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Sometimes you get a surprisingly thrilling race like last weekend’s race at Worldwide Technology Raceway, and sometimes you get a dud. The 2024 Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland was something of a dud – at least in my opinion. It’s bad when qualifying is much more exciting than the race itself.

Santino Ferrucci was the surprising pole-winner on Saturday. I considered this a feel-good story, until I saw some of the Ferrucci haters come out of the woodwork on social media Saturday night. Even though they weren’t thrilled with the driver, most of them were at least happy to see AJ Foyt Racing starting on top in Sunday’s starting lineup. This was no fluke. Ferrucci earned that pole on speed, beating the best in the business – Will Power.

But Ferrucci took it easy at the start and Power passed him going into the first chicane. That was pretty much your race right there. Power led 101 laps and won by almost ten seconds over Alex Palou, who finished second.

Sometimes, you can have a static race up front, but there will be a lot of action from third place on back. There was very little of that in Sunday’s race, unless you want to count Scott Dixon (my pick to win) getting punted off-track om the backstretch, ending his day on Lap One. Then there was Romain Grosjean, who saw his possible fifth-place finish go down the drain with several questionable offs. On one, he crossed right into the path of Christian Rasmussen. Grosjean finished twenty-seventh.

There was not much drama for the race win nor the championship. Power re-established himself in second place in the championship, which is realistically down to three drivers – Palou, Power and Colton Herta; and Palou did lose some ground in the championship, but not much. Palou leads Power by 54 points with three races remaining – all ovals. Scott McLaughlin is now 88 back. He is still alive, but too much would have to happen to too many people in order for him to catch and pass Palou by the end of the season.

I would like to say there was a lot tro write about from yesterday’s race, but I’m afraid this will be a shorter article than most race re-caps. There just isn’t a whole lot to unpack. I’m not complaining or demanding that IndyCar make some kind of adjustments – it happens.

TV Coverage: Once again, I thought everyone with NBC (USA) did a good job yesterday. I thought Kevin Lee did an excellent job in the anchor position, and the two analysts had solid days. Dillon Welch continues to justify why he’s on the broadcast and Georgia Henneberry continues to impress with her solid questions.

If I have to nitpick, it’s over the revival of the Hate Caldron. I thought that lame idea had been mercifully put to bed more than two years ago. Unfortunately, it was given new life yesterday. I’m hoping NBC will put it back on the shelf for their final three races.

National Anthem: Last week I praised the member of our armed forces that sang a beautiful rendition of our National Anthem. I may have even inferred that this duty be performed by service members from here on out, because they always do a much better job.

The young lady who sang it yesterday disproved that theory in a big way. It was awful! I will purposely not list her name here, because I’m sure she is a wonderful person and I’m confident she performs her duties very well – but singing should not be one of them. To those of you that have said that I shouldn’t criticize unless I’ve tried it myself – I don’t need to know how to cook, to tell a good meal from a bad one.

Disappearing Act: David Malukas has been the talk of IndyCar, ever since he climbed back into a race car at Laguna Seca. His recovery from a broken wrist, and being let go from Arrow McLaren without ever racing for them, has been nothing short of remarkable. He parlayed that into a mult-year contract at the resurgent AJ Foyt Racing. Even halfway through the weekend, his performance at every track was the envy others. He was even second quick in Saturday morning’s Practice Two. And then it all went terribly wrong.

Malukas never got out of Round One in Qualifying and started twenty-fifth, after sustaining a grid-penalty for an unapproved engine change. He was rarely heard from in yesterday’s race and finished a very unremarkable twentieth.

Malukas was not the only one that was silent in Qualifying, after setting a strong pace in practice. Scott McLaughlin and Alexander Rossi both struggled in Qualifying after posting times at or near the top of the speed charts for each session. Yet they both salvaged respectable days, while Malukas toiled in relative obscurity. Hopefully Malukas can get back on his game on the upcoming ovals.

Stretched Thin: One team was stretched more than usual this weekend, but they seemed to manage it fairly well. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing ran four cars this weekend. The usual trio of Graham Rahal, Pietro Fittipaldi and Christian Lundgaard was joined by Juri Vips – who was making his third-ever start.

Given the fact that they have sometimes struggled to get a decent result out of even just one car, I was unsure how the weekend would go for them. That shows how much I know. They place two cars in the Firestone Fast Six in Qualifying. Rahal finished ninth after getting hit with a grid-penalty, while Lundgaard finished thirteenth after qualifying fourth. Fittipaldi and Vips qualified thirteenth and fifteenth respectively. Vips kept his nose clean and finished nineteenth out of twenty-eight cars. Fittipaldi was the only driver who had a bad day, as he could not slip under the radar of race control, with two unavoidable contact penalties, which resulted in two drive-through penalties.

Overall, it was a decent team that has had some monumental struggles over the past two seasons.

Drive of the Day: Although yesterday’s race was lacking in overall excitement, there were some decent drives. Some will point to Scott McLaughlin, who had a bad qualifying session and a grid-penalty afterward, He started twentieth and finished seventh. But he was in a fast car that led both practices leading up to qualifying. He also has four poles and two wins on the season and is considered one of the top drivers in the field

Instead, I am going to go with a rookie driver who started dead-last and worked his way up to sixteenth and finished on the lead lap. Kyffin Simpson has had a better season than many predicted and I think he showed the chops yesterday to earn the Drive of the Day.

All in All: When there are seventeen races on the schedule, not all of them are going to provide edge of your seat excitement. Some can be only mildly exciting, while still providing some entertainment. Yesterday’s Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland didn’t even do that. When Will Power passed Santino Ferrucci as they were going into Turn One on the opening lap – that was as exciting as it got all day.

I’m not going to go on a crusade to have Portland International Raceway removed from the IndyCar schedule. Did you see the crowd there? Apparently, there are a lot of fans in the Pacific Northwest that didn’t care if the event provided edge of your seat excitement. They went to enjoy a race weekend and it appeared they were all having a good time. That’s what mattered.

Not all races can be extreme photo finishes. While it was not the most scintillating of races, it sure beat pre-season NFL football. A month from now, we will be wishing we had another race to look forward to – even if it was another Portland.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 26, 2024 at 4:02 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.