Saturday, May 30, 2015

99th Indianapolis 500 Wrap-Up: Losers


IndyCar Series Race Officials: So, it’s the biggest day on the IndyCar calendar, you have many millions watching on TV and hundreds of thousands in the grandstands, the cars are lined up in the traditional eleven rows of three, and what happens? The flagman allows Scott Dixon to streak ahead of the field, absolutely destroying the formation start, and what is a signature moment in the sport.

Such a ragged start should’ve been waved off. Or, better yet, the drivers should be strictly ordered in the pre-race meeting to keep formation. The onus is on both parties, but, at the end of the day, it’s race control, via the starter who drops the flag, who can make the call to defer the start if the formation isn’t kept. Sunday’s start looked ugly, and all the drama was sucked out of that first turn.

Helio Castroneves: Going for a record-equalling fourth Indianapolis 500, the affable Brazilian was never really in the hunt, finishing what felt to me like a pretty distant seven, and proceeded, post-race, to blame other drivers for not finishing as highly as we all thought he might. Everyone chops and blocks, Helio – but not everyone whinges on television afterwards, and that’s how it came off: sour grapes.

Scott Dixon: Lead a race-high 84 laps and looked like the guy to beat heading into the last fifteen laps, but he faded and was fourth, by the end, fading to the point that even his young teammate Charlie Kimball overtook him. A day that promised so much for Dixon ended up rather disappointingly.

Simon Pagenaud: See above. The first half of the race looked to be a one-on-one between Pagenaud and Dixon, but those two were swamped when things reached boiling point, and the Frenchman, who’d qualified third, faded. When it mattered most, Pagenaud just didn’t have the car speed that he needed.

Takuma Sato: The old saying goes that you can’t win an Indianapolis 500 in turn one of lap one, but you can certainly lose one, and Takuma made sure that he lost whatever slender hope he had of winning the 500 for A.J. Foyt by attempting what could only be called an incredibly optimistic move on the outside through turn two.

Not only did Sato bring out the yellow (which precipitated de Silvestro running into Montoya under caution), he took out Ganassi’s youngster, Sage Karam, a guy who many believed had a car good enough to win, and caused some Australian friendly fire, when Ryan Briscoe and James Davison were caught up in the accident, making contact with one another. It wasn't Sato’s finest moment, and if Karam’s tweets are anything to go by, Takuma would be well-served avoiding Sage for the next few events.

Dale Coyne Racing: The three Coyne cars were involved in a scary incident during a late-race pit stop, and ended up sending two of his crewmen to the infield care centre. One sustained a pretty sickening broken ankle, and Coyne has to pay a fine and will also lose championship points. Australia’s James Davison was dismissed from his pit box into the oncoming car of Pippa Man, who ploughed into crew members working on Tristan Vautier’s car. The pit road guys are incredibly brave to do what they do, and seeing them get skittled is always horrific.

Chip Ganassi: The guy who brought Juan Pablo Montoya back from Formula One was also the guy who JPM drove for over the course of seven NASCAR Sprint Cup Series seasons befoire Ganassi replaced him at the end of 2013. Instead of bringing Montoya back to his IndyCar squad – as Ganasso did after IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti’s NASCAR experiment was a failure – Chip let the Colombian go over to Roger Penske’s squad, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Nancy Hulman George: the daughter of Mari Hulman George, chairperson of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, tried to hijack her mother’s command for drivers to start their engines, and it was by far the most awkward moment of the day. Probably best to leave the command solely to your mother, Nancy. It’s long been tradition that the chairperson is the one to call for a firing of the engines.

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