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Less than a week after Australia’s Will Power took the twin checkers and drove across the yard of bricks to become an Indianapolis 500 champion, the cars and stars of the IndyCar Series were back in action on a track that could only be described as the polar opposite to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the bumpy Belle Isle street circuit in Detroit.
Here’s all you need to know from the only double header weekend of the year.
Scott Dixon wins Race One
The Australian-born Kiwi took advantage of his insane ability to save fuel and a timely pit stop to win on Saturday, besting Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi to record his forty-second victory in IndyCar Series competition.
It was a typical win for Dixon. He is about the least flashy driver there is on the grid, but probably the guy that every single team owner would pick if he had a chance to select any current IndyCar driver for a start-up operation.
Dixon’s triumph ties him with Michael Andretti for third on the career list. The Ice Man from New Zealand won his 104th race for Chip Ganassi and now trails only the legendary Mario Andretti (52) and the equally-legendary AJ Foyt (67) on the all-time wins list.
Dixon hasn’t lost a step in recent years, and on current form, you’d be a brave pundit to bet against him at least getting close to Mario, if not going past him.
Also of note from Race One: Marco Andretti and Takuma Sato both recorded their best finishes of 2018, fourth and fifth respectively, and it was great to see the oft-maligned Andretti grab the pole and run up front for much of the day.
Ryan Hunter-Reay wins Race Two
It’s been a dreadfully long time between drinks for the Floridian known around the paddock as RHR and I doubt there were many who weren’t very happy to see the yellow DHL-liveried Andretti Honda drive to victory on Sunday, taking advantage of a late-race mistake from teammate and race two pole sitter Alexander Rossi.
Hunter-Reay’s last win was at Pocono in 2015, a race in which popular British driver Justin Wilson was fatally injured, so there obviously wasn’t much to celebrate on that day.
Take away that tragic late-summer day in Pennsylvania, you have to go right back to 2014 at Iowa for a win that RHR could happily celebrate.
A long time coming, indeed. And a good weekend for the former series champion/Indianapolis 500 champion, his Sunday win coming twenty-four hours after a solid second-place run behind Dixon.
Also of note from Race Two: Australia’s Will Power finished second, the lone Chevrolet in the top five and one of just three in the top ten. Ganassi’s Ed Jones equalled his career-best IndyCar finish coming home in third and impressive Canadian rookie Robert Wickens snatched sixth.
(SarahStierch / Wikimedia Commons)
I won’t be at all surprised to see Wickens win a race before the season is over.
Honda dominates
It was a big weekend for Chevrolet: the General Motors brand was coming off an Indianapolis 500 win with Team Penske and Will Power, and sponsored the two-race event on the streets of Belle Isle, a circuit in the shadows of General Motors headquarters across the river in downtown Detroit.
So, it must have been particularly galling to see Honda dominate. They won both races, sweeping the top six positions on Saturday, and taking four of the top five positions on Sunday. Will Power was the highest-finishing Chevrolet across the weekend, coming home second on Sunday.
Alexander Rossi quipped after the first race that because Chevrolet had beaten Honda runners at the Honda-sponsored Grand Prix of Alabama back in April – a victory for Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden – the whitewashing was “our revenge”.
The pace car crashed before Race Two
No, that’s not a typo – yes, you’re reading it correctly. Driven by a General Motors executive rather than regular driver, the part-time IndyCar Series competitor Oriol Servia, the Chevrolet Corvette came off the difficult second turn on the penultimate pace lap and whacked the outside wall. The car came to rest very close to some Chevrolet advertising, sustaining heavy front-end damage.
Both passengers in the car were uninjured, and it didn’t take very long for the embarrassing footage to be beamed around the world. It might be the most widespread media impression IndyCar has received in a long time. And I highly doubt we’ll see anyone other than Servia or other professional drivers driving the pace car in future.
Next up: Texas
The IndyCar Series will head to the Lone Star State for its third race (and second on an oval) in three weekends with a night event around the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval. It’s always a frantic event around the high banks, scene of so many memorable IndyCar races over the years. You can watch live on ESPN on Sunday morning, AEST.
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