Indy 500 -- Out with the Old, In with the New

Hello Internet! Scoring Indy is going to be a-humming for the next few weeks here. Tons of race previews. Tons of race recaps. Tons of data entry (wait, that's just me...) But, today I'm going to show all of you why all that data entry is worth it. Here's what the Scoring Indy Score Grid would look like with the Old Formula still in place for the 500:


Old Formula

Race Finish	Driver	Grid	Laps Led	Completed	Race Score (Old)
1	Kanaan	12	34	200	75.17
2	Munoz	2	12	200	51.48
3	Hunter-Reay	7	26	200	59.53
4	Andretti	3	31	200	51.69
5	Wilson	14	0	200	57.58
6	Castroneves	8	1	200	45.70
7	Allmendinger	5	23	200	43.63
8	Pagenaud	21	0	200	59.09
9	Kimball	19	0	200	53.03
10	Carpenter	1	37	200	31.98
11	Servia	13	0	200	37.88
12	Briscoe	23	0	200	50.00
13	Sato	18	0	200	39.39
14	Dixon	16	1	200	33.58
15	Beatriz	29	0	200	50.00
16	Vautier	28	0	200	45.45
17	de Silvestro	24	0	200	36.36
18	Viso	4	5	200	4.28
19	Power	6	16	200	7.03
20	Jakes	16	5	199	16.43
21	Hinchcliffe	9	7	199	3.35
22	Daly	31	0	198	31.68
23	Franchitti	17	0	197	7.71
24	Tagliani	11	1	196	-3.91
25	Rahal	26	0	193	15.10
26	Legge	33	0	193	22.36
27	Bell	22	1	192	3.57
28	Newgarden	25	0	191	4.75
29	Bourdais	15	0	178	-11.30
30	Mann	30	0	46	6.06
31	Lazier	32	0	44	4.88
32	Saavedra	27	0	34	1.74
33	Hildebrand	10	0	3	0.99

Yes, TK has the best score. Good. He led the second-most laps and won from P12 on the grid. This matters. And, we see lots of good performances (as indicated by an Old Score of 35+). But, there is a lot missing from this. So, let's look at what happens when Average Running Position gets invited to the party:

New Formula

Race Finish	Driver	Grid	Laps Led	Completed	Race Score (New)	RSWC Points
1	Kanaan	12	34	200	79.74	25
2	Munoz	2	12	200	62.05	12
3	Hunter-Reay	7	26	200	69.88	18
4	Andretti	3	31	200	64.68	15
5	Wilson	14	0	200	56.36	6
6	Castroneves	8	1	200	59.11	8
7	Allmendinger	5	23	200	51.79	4
8	Pagenaud	21	0	200	59.27	10
9	Kimball	19	0	200	50.58	2
10	Carpenter	1	37	200	48.93
11	Servia	13	0	200	47.07
12	Briscoe	23	0	200	49.81	1
13	Sato	18	0	200	43.36
14	Dixon	16	1	200	43.94
15	Beatriz	29	0	200	44.54
16	Vautier	28	0	200	43.44
17	de Silvestro	24	0	200	35.58
18	Viso	4	5	200	27.34
19	Power	6	16	200	29.49
20	Jakes	16	5	199	21.96
21	Hinchcliffe	9	7	199	23.29
22	Daly	31	0	198	29.25
23	Franchitti	17	0	197	24.27
24	Tagliani	11	1	196	19.59
25	Rahal	26	0	193	25.25
26	Legge	33	0	193	20.77
27	Bell	22	1	192	18.80
28	Newgarden	25	0	191	8.95
29	Bourdais	15	0	178	6.21
30	Mann	30	0	46	6.38
31	Lazier	32	0	44	4.28
32	Saavedra	27	0	34	3.34
33	Hildebrand	10	0	3	0.99

So, there's the new formula. (We'll get to the Race Score World Championship in a bit...) But, let's take a look at who the New Formula helps and hurts, when compared to the old one.

Comparison

If you've been following along with the blog the last month or so, you've seen me tweak things and come up with this new formula. If you're not a long-time reader, you can go back here or here and experience the magic for yourself. If not, here's the short description.

- The Old Formula accounted for 1) Finishing Position; 2) Leading Laps; 3) Gaining Positions; and 4) Finishing the Race

- The New Formula keeps all that but also adds Average Running Position as an equal factor to Finishing Position and Gaining Positions.

- The New Formula tends to score higher than the Old Formula. A "good" score with the Old Formula was about 35.00. With the New Formula it seems to be closer to 45.00.

- Beware, numbers ahead! Feel free at any time to skip ahead to "My Honda Theory"

Winners

So, here are the people helped in a big way by the New Formula in the 97th Indy 500:

- Munoz, Hunter-Reay, Andretti, Castroneves, Carpenter, Dixon, Viso, Power, Hinchcliffe, Franchitti, Tagliani, Rahal, Bell, and Bourdais

- When I say that these drivers were helped in a "big way," I mean that their New Formula Race Score is more than 10.00 better than their Old Formula score. This indicates that their Average Running Position was better than their finish. A striking example is Alex Tagliani. Things were going VERY well for Tags until lap 168. He lost laps, never climbed out from behind it, and finished in P24. His Average Running Position, however, was 11.58 (better than three drivers, who finished in the top 10).

Losers

Here are drivers whose New Formula Race Score is less than 5.00 points better than their Old Formula Score:

- Kanaan, Wilson, Pagenaud, Kimball, Briscoe, Sato, Beatriz, Vautier, de Silvestro, Daly, Legge, Newgarden, Mann, Lazier, Saavedra, and Hildebrand

- Here are drivers, who (mostly, the last four hardly count, since their scores were tiny anyway...) benefited simply by being running at the end of the race. Connor Daly is probably the most striking example of this. Daly ran laps down for good portions of the race (due to being on fire twice in the pits), but was running when the checkered flag waived, unlike say Dario Franchitti, who was helped by the New Formula. Daly finished P22 to Dario's P23 giving him a MUCH better score under the Old Formula, due to gaining positions. Franchitti, however, had an Average Running Position of 14.77, which is far better than Daly's 25.87. Thus, Franchitti benefits from factoring in Average Running Position, and Daly suffers.

My Honda Theory

Enough mathematical minutia. Here's why I think that Honda cars and drivers did as poorly as they did in the 500:

- They can't handle the extra qualifying boost, and qualified too far back.

- That's it. It's that simple. I consulted with Another IndyCar Blog author, Eric Hall (who is my go-to in the blog world for almost everything, but especially technical matters). He told me that the Hondas were (by and large) running low downforce configurations that maximized speed, but don't deal terribly well with dirty air.

- This makes sense if you look at the speed charts. Several Hondas did VERY fast laps.

- So, why didn't that speed take them to the front? Here are the factors as I see them.

1) Andretti Autosport cars were TUNED IN. It is hard to get to the front, even if you're the best car out there when there are cars already up front as good as the Andrettis were.

2) The low downforce configurations just didn't let them move up in traffic as well as they should have.

2a) I feel pretty strongly about 2. It's also what happened to Ed Carpenter. Watch the start of the race again. Ed opens up a lead. No one opened up a lead all race. Ed also said that he was running low downforce. So, good in the open, and bad when shuffled back into traffic. That's why Ed never got back up to the front, and that's why the Hondas never got there in the first place.

3) This leads me all the way back to qualifying. In qualifying and on Fast Friday, the turbo boost gets turned up. We've seen this for two years now: the Chevy cars have dominated those two days. Then, when the boost comes back down, the Hondas look good again on Carb Day. Last year, they were good enough to get back to the front, due to fuel mileage and other concerns. This year, the Chevys were just too good. 

Prediction Review

Let's rip off this band-aid...

- #Indy500orBust Prediction 1) Katherine Legge is at least the second best Schmidt car.

- VERDICT - Nope. She lost laps early, and her teammates kept it clean. 0 for 1.

- #Indy500orBust Prediction 2) Oriol Servia is top 5. #SaveOriol

- VERDICT - Nope. P11. #MaybeHe'llDriveThe4WithJROut. 0 for 2.

- #Indy500orBust Prediction 3) Dinger finishes as top Rookie.

- VERDICT - Nope. Wrong-ness, thy name is Munoz. Dinger was looking good for me until his belts came undone. But, Munoz was GOOD. 0 for 3.

- #Indy500orBust Prediction 4) I'll take Dixon, Dario, Power, Andretti, Carpenter, and RHR in the RSWC. You can have the field.

- VERDICT - Nope. I get 33 (Thanks Marco and Ryan). You get 68. 0 for 4.

Clearly, I got "or Bust"


Big Weekend

Two races this week at the supposedly more race-conducive Belle Isle circuit. Will it rain? Will the grids for the two races be markedly different? (They will if Franchitti still has that same speed, no grid penalty for Race 2...)

Follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter for race predictions and blog updates. Two predictions for Race One as soon as I figure out what the grid looks like. Two predictions for Race Two coming up after Race One. That's all for today!

-- Guido