The IndyCar Series is down to the business end of the season with New Zealand’s Scott Dixon ahead by a considerable margin in the championship race coming into the traditional late-July weekend at the undulating Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where the Ice Man has won an incredible five times.
Here are all your talking points from the heart of the Buckeye State.
Rossi wins
Hold the phone – maybe the IndyCar Series championship chase isn’t over. Certainly, if you ask Alexander Rossi, it’s far from done. He got right back into the thick of the title hunt with a dominating performance at Mid-Ohio, leading 66 of 90 laps to come home nearly thirteen seconds ahead of Canadian rookie Robert Wickens in his Schmidt-Peterson Honda and Australia’s Will Power, driving a Chevrolet for Team Penske.
The most impressive thing about the Californian’s second win of the season (he won on the streets of Long Beach back in April) wasn’t that he won by nearly thirteen seconds, but that he did it on a two-stop strategy. Everyone else in the field was on three- or four-stop programs.
Despite having to conserve his tires and save fuel, Rossi still managed to dominate. It was arguably as strong a win as the Andretti Autosport driver has ever had.
Even though the race had only five lead changes between three drivers – Rossi, Wickens and Power – it was a frenetic event and probably the most exciting I’ve seen at Mid-Ohio. The opening five or ten laps, particularly, were full of excitement. It’s not always the way at Mid-Ohio, where passing has historically been difficult.
Yet again, the aero package on the 2018-spec IndyCar has delivered some brilliant racing: there were 188 total passes.
Bourdais charged through the field
Speaking of strong performances, the Frenchman had himself a busy day, with plenty of impressive passes en route to a sixth-place finish twenty-fourth place, or stone motherless last. On a racetrack that’s traditionally not been an easy place to execute passes, Bourdais made a mockery of that notion, dominating the race’s highlight reel.
He did it all without the aid of any caution flags: the entire race was run under green.
(Photo by Brian Cleary/Getty Images)
Bourdais’ countryman, Simon Pagenaud, was also on a similar mission, carving his way from 17th to eighth. Both men and their bright yellow cars were hard to miss on Sunday.
The championship race tightens
Rossi’s win coupled with Dixon’s fifth-place finish – a bad day for the Kiwi, considering his enviable record at Mid-Ohio – sees the Ganassi Honda driver’s lead dwindle slightly to 46 points with four races to win. If Rossi wins next time out at Pocono or even a week later at Gateway, things will start to get really interesting.
Josef Newgarden, Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay round out the top five in the points. Those three really need a win or two to be a serious threat at the back end of the season, but the double-points on offer at the Sonoma finale really leaves the door open.
There was a giant crowd
According to those who are far better judges than myself, the Sunday crowd was as big as there’s been at Mid-Ohio in twenty years. We’re talking right back to the heyday of IndyCar racing, before the damaging CART/Indy Racing League split.
There were people everywhere on Sunday, and they were treated to a brilliant event.
It’s fantastic to see Midwestern fans flocking back to IndyCar racing like they are at Mid-Ohio and elsewhere, like Road America and Gateway. It’s no secret that the sport has gone through some recent turbulence, but the combination of excellent racing and stability off the track has the series on a nice upward trajectory.
Scott Dixon is a wanted man
Robin Miller reported on the NBC coverage that Dixon, who is out of contract with Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of the season, has three suitors: Ganassi, the rumoured McLaren/Andretti partnership – which we could hear definitive news on before we get to Pocono in three weeks – and, apparently, Roger Penske.
It begs the question as to whether Penske would add a car for Dixon or jettison one of his three current drivers. Dixon driving for Penske would be a nightmare for the rest of the field. He’d just about be unbeatable. We’re going to probably hear more about this in the next few weeks as the silly season really ramps up.
Schedule news
It was announced early in the week that the Iowa Speedway event will return to a Saturday night event in 2019, following rumours to that effect after the race there a couple of weeks ago. That’s a big win for the tiny track, and it will likely lead to an uptick in attendance.
Considering the problems that IndyCar is having filling up ovals not named Indianapolis and Gateway, it makes sense to try and work with these venues to get the best time slots possible in order to attract fans.
Also, the series announced that Sonoma Raceway will not hold a race in 2019. The IndyCar finale will be held at the legendary Laguna Seca near Monterey and the San Francisco Bay Area for three years beginning in 2019. The knock on Laguna has always been a lack of passing, but considering the race we just saw at Mid-Ohio, which has also attracted a reputation for professional racing, we may see a different product to what we have in the past.
I’m pretty excited to see IndyCars going through the famous corkscrew turn again.
Next up: Pocono
A three-week break before the IndyCar Series goes 500 miles around the triangular Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania. Then Gateway a week later (I’ll be there!) and a Labour Day weekend return to Portland after that. By the Sunday evening of Labour Day, there’ll be one race remaining, and we’ll have a pretty solid idea of who will win the 2018 IndyCar Series championship.
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