(Photo: Chris Owens/IndyCar)
By Aaron Bearden
Post-race review and analysis from the NTT IndyCar Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Who Won?
Scott Dixon. The New Zealander was dominant, leading more the 75% of the laps en route to a season-opening win.
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Top stars shine in uncertain opener
Tasked with the unenviable challenge of adapting to new-look vehicles with the aeroscreen, old tires and minimal track time, the best drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series paddock rose to the occasion.
None rose higher than the modern era’s top star – Scott Dixon.
The five-time champion proved near-untouchable in the Genesys 300, leading a career-best 157 laps at Texas Motor Speedway en route to a dominant win. Even a challenge from teammate Felix Rosenqvist and late three-lap sprint couldn’t rattle the driver known as the ‘Ice Man,’ with Dixon claiming his fourth victory at the 1.5-mile oval.
“It was such a team effort,” Dixon said. “Honda, the power – it was huge. I don’t know what was with this PNC Bank car, but it was just so fast. Any situation we were in, we could just go for it. Huge thanks to everybody involved. Bummed the fans aren’t here. Wish everybody was here to celebrate.”
Rosenqvist seemed poised to challenge Dixon throughout the final run, but found himself trapped behind lapped cars as 35-lap maximum tire stints implemented by series officials forced the field to pit road just before the final 10 laps of the race.
Looking to close the gap in a hurry, the Swede made an aggressive outside move to get by the lapped car James Hinchcliffe. Rosenqvist’s car wiggled, spun and collided with the Turn 2 wall.
He was unhurt, but eliminated from the race in dramatic fashion.
“I can’t blame others for whatever situation I had,” Rosenqvist said. “We came out on new tires. I don’t know if James was on really old tires. It’s my judgment. I went for the outside. Probably shouldn’t have done it.
“It’s one of those things where you sit there, and you’re going 40 mph slower than you want to go behind another car, it’s kind of tempting to just move up one lane. But it was just so slippery, and I just feel very sorry for my guys.”
With Rosenqvist out of the picture, Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden rose up to finish behind Dixon on the podium – filling the top three spots with drivers that have claimed the last five series championships.
Pagenaud’s runner-up run tied 2018 for his best result at the Texas track.
“It was just an intense night,” Pagenaud said. “We had balance change. Some stints we went really loose. One stint we went under steer. It was difficult to understand, so I had to be very cognizant of that with the adjustments in the race car. But it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.”
Newgarden led the field to green at the start of the race, but struggled with a car that experienced vibrations and lost pace in the final laps of each 35-lap maximum tire stint. In a performance that showed why his No. 1 team has two championships in the past three years, Newgarden and Penske rallied to snag a spot on the podium.
“I feel like we won the race with how bad we were,” he said. “My team fought. If there’s anything we have, it’s an incredible fighting spirit. We do everything we can to finish the race as best as possible.
“But, we were just struggling. I was really struggling with vibrations in the tires. For whatever reason, our set-up philosophy kind of fell apart on us. It wasn’t favoring the race condition. And I just struggled.”
Early issues
For a handful of IndyCar competitors, Saturday’s season opener was doomed before they ever reached the green flag.
Worst off among the group was 2018 Indianapolis 500 champion Takuma Sato, who suffered a crash on his out lap during qualifying. The 43-year-old drove off into Turn 1 higher than most others, leaving him in the second lane stained by the PJ1 traction compound used by NASCAR during its race weekends at the track. The darker surface absorbed more heat and therefore had much less grip on the hot June afternoon, causing Sato to snap around and spin nose-first into the outside wall.
The veteran never saw the track for the 200-lap race, with his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR) team unable to make repairs quick enough to give him an opportunity to compete.
“First of all, yeah, it was a big moment,” Sato said. “It was only the warm-up lap and I just lost the back end. Immediately, I turned it. Usually, it didn’t happen that way, so it caught me by a big surprise. I feel sorry for the boys, obviously who prepared everything. Hopefully we can fix it in time for the race. It’s quite tight.”
Things would go from bad to worse for RLLR as engines were fired to kick off the night’s festivities. Sato’s teammate and 2016 Texas winner Graham Rahal couldn’t get his car to start, forcing his team to take it behind the wall briefly to get it reprogrammed.
Rahal fired off and took the the track as the field was taking the green flag, but was forced to serve a drive-through penalty and ultimately lost three laps before rallying to a finish two laps down in 17th.
“The car wouldn’t start and needed to be reprogrammed,” Rahal said. “Our car was fast and I think the guys did a great job but this one got away from us for sure. A lot of unforced errors and a couple of stop-and-go penalties, so it’s disappointing to come out of here with no points for either car.”
Rahal wasn’t the only one with issues at the start. Andretti Autosport teammates Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay each sat on pit road during pace laps, their teams working on issues that plagued their machines.
Both cars turned out to have ECU issues, causing for difficulty getting the motors to start. Their teams were able to get them on-track for the start, but each driver was issued a drive-through penalty because of the race’s impound rule.
Hunter-Reay fell two laps down early on because of the penalty, but rallied over the 200-lap affair to secure an eighth-place finish on the lead lap.
“Incredibly unfortunate events got us at the start of the race — we had an issue with the electronics starting up,” Hunter-Reay said. “The team did a great job of turning the car around after my mistake and I got in it and drove the wheels off it.”
Rossi was less fortunate, suffering an additional drive-through penalty when he was observed speeding on pit road while serving the first one. The 2016 Indy 500 winner could only get within one lap of the leaders, coming home a quiet 15th on a night where his biggest highlight involved making it difficult for eventual winner Scott Dixon to lap him.
“We were pretty optimistic for the race, starting toward the front, but unfortunately couldn’t get the car started on the grid because of an ECU issue,” Rossi said. “I was among a couple of other cars that that happened to. We had to start from the back and had a drive-through penalty. Then during the drive-through, there was an issue with the pit lane speed limiter, which followed up one drive-through penalty with another. From that point our night was pretty much over, but we tried our best to salvage what we could.”
The setbacks were unfortunate for Hunter-Reay, Rossi and Rahal. The trio had all qualified in the top-10 and were set to contend on the opening night. Now they each find themselves well behind early title favorites like Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud heading into July’s return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Rookie rundown
It was a difficult day for two of the NTT IndyCar Series’ full-time rookies in Texas.
Tasked with the challenge of adapting to one of IndyCar’s trickiest ovals in their first starts with the series, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus Veekay and Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh’s Alex Palou each took to the 1.5-mile oval in search of a clean day, but neither would survive far beyond the race’s opening stint.
Veekay started Saturday’s race behind after crashing early in the day during practice, but showed pace in the first tire run as he gained seven spots to sit 17th. But the Road to Indy graduate made a mistake shortly after his first stop, getting too high in Turn 2 on Lap 37 and spinning around and toward the inside wall on the backstretch.
In a cruel twist, he spun right down into fellow rookie Palou – the former Super Formula competitor catching an unlucky break while leaving the pits.
Both drivers were eliminated in the accident.
“I got a little too high around Santino (Ferrucci), lost the rear in the marbles and made contact with Alex (Palou),” Veekay said. “It’s very, very unfortunate. I expected my debut to be a lot different. I’m so sorry to the team.
“We’ll get better from here. I had very limited time, a lot of learning but unfortunately I crashed twice. I will have to sleep and think about it for a month. But our Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy was good.”
Veekay’s teammate and team owner, Ed Carpenter, salvaged a difficult day for his team with a strong fifth-place run. But the Hoosier didn’t shy away from criticizing his young prospect in the moments after the race.
“Everything I kind of asked Rinus (Veekay) to do, he didn’t really do,” Carpenter said. “I wanted him to just be patient and be careful. The last thing I told him before the race was to don’t go high and stay out of the marbles. So, we’ve got a little work to do there on the sponginess of him, but he can drive the car.
“I mean, he was coming forward with virtually no practice and never running an oval in an IndyCar race. He’s going to get there; it’s just going to be challenging here at times. But we still love him.”
Palou’s bad break came amid what had been a successful day, with the Spaniard sitting 15th heading into the opening round of stops.
“I don’t think there was much I could have done,” Palou said. “In hindsight, I should have gone high instead of going low, but that’s easy to say now. I have to watch the replay. Maybe I could have done something different, but not with the oval experience I have right now,.
“It’s a shame because the car was really good. I was getting comfortable and getting up to speed. Every lap I was getting better and better and keeping up with the cars in front. I was trying to get the car balanced right for the last stints. Unfortunately, we were not able to do that.”
While two rookies crashed out, a third put together a strong opening night to emerge with a top-10. Oliver Askew’s debut race for Arrow McLaren SP saw him avoid trouble, keep his car clean and emerge in ninth as the checkered flag flew.
“It ended up being a great day for Arrow McLaren SP and the No. 7 team,” Askew said. “The whole crew and Chevrolet put a great car under me and we were able to execute our game plan perfectly.
“To finish in the top-10 in my first-ever INDYCAR race is more than I could have asked for. We are carrying a ton of momentum into the Indy GP and I think we will only get stronger as a team.”
Other Notes
- Conor Daly wasn’t among the drivers favored for a good run after qualifying 19th in the afternoon, but the Hoosier made the most of his first 2020 start with Carlin Racing to secure a sixth-place finish. “I messed up a little bit in qualifying and just under drove it, but we made up for it with such a great race,” he said. “The team had great pit stops, really incredible pit stops all night. The car was fantastic to drive and it really gave me the confidence to go forward.”
- Also delivering a strong performance was Zach Veach, who tied his best performance with a fourth-place finish that led Andretti Autosport. It was Veach’s second top-five run on an oval, with the first coming at World Wide Technology Raceway in 2018.
- At one stage in the race, Charlie Kimball seemed poised to give A.J. Foyt Racing a shot at a podium. But the veteran faded, made contact with the wall while leaving the pit lane after final stops and crashed on the last lap en route to 11th.
- The team did still secure one top-10 run, though, with Tony Kanaan quietly soldiering to 10th in a car adorned with the logos of 7-Eleven – a partner Kanaan worked with early in his IndyCar career.
- Colton Herta’s second season got off to a quiet start. The Andretti Harding Steinbrenner ace started 14th and was never a factor, but did manage to salvage a respectable seventh-place run at race’s end.
- Santino Ferrucci made a small reputation for himself with consistent oval success in his rookie year, but the sophomore struggled in his first oval start of 2020. He started 23rd and ended up classified in 21st after a tire issue and spinout on pit road resulted in a driveshaft issue.
