Baltimore Preview -- And a Scoring Indy Schedule Update

Hello Internet! Guido here, back with the Scoring Indy preview of the Grand Prix of Baltimore. We'll do all the Baltimore stuff first, then I'll let you know when you can see, you know, Race Scores start showing up again on our humble little blog.


2012 Baltimore

Here's what things looked like at the end of last year's Baltimore chicane-fest:

Finish	Driver	Qualifying	Grid	Laps Led	Completed	A.R.S.
1	Hunter-Reay	13	10	13	75	79.67
2	Briscoe	14	11	11	75	76.33
3	Pagenaud	12	9	14	75	70.33
4	Dixon	3	2	0	75	41.00
5	Barrichello	17	15	0	75	64.00
6	Power	1	1	22	75	44.67
7	Servia	18	16	0	75	58.00
8	Tagliani	15	13	1	75	48.67
9	Viso	24	22	0	75	62.00
10	Castroneves	16	14	0	75	42.00
11	Rahal	23	21	0	75	52.00
12	Hildebrand	25	23	0	75	52.00
13	Franchitti	5	4	0	74	9.23
14	Andretti	20	18	0	74	33.87
15	Hinchcliffe	6	5	2	73	4.80
16	Conway	2	12	0	73	2.48
17	Wilson	9	7	0	72	0.72
18	Kimball	7	17	0	65	5.60
19	Junqueira	10	20	0	64	7.17
20	Kanaan	8	6	0	52	-6.03
21	Sato	19	24	12	50	16.00
22	de Silvestro	21	25	0	38	9.01
23	Bourdais	4	3	0	32	-10.64
24	Jakes	22	19	0	31	1.11
25	Carpenter	11	8	0	7	-0.89

Drivers in this Round

Here's the look at who's in where for Baltimore and how I think it will affect the racing:

- Oriol Servia in at Panther Racing -- I am on record as an Oriol Servia supporter. I hope he has a ride next year. And, I hope a good showing in the National Guard car at the rest of the races this year gets him one somewhere. Also, I love making Oriol / Oriole jokes when the IndyCar Series visits Baltimore.

- Stefan Wilson in at Dale Coyne Racing -- I thought Stefan was going to get more drives than this in the 2013 IndyCar Series. I hope he gets to drive more in the future. He ran Baltimore once in Indy Lights and finished in P5. Here's to him bringing it home in one piece and hopefully on the lead lap.

- Josef Newgarden in at Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing -- Not a "new" driver per se, but Newgarden didn't run Baltimore last year. It will be interesting to see how he does. This is a team that could use a couple of big results down the stretch here, and I think that Newgarden's capable of delivering them. Let's see how the #67 looks on Baltimore's streets.

- Luca Filippi in at Barracuda Racing -- This is easily the "Driver in this Round" that I'm most excited about. Filippi had an impressive run (even from my point of view on television) at Mid-Ohio, and I'd love to see him with a full-time IndyCar ride in the future. Of course, I'm terribly partial to Italian drivers and drivers with Italian names (but I'm not a Scuderia Ferrari fan, go figure), but I think Filippi is the genuine article. I may be wrong, but I did say that about Charlie Kimball. And, yes, I will go to the "I Called Kimball after Toronto Last Year" Well as often as I can, because it's more fruitful than the "I Called Graham Rahal after Texas Last Year" Well.

Some Thoughts

- Based on last year's scoring, we could see a shake-up in the IndyCar Series standings after this round. I'm not saying Dixon can catch Helio in one fell swoop, but he can make it so that whoever has Houston figured out (other than Mike Conway) will be in excellent championship position.

- I'm excited for real pit box lines. I agree that you have to call the penalty that was called last week, even as an avowed Ganassi supporter. You can't skimp on protecting the crew members, who go over the wall. But, clearly defined pit stalls/boxes will make the call MUCH clearer to Race Control.

Schedule Update

- My sister's getting married on Saturday. Saturday is also my birthday. There will be no Twitter predictions this week.

- Owing to all the things above, and the goofiness of having to help get everything ready for this wedding, I haven't gotten scores done for Sonoma yet. I'll put up Sonoma and Batimore scores together, probably on next Friday's regularly scheduled time slot. That should give us a lot to talk about, and a fun, long post for me to write.

Stay Tuned

I'm off to wedding land. Hopefully I'll catch some of the race. See you on Friday!

-- Guido