The Dual In Detroit: two Grands Prix in one weekend on the challenging and bumpy Belle Isle street course, just one week after the Indy 500. Find out how the points race changed during this difficult double.
With 4 races in June being too many for one post, I’ll look at the Texas oval and Elkhart Lake road course races in the next recap.
Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Race 1
3rd June 2017 – Race 7 of 17 – The Raceway at Belle Isle Park, Detroit, Michigan
Video: Full Race (1h44m)
James Hinchcliffe spun at turn 1 on cold tyres as they slowed a little for the corners. He was restarted and able to join the back of the back because the Safety Car came out.
Straight after the green it became a strategic contest, 3 stops vs 2 stops, the latter theoretically faster but exposes you to the risk of Safety Cars.
Graham Rahal was fast, pole position and quick all day. And it fell well for him. A mid-race SC – Kimball and Daly made contact putting a fast-running Daly out – left Rahal with one stop to make against others’ two, so from about lap 30 the race was effectively decided. He was fast enough that he probably would’ve won anyway.
This being Belle Isle it was never guaranteed, team and driver still had to execute and to hope there were no more yellows which would’ve changed it all.
Esteban Gutierrez made his IndyCar debut on one of the toughest tracks of the year having never driven an IndyCar. In those circumstances it was no surprise he finished 19th, a lap down.
One week after that massive accident and nursing foot injuries, Scott Dixon finished 2nd. And Hinchcliffe having restarted last drove brilliantly to recover 3rd.
Worth watching? Decent strategic race early on but not particularly interesting past halfway.
- 15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Honda);
- 9 Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Honda);
- 5 James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Honda);
- 2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske Chevy);
- 98 Alexander Rossi (Andretti Herta Honda);
- 7 Mikhail Aleshin (Schmidt Peterson Honda);
- 3 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske Chevy);
- 26 Takuma Sato (Andretti Herta Honda);
- 19 Ed Jones (Dale Coyne Chevy);
- 20 Spencer Pigot (Ed Carpenter Chevy);
Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Race 2
3rd June 2017 – Race 8 of 17 – The Raceway at Belle Isle Park, Detroit, Michigan
Video: Full race (1h48m).
The second race was more fun, in that there was actual on-track passing on TV!
Sato started on pole with Hunter-Reay second, the start was very tight but everyone got through. Contact a little later between Hunter-Reay and Castroneves gave the latter a puncture and the former some damage necessitating a front wing change.
Somewhere around this time some early takers went to the 3-stop strategy, one of which was Dixon with a long stop with refuelling problems.
Rahal and Newgarden were quick in the middle of the race, getting into clear air in the middle stint when Sato had pitted really made their race.
Everything strung out until the last 10 laps when Newgarden was 8 seconds down but 1sec per lap faster. It looked close – but then a Safety Car was out, James Hinchcliffe had electrical failure and just as that was cleared away Spencer Pigot’s turbo blew. Race over? No – a Red Flag!
A two lap restart then, which Rahal dominated on cold tyres, just drove away from Newgarden. Impressive.
Another race of recoveries: Dixon back to 6th, Castroneves to 9th.
Worth watching? A lot more action in the first half of this one, but again I got bored in the second half, until that restart.
- 15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Honda);
- 2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske Chevy);
- 12 Will Power (Team Penske Chevy);
- 26 Takuma Sato (Andretti Honda);
- 1 Simon Pagenaud (Team Penske Chevy);
- 9 Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Honda);
- 98 Alexander Rossi (Andretti Herta Honda);
- 83 Charlie Kimball (Chip Ganassi Honda);
- 3 Helio Castroneves (Team Penske Chevy);
- 10 Tony Kanaan (Chip Ganassi Chevy);
Points Scored at Detroit Belle Isle
BI1 | BI2 | DETROIT | |
Graham Rahal | 54 | 53 | 107 |
Josef Newgarden | 32 | 41 | 73 |
Scott Dixon | 41 | 28 | 69 |
Takuma Sato | 24 | 34 | 58 |
Alexander Rossi | 30 | 26 | 56 |
Helio Castroneves | 28 | 22 | 50 |
Will Power | 12 | 35 | 47 |
James Hinchcliffe | 36 | 10 | 46 |
Simon Pagenaud | 14 | 30 | 44 |
Mikhail Aleshin | 29 | 14 | 43 |
Tony Kanaan | 15 | 20 | 35 |
Marco Andretti | 18 | 17 | 35 |
Carlos Munoz | 16 | 19 | 35 |
Max Chilton | 19 | 15 | 34 |
Charlie Kimball | 9 | 24 | 33 |
Ryan Hunter-Reay | 17 | 14 | 31 |
Ed Jones | 22 | 8 | 30 |
Spencer Pigot | 20 | 9 | 29 |
Esteban Gutierrez | 11 | 16 | 27 |
Conor Daly | 8 | 18 | 26 |
JR Hildebrand | 13 | 12 | 25 |
Oriol Servia | 10 | 11 | 21 |
- Two great performances from Graham Rahal and his team nearly maximum points from the weekend – Sato robbed the point for pole in race 2.
- Newgarden and Dixon were most consistent among championship contenders.
- Sato isn’t considered a title contender but he and Rossi scored well. Meanwhile, Hunter-Reay did not have a good weekend.
- It is interesting that most of the field had one good race and one bad race (or one bad race and one good race). The likes of Rahal, Newgarden and Dixon maximised their chances in both.
Points Total To June 4th
Pos | Pre | +/- | Name | Pre | Det | Total | Wins |
1 | 3 | 2 | Scott Dixon | 234 | 69 | 303 | |
2 | 1 | -1 | Helio Castroneves | 245 | 50 | 295 | |
3 | 4 | 1 | Takuma Sato | 234 | 58 | 292 | 1 |
4 | 2 | -2 | Simon Pagenaud | 234 | 44 | 278 | 1 |
5 | 7 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 186 | 73 | 259 | 1 |
6 | 15 | 9 | Graham Rahal | 144 | 107 | 251 | 2 |
7 | 5 | -2 | Alexander Rossi | 190 | 56 | 246 | |
8 | 8 | 0 | Will Power | 186 | 47 | 233 | 1 |
9 | 6 | -3 | Tony Kanaan | 188 | 35 | 223 | |
10 | 10 | 0 | James Hinchcliffe | 170 | 46 | 216 | 1 |
11 | 9 | -2 | Ed Jones | 185 | 30 | 215 | |
12 | 11 | -1 | Max Chilton | 170 | 34 | 204 | |
13 | 12 | -1 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 152 | 31 | 183 | |
14 | 14 | 0 | Marco Andretti | 147 | 35 | 182 | |
15 | 17 | 2 | Mikhail Aleshin | 134 | 43 | 177 | |
16 | 13 | -3 | JR Hildebrand | 148 | 25 | 173 | |
17 | 18 | 1 | Carlos Munoz | 133 | 35 | 168 | |
18 | 16 | -2 | Sebastien Bourdais | 136 | 136 | 1 | |
19 | 20 | 1 | Charlie Kimball | 99 | 33 | 132 | |
20 | 21 | 1 | Spencer Pigot | 95 | 29 | 124 | |
21 | 23 | 2 | Conor Daly | 88 | 26 | 114 | |
22 | 19 | -3 | Ed Carpenter | 105 | 105 | ||
23 | 22 | -1 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 93 | 93 | ||
24 | 26 | 2 | Oriol Servia | 40 | 21 | 61 | |
25 | 24 | -1 | Gabby Chaves | 53 | 53 | ||
26 | 25 | -1 | Fernando Alonso | 47 | 47 | ||
27 | 27 | 0 | Sebastian Saavedra | 33 | 33 | ||
28 | 28 | 0 | Pippa Mann | 32 | 32 | ||
29 | 35 | 6 | Esteban Gutierrez | 0 | 27 | 27 | |
30 | 29 | -1 | Jay Howard | 24 | 24 | ||
31 | 30 | -1 | Zach Veach | 23 | 23 | ||
= | 31 | -1 | Sage Karam | 23 | 23 | ||
33 | 32 | -1 | James Davison | 21 | 21 | ||
34 | 33 | -1 | Jack Harvey | 17 | 17 | ||
35 | 34 | -1 | Buddy Lazier | 14 | 14 |
- Dixon takes the points lead, up from 3rd. The model of consistency, this is how he wins his Championships. No wins but he leads the field in podium finishes with 4.
- Pre-event points leader Castroneves drops to 2nd. Helio is the only driver to have finished all 8 races in the top ten and that’s why he’s 2nd despite no wins and 1 podium. When others have bad days, Helio keeps going!
- Sato is up to 3rd. Pagenaud drops to 4th.
- Newgarden continues his march forward, up 2 to 5th.
- Obviously the double-winner makes the biggest move, Graham Rahal is up nine positions to 6th, all of a sudden within range of the leaders.
In the graph you can see the black line of Rahal jumping places and also the top three in the points race making a break for it. [Click for open full size.]
Part 2 & Next Month
June Part 2 will feature the Texas speedway and the Road America Elkhart Lake road course.
There are another three races in July before the poor mechanics and truckies finally get a summer break.
All this coming soon on the IWTMR IndyCar Catchup.
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