Ever since listening to the 2014 Indy 500, (I can't ever bring myself to watch the 500 live, having grown up in the "Indianapolis Media Market," besides I don't have traditional television service here at the parsonage.) I've been thinking about what "legitimates" a driver. And, I've been thinking about this because of our 2014 Indy 500 winner: Ryan Hunter-Reay.
I have to be honest in saying that I was not sure how "legitimate" of a "contender" Ryan Hunter-Reay was before the Indy 500. I mean, obviously there was something there. You don't win a series championship (as he did in 2012) or go on a three race tear (like he did that year in Milwaukee, Iowa, and Toronto) without having piles of talent. But, he just never seemed next-level good to me.
- Dario -- Next-Level Good.
- Dixon, Power, Helio -- Next-Level.
- Marco -- Capable of it.
- Pagenaud -- Getting There.
- Wilson -- At Least Once a Year.
- Mike Conway -- Do I Really Need to Say It? (#DestroyerOfWorlds).
- Carpenter -- As Long as He's Not Turning Right.
That's just how my mind sorted IndyCar Series drivers out. And, Looking at average Race Scores (from this year and last) I feel like I'm spot on about the above drivers. But, RHR just seemed "good." Nothing wrong with good. Good is good. But, that's all it felt like to me. It felt like Hunter-Reay was the Oriol Servia of Andretti Autosport. I can't say why. But, with this performance at Indy, (you'll see just how good it was below) Hunter-Reay just might be moving to that Next-Level Tier in my mind. And, that's not a bad thing.
Ok, I'm not sure that made any sense, but these do. Here are the numbers:
2014 Indianapolis 500 Scores
| Finish | Driver | Grid | Led | Completed | A.R.P | Race Score | RSWC Points |
| 1 | Hunter-Reay | 19 | 56 | 200 | 4.86 | 90.29 | 10 |
| 2 | Castroneves | 4 | 38 | 200 | 3.41 | 71.58 | 8 |
| 3 | Andretti | 6 | 20 | 200 | 4.06 | 67.92 | 6 |
| 4 | Munoz | 9 | 0 | 200 | 8.37 | 61.24 | 3 |
| 5 | Montoya | 10 | 16 | 200 | 8.48 | 62.79 | 4 |
| 6 | Busch | 12 | 0 | 200 | 14.35 | 54.19 | 1 |
| 7 | Bourdais | 17 | 0 | 200 | 13.74 | 57.84 | 2 |
| 8 | Power | 3 | 22 | 200 | 7.66 | 51.49 | |
| 9 | Karam | 31 | 0 | 200 | 16.15 | 65.51 | 5 |
| 10 | Hildebrand | 9 | 0 | 200 | 9.33 | 48.16 | |
| 11 | Servia | 18 | 0 | 200 | 18.28 | 46.18 | |
| 12 | Pagenaud | 5 | 0 | 200 | 15.10 | 34.24 | |
| 13 | Tagliani | 24 | 3 | 200 | 21.87 | 45.08 | |
| 14 | Villeneuve | 27 | 0 | 200 | 23.71 | 43.73 | |
| 15 | Saavedra | 32 | 0 | 200 | 23.31 | 47.16 | |
| 16 | Davison | 28 | 0 | 200 | 22.94 | 41.47 | |
| 17 | Huertas | 21 | 0 | 200 | 25.12 | 30.19 | |
| 18 | Briscoe | 20 | 0 | 200 | 25.04 | 27.23 | |
| 19 | Sato | 23 | 0 | 200 | 16.01 | 37.37 | |
| 20 | Hawksworth | 13 | 0 | 200 | 21.28 | 19.92 | |
| 21 | Aleshin | 15 | 1 | 198 | 21.81 | 19.49 | |
| 22 | Wilson | 14 | 0 | 198 | 14.15 | 23.97 | |
| 23 | Plowman | 29 | 0 | 186 | 27.94 | 22.44 | |
| 24 | Mann | 22 | 0 | 193 | 27.22 | 14.76 | |
| 25 | Bell | 25 | 0 | 190 | 10.90 | 31.26 | |
| 26 | Kanaan | 16 | 1 | 177 | 23.26 | 8.89 | |
| 27 | Carpenter | 1 | 26 | 175 | 4.77 | 13.72 | |
| 28 | Hinchcliffe | 2 | 14 | 175 | 6.45 | 9.48 | |
| 29 | Dixon | 11 | 3 | 167 | 5.56 | 14.28 | |
| 30 | Newgarden | 8 | 0 | 156 | 15.99 | 0.90 | |
| 31 | Kimball | 26 | 0 | 149 | 21.85 | 8.41 | |
| 32 | Lazier | 33 | 0 | 87 | 30.16 | 4.15 | |
| 33 | Rahal | 20 | 0 | 44 | 30.25 | -1.05 |
Observations
- I said above that you'd see how good of a race RHR ran. 90+ Race Scores are special. And, they just don't happen in DW-12s on big ovals. This is the first one (not that the sample size is huge for DW-12 chassis on Triple Crown tracks). Huge ups to him. He too a car that qualified P19, and ran it in the Top 5 all day long. A well deserved win, and a win that has certainly earned my respect (see above).
- Just mega stuff from Sage Karam. Outperformed his qualifying position, and also improved the car as the day went along. You can tell this because his finishing position greatly exceeded his Average Running Position. And, if you look at the lap chart (which I have spent WAY too much time doing today) you'll see that Karam worked his way into the conversation about a quarter of the way through the race, and just kept hanging around P9-P14. Finishing at the higher end of that served him well.
- A couple of guys who have spent more time in stock cars recently than open-wheel cars had better-than-solid runs. Kurt Busch found himself in the RSWC points (not bad for moonlighting.) And, Jacques Villeneuve kept his car clean all day long, moving up from P27 on the grid to finish P14.
- I'm beginning to doubt that Pippa Mann has a future as a full-time driver. That makes me really sad. I'm going to leave it there.
- Some "runs to be proud of" that don't fit anywhere else: Saavedra (47.16); Tagliani (45.08) Davison (41.47, with basically zero practice); and Hildebrand (48.16).
RSWC Update
Here's what the RSWC Table looks like, right now. Observations below.
| Driver | Points | Difference |
| Hunter-Reay | 34 | -- |
| Castroneves | 26 | -8 |
| Power | 20 | -14 |
| Pagenaud | 14 | -20 |
| Andretti | 14 | -20 |
| Conway | 10 | -24 |
| Dixon | 10 | -24 |
| Montoya | 10 | -24 |
| Kimball | 8 | -26 |
| Wilson | 8 | -26 |
| Munoz | 8 | -26 |
| Bourdais | 6 | -28 |
| Karam | 5 | -29 |
| Aleshin | 4 | -30 |
| Kanaan | 3 | -31 |
| Hawksworth | 3 | -31 |
| Saavedra | 3 | -31 |
| Briscoe | 3 | -31 |
| Huertas | 2 | -32 |
| Newgarden | 2 | -32 |
| Servia | 2 | -32 |
| Sato | 1 | -33 |
| Busch | 1 | -33 |
- With the win, Hunter-Reay stretches out an impressive lead in the season championship. Only Castroneves is within one race's worth of points. "Ryan Hunter-Reay is Slowly Impressing Me" is slowly becoming the theme of this post.
- Outside the Top 5, the table really isn't that interesting. I blame this on the fact that I'm giving out less points this year for fewer positions. I expect this to be much more intriguing after Detroit.
Hall of Averages
I'm sprucing up the Hall of Averages this week, splitting the full-season entrants and part-timers up. Otherwise, things would have looked funny with all of the one-off programs put together for Indy. Here are the full-season drivers:
| Driver | Average Score |
| Hunter-Reay | 67.40 |
| Power | 64.11 |
| Pagenaud | 55.10 |
| Castroneves | 50.77 |
| Wison | 42.81 |
| Andretti | 41.14 |
| Dixon | 39.67 |
| Bourdais | 37.47 |
| Briscoe | 36.84 |
| Montoya | 34.35 |
| Sato | 33.74 |
| Kanaan | 33.47 |
| Huertas | 31.65 |
| Saavedra | 31.21 |
| Hawksworth | 29.02 |
| Kimball | 27.72 |
| Munoz | 27.37 |
| Newgarden | 25.73 |
| Rahal | 22.69 |
| Aleshin | 21.58 |
| Hinchcliffe | 17.20 |
And, the part-timers (complete with number of races contested):
| Driver | Average Score | Races |
| Karam | 65.51 | 1 |
| Hildebrand | 48.16 | 1 |
| Tagliani | 45.08 | 1 |
| Villeneuve | 43.73 | 1 |
| Davison | 41.47 | 1 |
| Servia | 40.23 | 4 |
| Conway | 35.37 | 4 |
| Bell | 31.26 | 1 |
| Plowman | 25.36 | 2 |
| Mann | 14.76 | 1 |
| Carpenter | 13.72 | 1 |
| Montagny | 12.75 | 1 |
| Lazier | 4.15 | 1 |
- My comments about most of the one-off Indianapolis drivers are in the Indy 500 observations above.
- The full-time drivers table is interesting in a lot of ways. I've commented on Carlos Huertas a couple of times already, but I find it interesting that he's the best performing rookie so far, on average. We'll see if his average stays up there.
- Servia, once again, proves that he has the talent to be full time in this series. Race Score is a measure of relative performance, and running only one less race than Scott Dixon (reigning series champion) Servia has practically the same average race score: ergo practically the same performance relative to starting position. That's driver skill, ladies and gentlemen.
- I am dangerously close to giving up trying to understand Graham Rahal, James Hinchcliffe, and Charlie Kimball. I feel like all three of them should be doing better.
Prediction Review
Here's how I did at this year's 500:
#Indy500 Prediction 1) My Australian Overlord, Will Power, leaves Indy with the RSWC lead.
- VERDICT -- Well, no. That belongs to race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay. 0 for 1.
#Indy500 Prediction 2) Rookie of the Year -- Kurt Busch
- VERDICT -- I'll call the jury out on this. Busch was the highest-finishing rookie. Karam was the rookie with the best Race Score. I'll give myself half a point now, and wait for the official Rookie of the Year award to break the tie. 0.5 for 2.
#Indy500 Prediction 3) LESS lead changes than 2013 but MORE than 2012
- VERDICT -- Actually, yes. 2014 had 34 lead changes. 2013 had 64. 2012 had 30 lead changes. I win! 1.5 for 3.
#Indy500 Prediction 4) I'll take Pagenaud, Andretti, and Townsend Bell to win. You get the field.
- VERDICT -- Nope. I feel good about it, though. Picking winners is hard (even if I let myself pick slightly less than 10% of the field...) 1.5 for 4.
Stay Tuned
There's a double-header next weekend, and I can't wait! Be sure that you follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter for blog updates and terrible race predictions. I'll see you on Friday!!
-- Guido
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