IndyCar Recap: September 2017 – Watkins Glen & Sonoma

2017 Verizon IndyCar Series

The final two races of 2017 were held on a pair of road courses. The great Watkins Glen in upstate New York started the month, with the double points season finale at the undulating Sonoma circuit in California two weeks later.

Going into Watkins Glen, Josef Newgarden held an advantage after 3 wins in the last 4 races, but with double points on offer the title race was wide open.

IndyCar Grand Prix at the Glen

3 September 2017 – Race 16 of 17 – Watkins Glen International, Watkins Glen, New York, USA.

Video: Full Race

A damp, cold day, it was not raining but it was declared a wet start and wet tyres were mandated, the track not quite dry yet.

Alexander Rossi on pole alongside Scott Dixon, who has won here 4 times. Newgarden from row 2 dove down the inside to lead for all of 50m before going wide and losing positions.

At the end of lap 1 everyone pitted for slicks except Hildebrand and Chilton who went an extra lap, that didn’t work for them, they were nearly caught by the others before they came in. Castroneves took red softs and overtook Rossi for the lead. Drivers on softs definitely had the advantage early on.

Some drivers went with a wet setup expecting rain later, others went to a full dry setup to go for speed, and anything in between. All the Penskes went for downforce so were slower on straights.

A Safety Car for Hinchcliffe’s gearbox problem and a 2nd SC for Sato’s car in trouble meant we didn’t yet learn the durability of the black hard tyres. Pigot, Hildebrand, Chilton, Andretti and Jack Harvey stayed out under the Sato yellow and ran up front for a while.

Rossi’s fuel rig failed mid-stop so he was forced to pit early – until just 2 laps later the Safety Car was back out, everyone else then pitted so he found himself leading again!

Later, under green-flag pit stops some drivers really struggled with pit exit. Castroneves crossed the white line, but a lap or two later it all went wrong – Newgarden hit the pit exit wall, Bourdais hit the back of him, Kanaan hit the wall as well. Bourdais stayed on the lead lap, Newgarden pitted several times, but TK was out, the second week running that Kanaan had been parked.

Through all this Rossi was ahead of Dixon, driving brilliantly to hold off the master of the Glen and take his second IndyCar win. Newgarden finished 2 laps down, the championship lead cut to just 3 points.

Entertaining race, kept you guessing.

1. 98 Alexander Rossi (Andretti Honda);
2. 9 Scott Dixon (Ganassi Honda);
3. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Honda);
4. 3 Helio Castroneves (Penske Chevy);
5. 15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Honda);
6. 12 Will Power (Penske Chevy)
7. 83 Charlie Kimball (Ganassi Honda);
8. 8 Max Chilton (Ganassi Honda);
9. 1 Simon Pagenaud (Penske Chevy);
10. 14 Carlos Munoz (Foyt Chevy);

Pagenaud wound up only 9th. Kimball rescued a great 7th despite grass-tracking a couple of times! And another top run from Munoz.

GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma

17 September 2017 – Race 17 of 17 – Sonoma Raceway, Sears Point, California, USA.

Video: Full race

The double-points season finale. I disagree with double-points for standard races: the Indy 500 I understand, this I don’t. The top four in points are already covered by 35 points, a standard race win is worth 50, it is exciting enough! I actually think it is less interesting with double points.

This track tends to favour Penske and they won the front two rows in qualifying:  Newgarden, Power, Pagenaud, Castroneves. Dixon starts 6th.

Clean start until Hinchcliffe spun – replays show Pigot hit and spun him though I’m not sure Pigot wasn’t pushed too. Later in the first lap there was a cloud of dust, Kanaan emerged with a puncture or suspension damage, someone else also pitted. Yet another bad day for TK. No safety car. Sato dropped away from 5th so the title contenders were nose-to-tail.

Pagenaud went off-strategy early to try something different, sitting in 4th place all day wouldn’t get it done.

The other reason I don’t like that this is double points and is the season finale? The racing isn’t that good. You get boring races from time to time, that’s okay, but Sonoma has a LOT of them. Which is a shame because it looks so much fun to drive! I hope they move the date, keep the race but have something else end the year.

After their green-flag stops, Dixon tried a pass on Castroneves which didn’t work.

The man on the move was Pagenaud, after stopping again he was passing cars and setting fastest laps, he was on fire on that alternative strategy sticking to soft tyres. Though he did go off course briefly on two consecutive laps. But he closed down a 10-second loss to get on Newgarden’s tail: the classic case of fast & light versus slow and fuel-saving.

And at the final stops Pagenaud got out JUST ahead of Newgarden! He worked hard on that all day. Newgarden tried the over/under hairpin pass but couldn’t make it work.

Pagenaud drove flat all day and took a well-deserved win, from a brilliant championship-winning drive by Newgarden. Power tailed them all day. Dixon got 4th, close behind but otherwise didn’t factor.

And Helio Castroneves fell away by 20 seconds to finish 5th in his final start as a full-season IndyCar driver. He will be missed in IndyCar and I hope he enjoys his new career in IMSA sports cars.

1. 1 Simon Pagenaud (Penske Chevrolet);
2. 2 Josef Newgarden (Penske Chevrolet);
3. 12 Will Power (Penske Chevrolet);
4. 9 Scott Dixon (Ganassi Honda);
5. 3 Helio Castroneves (Penske Chevrolet);
6. 15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda);
7. 27 Marco Andretti (Andretti Honda);
8. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Honda);
9. 18 Sebastien Bourdais (Coyne Honda);
10. 4 Conor Daly (Foyt Chevrolet);

A man having a good day was Marco Andretti, running top 7 for most of the race, battling with Rahal. He gets a lot of stick so I like it when he shows well, after a difficult season. Conor Daly also got a great result in 10th.

Points Scored in September

	WAT	SON (x2)	SEP
Simon Pagenaud	22	103	125
Scott Dixon	41	64	105
Will Power	28	70	98
Josef Newgarden	13	82	95
Helio Castroneves	33	60	93
Graham Rahal	30	56	86
Ryan Hunter-Reay	36	48	84
Alexander Rossi	54	18	72
Marco Andretti	14	52	66
Charlie Kimball	26	38	64
Max Chilton	24	36	60
Conor Daly	19	41	60
Sebastien Bourdais	13	44	57
Spencer Pigot	19	34	53
Carlos Munoz	20	30	50
JR Hildebrand	15	32	47
Jack Harvey	16	24	40
Ed Jones	17	22	39
Tony Kanaan	10	28	38
Takuma Sato	11	20	31
Zachary Claman DeMelo		26	26
James Hinchcliffe	9	16	25

• Pagenaud’s double-points win gives him the high-score for September.
• Dixon combined two top 5 results for 2nd in the month.
• Power, Newgarden and Castroneves closely matched between the two events.
• Clearly all the drivers who were title-contenders at 31st August stepped up a gear, all scoring very well in the final two races!
• The Andretti drivers had a better run at the end.
• Kanaan, Sato and Hinchcliffe had an awful month which will surely motivate them into 2018.

Final Points Table

Here is the full points table to end the season.

Pos	Pre	+/-	Name	Pre	Sep	Total	Wins
1	1	0	Josef Newgarden	547	95	642	4
2	4	2	Simon Pagenaud	504	125	629	2
3	2	-1	Scott Dixon	516	105	621	1
4	3	-1	Helio Castroneves	505	93	598	1
5	5	0	Will Power	464	98	562	3
6	6	0	Graham Rahal	436	86	522	2
7	7	0	Alexander Rossi	422	72	494	1
8	8	0	Takuma Sato	410	31	441	1
9	11	2	Ryan Hunter-Reay	337	84	421
10	9	-1	Tony Kanaan	365	38	403
11	12	1	Max Chilton	336	60	396
12	13	1	Marco Andretti	322	66	388
13	10	-3	James Hinchcliffe	351	25	376	1
14	14	0	Ed Jones	315	39	354
15	15	0	JR Hildebrand	300	47	347
16	16	0	Carlos Munoz	278	50	328
17	17	0	Charlie Kimball	263	64	327
18	18	0	Conor Daly	245	60	305
19	19	0	Mikhail Aleshin	237		237
20	21	1	Spencer Pigot	165	53	218
21	22	1	Sebastien Bourdais	157	57	214	1
22	20	-2	Ed Carpenter	169		169
23	23	0	Gabby Chaves	98		98
24	24	0	Juan Pablo Montoya	93		93
25	25	0	Esteban Gutierrez	91		91
26	26	0	Sebastian Saavedra	80		80
27	27	0	Oriol Servia	61		61
28	34	6	Jack Harvey	17	40	57
29	28	-1	Fernando Alonso	47		47
30	29	-1	Pippa Mann	32		32
31	37	6	Zachary Claman DeMelo	0	26	26
32	30	-2	Jay Howard	24		24
33	31	-2	Zach Veach	23		23
=	32	-2	Sage Karam	23		23
35	33	-2	James Davison	21		21
36	35	-1	Tristan Vautier	15		15
37	36	-1	Buddy Lazier	14		14

• Newgarden wins by 13 points!
• Pagenaud’s double-points win jumps him above both Dixon and Castroneves for second.
• Power scored 3 wins but only took 5th in points, a slow first 3 races and finishing 23rd at double-points Indy hurt his chances.
• Rahal secured 6th ahead of Rossi, Sato and RHR.
• Kanaan took 10th which is better than I thought he’d done, but at 200 points behind the winner that’s not a good year for his stature or that team. It is a shame.
• Chilton and Andretti rallied at the end and pipped Hinchcliffe.
• Jones had a phenomenal rookie year.
• Hildebrand I think deserves a full-time seat but he’s been let go by Carpenter.
• Kimball and Daly also had good late-season runs, but not good enough to be retained by their teams. Munoz is often the forgotten man.

Summary

Another great IndyCar season!

Josef Newgarden is a worthy champion. Showed well early in the season, then his July & August wins really gave him the advantage of being able to defend himself into the final races.

Simon Pagenaud as reigning champion carried the Number 1 well, he was the consumate champion and drove like it at Sonoma.

Scott Dixon, what a man, yet again in contention even though he had that massive crash at Indianapolis and “just” one win, he still led the points for a large chunk of the year.

Next year it is all change:  the same chassis and engines but a radically different aerodynamics package, the same one for everyone (albeit some teams got it much earlier in testing). It takes away over-body downforce, adds it back underneath the car, and should allow closer racing as well as have that back-end sliding. It promises to be spectacular on every type of circuit.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these recaps. I was testing the water to see whether I would want to do them in 2018 for select series such as IndyCar, F1, Formula E or WEC. Let me know what you think.