll concede that the racing and the venue improved over thirty years, but I never could get past my first impressions. That’s why I was so anxious to give the new track a chance.

Then of course, there was Friday’s practice.

I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, but the narrow streets and close walls made me feel closed in – even on my couch on Friday night. I felt more freedom trying to get out of my IMS parking spot last week, then what it appeared the drivers were feeling at the new track. Watching Saturday morning’s practice session, things appeared worse. Between the two practice sessions, there were nine red-flag periods.

I was thinking the new Detroit circuit was going to make Nashville look like Road America, where caution-free races are not uncommon. I have a friend who attended the race in Detroit this weekend. He texted me before the Saturday practice and said “I would kill for Belle Isle right now”

I feared the worst. I was afraid that the Saturday afternoon qualifying session and Sunday’s race was going to be unwatchable, because the track seemed unraceable.

I was shocked when qualifying went pretty much as any knock-out qualifying on non-ovals. It wasn’t incident-free, but few of them are. Still, I was not optimistic for what was in store for Sunday. I texted my friend in Detroit, my guess was that no more than five cars would come out of Sunday’s race with no damage. The only certain winner would be Dallara, who would cash in on all of the repair bills before Road America.

The start did nothing to change my mind. First, the field was too spread out so the starter stand waved off the start. Lap One started under the yellow. I assumed that was prophetic for the carnage that was sure to come. Then the green flag flew on Lap Two, that is until the field got to the first turn past the starter’s stand (really Turn 3A). Callum Ilott climbed all over the back of Kyle Kirkwood’s car before they reached the turn. Ilott was done for the day, and Kirkwood had to pit for a new rear wing. When the race resumed, he was at the back of the field – but did not go a lap down.

Much to my surprise, there was not another yellow-flag until Lap 43, when Pato O’Ward (my pick to win) slammed the inside wall in a misguided effort to pass Santino Ferrucci. Unlike Kirkwood, O’Ward had no one to blame but himself. The green flag had barely flown, when Sting Ray Robb stalled his car in a runoff area.

But once Robb was re-fired, The race went almost thirty laps without another caution. That came on Lap 82, when Romain Grosjean crashed hard in Turn Four, heavily damaging his DHL Honda. From that point, the old adage of Yellows bring yellows, was in full play. David Malukas found the wall on the re-start after the Grosjean incident, then Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb brought out the final caution on Lap 92 of the 100 lap race.

Did I mention that Alex Palou won the race? The Spaniard actually dominated, leading seventy-four of the scheduled one-hundred laps. Will Power led fourteen, on his way to second-place. He was able to keep pressure on Palou, but never really threatened to win. Felix Rosenqvist finished third, after some good side-by-side racing with teammate Alexander Rossi.

There were thirty-two laps of caution, which was much less than most people expected heading into Sunday. The last five laps were very intense, especially behind Palou. The fans seemed happy and most drivers left with a smile on their face. Maybe they were just happy to survive. From my couch, I found myself paying close attention to the Turn Three complex every lap. In all honesty, I was much more entertained than I thought I would be. Then again, after the first two practice sessions, my expectations were pretty low.

TV Coverage: I have still not watched the full replay of the Indianapolis 500, so I’ve not seen (or heard) the dustup between Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. But if there was any lingering resentment between the two, it appears they put their swords away before the telecast.

We had to watch the telecast on Peacock. Our local NBC affiliate had an unwatchable picture. There was distorted and sporadic sound, and the picture was so pixilated that it appeared everyone’s face was melting. I’m just glad we had an alternative I feel sorry for any local folks who wanted to watch the race.

I thought overall, the crew did a good job. They sort of glossed over most of the drivers concerns we were seeing on social media. In fact, to hear Leigh Diffey tell it, this was the most anticipated event on the IndyCar calendar in years. I also thought Kevin Lee and Dave Burns had very good weekends in the pits. I appreciated Burns asking Alexander Rossi the tough questions about the late race battle with teammate Felix Rosenqvist. I also liked Rossi’s terse response of “We’ll discuss it internally”.

Rahal Woes: The nightmarish 2023 season at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR) continued this past weekend. The moderate success they had in the GMR Grand Prix seems like a distant memory, after their qualifying struggles for the Indianapolis 500 and then Detroit.

The team qualified eighteenth (Christian Lundgaard), twenty-fifth (Jack Harvey) and twenty-seventh out of twenty-seven (Graham Rahal). If things weren’t embarrassing enough, Rahal crashed under the caution for Sting Ray Robb’s stalled car.

The first replays showed Rahal inexplicably missing a corner at slow speed and running into the wall. My first reaction was that it brought back memories of Dennis Vitolo and Nigel Mansell in the 1994 Indianapolis 500. Further replays showed Rahal fighting to turn the steering wheel hard to the left, but the car insisted on going straight. That absolved Rahal from most of the blame, but why are their cars so evil to drive this year? This team has regressed tremendously in the past two seasons. They are to test at Sebring next weekend. Something tells me that the problem doesn’t lie with the cars – it is with team personnel. This will be the first off-weekend since the first weekend in May. Some housecleaning may be in order.

Herta Woes: Except for Kirkwood, none of the Andretti cars were exceptionally quick in practice. Still Romain Grosjean was able to get into the Firestone Fast Six and started third. The head-scratcher was Colton Herta, who was last in the second practice session and ended up starting twenty-fourth. It didn’t help that Agustin Canapino clipped Herta’s front wing and he had a wounded car for the rest of the race.

Herta moved up steadily despite the front wing damage and finished eleventh. My question is; why was he so slow in practice and qualifying. It’s good that Herta is a racer and can overcome his poor qualifying, but this new layout in Detroit is not one where you can count on passing a lot of cars.

Herta is mired in a very mediocre season. He is supposed to be the star of Andretti Autosport, but I would rank him third – trailing Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean, and only better than Devlin DeFrancesco. Herta is currently ninth in points, and trails eighth-place Will Power by twenty-three points. Tenth place Felix Rosenqvist is only one point behind Herta.

I think it’s fair to say that Herta is not living up to his potential. He passes a lot of cars for decent finishes that disguise his struggles in qualifying. Is the problem with the team or the driver. Does he miss his dad on the pit box? Is he too focused on obtaining a Super License and not focused on the job at hand? I won’t pretend to know the answers to any of these questions, but someone needs to take a hard look at what is going on with the No. 26 team and fix it.

Self-Inflicted Wounds: Another Andretti Autosport driver is struggling in points, but the source of his problems are pretty obvious. Romain Grosjean has been fast at every track this season, except for the Indianapolis 500. He has two poles and probably should have won at least one of those races if not both. The problem is, Grosjean can’t keep his car out of the fence.

Grosjean crashed in Lap 80 yesterday. That marked the fourth time in seven races so far this season, that Grosjean has crashed out of a race. In St. Petersburg, it was technically the fault of Scott McLaughlin when the two crashed while battling for the lead. At Texas, Grosjean crashed after leading late in the race. While he wasn’t in contention for the win, Grosjean crashed in a single-car accident in the Indianapolis 500.

Car owners don’t like paying for crash damage over and over. Going into May, Grosjean had cleaned up his act and Michael Andretti was talking about a contract extension for Grosjean sometime in May. We are now five days into June and we’ve heard nothing about an extension for the Swiss-born Frenchman.

Although he has ruffled more than a few feathers on the track, I like Grosjean and I hope he and Michael can come to terms on a new contract. But based on his penchant for crashing, I’m not at all certain that’s going to happen now.

The Pit Lane: Much was made about the double-sided pit lane. Many, including myself, thought this would be one of the many sources of trouble on Sunday. What looked like a very quirky design, ended up working out very well. I’m not so sure you want see this design duplicated elsewhere.

The Points: Don’t look now, but what was a very tight points battle heading into May, has suddenly turned into a runaway for Alex Palou. He has won two of the last three races, two poles in a row, with the pole at Indianapolis paying more than any other. After his eighth-place finish at St. Petersburg, Palou has finished no lower than fifth. As of yesterday, Palou has suddenly opened up a fifty-one point lead on second-place Marcus Ericsson.He could almost skip a race and still retain the points lead.

Despite a tenth=place finish on Sunday, Josef Newgarden is now third in points. Newgarden is nineteen points behind Ericsson, but seventy behind Palou. It’s almost shaping up as a battle for second-place. Scott Dixon and Pato O’Ward round out the Top-Five in points.

Drive of the Day: Some will give the Drive of the Day to Colton Herta, for starting twenty-fourth and finishing eleventh. While that is impressive, he should never have started that far back to begin with. Besides, there was another driver who made up more positions, had a better finish and found himself in the back of the field through no fault of his own.

Kyle Kirkwood started twelfth, but after Callum Ilott ran into the back of Kirkwood and damaged his rear-wing – Kirkwood found himself at the very back of the field. He carved his way through the field and ended up finishing sixth. He is my choice for Drive of the Day.

All in All: After watching the carnage unfold through the first two practice sessions, and looking at some very narrow sections of track, I was convinced that was just a glimpse to what Sunday’s race would look like. To quote our old friend Pressdog; I was expecting a festival of carbon fiber. Instead, we got what shaped up to be a pretty exciting and entertaining race.

But that doesn’t mean we should expect that year after year going forward. Like Nashville, this track needs some work, and not just a few tweaks. The potential is there for a lot of red flags for a blocked track.

As for the inaugural edition of Detroit’s Downtown layout, I will give it a C+, which is a lot higher than I would’ve said Saturday morning. It was exciting and entertaining. That’s what it was supposed to be.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on June 5, 2023 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.