Opinion
As May looms – for the one hundred and seventh time, the iconic Indianapolis 500 will run on the last Sunday of the month of May – the stars of the IndyCar Series headed back to the south for the first permanent road course race of the season.
The race will take place at the undulating Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, the so-called Augusta of motorsport, thanks to the track’s beautiful parkland surroundings.
After Romain Grosjean took his second pole of the year for Andretti Autosport, the question was whether there would be a fourth different winner in 2023, and perhaps, in Grosjean, another first-time winner after Kyle Kirkwood last time out in Long Beach.
Read on for all the talking points from a sunny weekend in NASCAR’s backyard:
Once more, Romain Grosjean, after dominating an IndyCar Series race, does not take the checkered flag. Instead it was McLaughlin notching his first win of the year – making it four different winners from four different races – thanks to a dose of classic Team Penske strategy mastery in a battle of the two-stop and three-stop strategy paths.
That put the multi-time Supercars championship winner behind Grosjean late, and when the F1 veteran went wide at turn five on the seventy-second of ninety laps, McLaughlin pounced, aided by Grosjean being out of push-to-pass boost, and got away.
It was shades of St Petersburg where the pair crashed whilst racing hard for the lead. On this occasion, there was light contact but nothing more – a relief, no doubt, for respective team owners Michael Andretti and Roger Penske – and McLaughlin was not headed again en route to his fourth career IndyCar Series victory. It was Penske’s second win of the year and Chevrolet’s too.
In what is familiar but surely depressing territory for Grosjean, he crossed the line second, holding off Team Penske’s Will Power who started on the faster but less durable red sidewall tyres, a gamble that paid off. Grosjean led the most laps, but again was the bridesmaid. Surely his first IndyCar Series win is only a matter of time now.
Pato O’Ward was fourth for Arrow McLaren. Alex Palou in a Chip Ganassi Honda came home fifth and young Christian Lundgaard delivered a much-needed morale booster for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan with a sixth place finish: a strong result for a team that has been largely at sea over the first three races of the season.
Four races into the season and IndyCar’s on-track product has been nothing short of sensational, no matter whether the series is racing on an oval, a street circuit or a permanent road course.
With Andretti, Penske and Ganassi already winning races this year, and McLaren there or thereabouts – and a freak engine issue away from Pato O’Ward winning at St Pete after Grosjean and McLaughlin crashed out – we are legitimately looking at a four- or even five-team championship hunt.
Yes, IndyCar is a spec series, but I’d much prefer a spec series where there are tonnes of overtaking manoeuvres – even on a narrow track like Barber, a roller-coaster of a course that was built with motorcycle racing in mind, not open wheel race cars – and wheel to wheel action week in, week out.
(Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
We have seen plenty of both at all four races this season. Not just at the front of the pack, either. It’s been fierce right throughout what has been a record field for most of the events so far. And, pleasingly, there has been little in the way of carnage since the St Petersburg opener.
Four winners from as many events (and two for each manufacturer in what is a titanic struggle already in that arena) in 2023 highlights the parity that makes IndyCar so compelling at the moment. Compare it to Formula One, which is increasingly a Red Bull Racing benefit, where the only departure from the norm is when Perez wins instead of Verstappen.
The Baku street race was a snoozer, with little on-track excitement, the Red Bull duo nearly twenty seconds ahead of the third-placed car.
Crowds are turning up – in some cases in record numbers – which is about the best validation you can get. Anyone who went to Barber on Sunday afternoon and came away unhappy is very, very hard to please.
Putting aside the technology argument, and there is no question who has the better open wheel product: IndyCar. For mine, it isn’t even close at the moment.
DeFrancesco brings budget to the fourth Andretti Honda, but even that fact is only going to save him for so long.
Barber was another lowly finish for the Canadian who hasn’t registered a top ten finish this year. He is languishing twenty-seventh in points. Some damming stats: he’s behind Marcus Armstrong who didn’t race the oval at Texas and Augustin Canapino, a rookie with no IndyCar experience before this year, and ahead of only Takuma Sato and Ed Carpenter, both of whom have only appeared once so far in 2023.
When the rest of the team is at or near the front of the field, fighting for poles, wins and podiums regularly, the equipment is clearly not the issue. This is wholly driver-related.
Something is going to give here, sooner rather than later, and I’m betting it’ll be sooner. It won’t surprise me at all to hear that DeFrancesco is moving on at the end of the year.
Then the big question becomes, who takes the seat? Someone with lots of money, or a driver without a budget, but with the potential to be a star? Don’t forget, reigning Indy NXT champion Linus Lundqvist is out there, looking for a ride.
You can throw a blanket over the top five in the IndyCar Series championship as we turn the calendar to May.
Marcus Ericsson continues to lead the way in his Ganassi Honda, and the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion will be right amongst it all month long.
McLaren’s O’Ward is three points back, on the strength of three top-five finishes. SO far, he is going down the Will Power 2022 championship route of killing the field with consistency. It’s only a matter of time before the Mexican wins one – and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the Indianapolis 500.
2021 IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou is third, nine points behind Ericsson. After his victory on Sunday, McLaughlin is fourth, eleven points in arrears. And the luckless Romain Grosjean is fifth, fifteen points off the lead.
Any of the top five, and those in the back half of the top ten – Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon – could win the series, and would certainly vault back into contention with a good month at Indy. Don’t forget, the road course race before the oval.
The fabled Month of May begins in less traditional fashion with the infield road course race in two weeks. Then a weekend of Indianapolis 500 qualifying – with bumping in 2023 – a week later, and the 107th Indianapolis 500-mile race one week after pole day.
The Greatest Spectacle in Racing promises to be even more epic than ever. Obviously early oval practice will give us a proper gauge of who is strong and who isn’t, but, off the top of my head, I can name ten or even a dozen driver/car combinations who have a legitimate chance at winning: Power, Newgarden, McLaughlin, O’Ward, Sato, Ericsson, Dixon, Kanaan, Palou, Herta, Grosjean. And, on their day, if the chips fall right, don’t count out Castroneves, Pagenaud, Rossi or even Graham Rahal.
One thing is for sure: it will be fascinating from opening practice to the final lap of the 500.
I will be on the ground in Indianapolis for race week and am immensely looking forward to what I think is the best sporting experience in the world.
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