Iowa & Toronto Preview Mega-Post

Hello Internet! It's Guido, here with another Scoring Indy update! I want to quickly apologize for how slowly these updates have been coming out. If you're a long time reader, you know that I manually enter the running position of each driver each lap into a spreadsheet to calculate Average Running Position. This takes a TON of time, especially when the races are many hundreds of laps long (as is the case with all the ovals on the schedule). Because of this it takes more time to get scores out on ovals. Believe me, I like this less than you. So, if anyone knows a better way of getting Average Running Position, please please PLEASE let me know.

OK, enough whining. Let's take a look at the numbers:


2014 Iowa Corn Indy 300 Scores

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P.	Race Score	RSWC Points
1	Hunter-Reay	13	2	300	8.18	74.19	6
2	Newgarden	21	0	300	11.40	78.18	8
3	Kanaan	2	247	300	1.18	89.29	10
4	Dixon	1	17	300	4.17	54.66	3
5	Carpenter	10	0	300	5.24	61.75	5
6	Hinchcliffe	14	0	300	8.09	60.47	4
7	Rahal	15	0	300	13.25	51.14	2
8	Castroneves	3	34	300	2.44	50.09	1
9	Briscoe	4	0	300	4.28	42.01
10	Kimball	7	0	300	14.84	27.52
11	Pagenaud	11	0	300	9.76	38.24
12	Munoz	5	0	300	13.56	20.36
13	Wilson	18	0	300	15.54	34.04
14	Power	9	0	300	5.33	32.83
15	Hawksworth	20	0	296	18.21	26.76
16	Montoya	19	0	280	13.68	28.04
17	Saavedra	17	0	258	13.86	21.01
18	Andretti	8	0	229	10.52	10.45
19	Bourdais	6	0	130	12.37	4.51
20	Huertas	22	0	78	21.00	6.12
21	Aleshin	12	0	47	13.85	3.07
22	Sato	16	0	47	18.30	1.21

Observations

- Another strategy race, oh how I love them so! This time it was fresh tires that did the trick, vaulting Hunter-Reay and Newgarden to podium finishes with barely-Top-Ten cars. Pocono and Iowa were truly a gamer's/strategist's delight, with smart calls beating fast cars.

- That said, look at the Race Scores. The dominant drive of the day was turned in by Tony Kanaan, who lost out on the win due to strategy. I think that this is a completely fair assessment. TK clearly out-drove every other driver on the track at Iowa, and deserves to be recognized as having the best drive. That said, he didn't win, and to most observers that's all that matters. His dominance needed to be stated, however. That's why this blog exists.

- I have two other drives that I want to make note of. First, James Hinchcliffe turned in a very solid drive. Hinchcliffe has struggled this year, with a good double-header at Detroit, and one good race in Houston being the major bright spots so far. This hasn't been the sort of season that keeps a top-flight car under you into the future. Just saying...

- Allow me to immediately backtrack. I am not intending to be a pot-stirrer here. If you look below in the Hall of Averages, you'll see that Hinch is not markedly worse on average than Marco Andretti or Carlos Munoz. He's also terribly charismatic. Who knows, maybe he'll sweep Toronto just to spite me. Regardless he drove very well at Iowa.

- The second drive to note comes from Graham Rahal. Rahal started mid-pack. He ran mid-pack (to be completely honest, near the back of mid-pack). He took the late stop for tires, like Hunter-Reay and Newgarden, and he parlayed it into a P7 finish. Too often, this year, it has seemed to go exactly the other way for Graham, and a decent looking run has been negated by a mistake (his or someone else's). This time it worked out for him. He needs more runs like this.

- Good to see Jack Hawksworth back in the car. He ran pretty badly, but at least he was running again.


Hall of Averages

Now let's take a look at the average performances for the full-time drivers:

Driver	Average Score
Power	60.89
Castroneves	52.11
Hunter-Reay	49.34
Pagenaud	48.10
Kanaan	46.65
Montoya	42.91
Dixon	42.47
Briscoe	39.64
Wilson	38.28
Kimball	37.18
Andretti	35.72
Munoz	34.32
Hawksworth	33.38
Hinchcliffe	31.43
Bourdais	30.88
Aleshin	30.86
Huertas	28.91
Rahal	27.62
Newgarden	27.60
Saavedra	25.53
Sato	18.35

And, the part-timers:

Driver	Average Score	Races
Karam	65.51	1
Hildebrand	48.16	1
Carpenter	47.41	4
Tagliani	45.08	1
Villeneuve	43.73	1
Davison	41.47	1
Servia	40.23	4
Bell	31.26	1
Conway	28.23	8
Plowman	25.36	2
Filippi	15.83	2
Mann	14.76	1
Montagny	12.75	1
Lazier	4.15	1

And, a check-in on the Carpenter/Conway Voltron:

Driver	Average Score
The 20 Car	34.62

Once we've added in the results from this weekend's double-header, we'll take a look at these averages; maybe do some driver capsules; compare the averages to the RSWC table. Oh, you want to see the RSWC table? Here you go:

Driver	Points	Difference
Castroneves	52	--
Hunter-Reay	47	-5
Power	45	-7
Montoya	35	-17
Pagenaud	31	-21
Dixon	31	-21
Kimball	23	-29
Munoz	20	-32
Kanaan	20	-32
Hinchcliffe	18	-34
Aleshin	16	-36
Wilson	15	-37
Hawksworth	15	-37
Carpenter	15	-37
Andretti	14	-38
Newgarden	14	-38
Huertas	12	-40
Conway	10	-42
Bourdais	10	-42
Rahal	10	-42
Briscoe	8	-44
Karam	5	-47
Saavedra	3	-49
Servia	2	-50
Sato	1	-51
Busch	1	-51

Again, much more on this next week! For, now, however, let's turn our attention to this weekend's matter at hand: the Honda Indy Toronto double-header!!

2013 Toronto Scores

Here are the numbers from Race 1:

Finish	Driver	Qualy	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.S.
1	Dixon	6	5	14	85	75.73
2	Bourdais	2	2	20	85	71.73
3	Franchitti	1	1	20	85	64.74
4	Andretti	11	10	0	85	62.15
5	Kanaan	4	4	0	85	51.32
6	Castroneves	8	7	0	85	51.74
7	Conway	20	20	0	85	59.82
8	Hinchcliffe	14	13	0	85	52.39
9	Pagenaud	13	12	0	85	42.90
10	de Silvestro	22	22	0	85	47.40
11	Wilson	9	8	0	85	30.06
12	Jakes	5	15	0	85	27.48
13	Carpenter	23	23	0	85	43.37
14	Viso	15	14	0	85	35.40
15	Power	3	3	29	84	39.64
16	Saavedra	24	24	0	84	31.05
17	Tagliani	17	17	0	84	23.32
18	Hunter-Reay	7	6	0	83	15.17
19	Vautier	21	21	0	83	17.88
20	Rahal	18	18	0	82	12.19
21	Kimball	16	16	2	72	16.89
22	Briscoe	10	9	0	64	5.67
23	Newgarden	19	19	0	34	1.14
24	Sato	12	11	0	32	1.14

And, here's Race 2:

Finish	Driver	Qualy	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.S.
1	Dixon	1	1	81	85	98.19
2	Castroneves	3	3	2	85	65.83
3	Bourdais	7	7	0	85	63.58
4	Franchitti	2	2	0	85	45.62
5	Viso	11	10	0	85	61.07
6	Kimball	16	15	0	85	58.26
7	Conway	24	23	0	85	62.20
8	Wilson	14	13	0	85	53.72
9	Andretti	18	17	0	85	51.41
10	Tagliani	9	8	0	85	38.95
11	Newgarden	19	18	0	85	43.26
12	Pagenaud	13	12	0	85	32.98
13	Rahal	20	19	0	84	35.57
14	de Silvestro	10	9	0	84	23.95
15	Saavedra	22	21	0	84	30.67
16	Vautier	17	16	0	84	26.13
17	Munoz	8	24	0	84	20.11
18	Power	5	5	2	83	22.33
19	Hunter-Reay	4	4	0	83	15.93
20	Sato	15	14	0	83	21.61
21	Hinchcliffe	12	11	0	81	-4.57
22	Carpenter	23	22	0	77	8.47
23	Jakes	21	20	0	62	5.51
24	Kanaan	6	6	0	35	-0.57

Predictive Observations

- Here are four drivers whose 2013 performances are worth highlighting.

- Sebastien Bourdais -- Bourdais drove well at Toronto last year, winning three trophies. To be fair, he only won the second trophy because he dropped the first, which wasn't connected to the base. But, Bourdais' double-podium weekend was eclipsed only by Scott Dixon's weekend sweep. I have been waiting for three years (I started scoring races in 2012, but didn't start blogging til '13) for Bourdais to show me a win. Toronto seems like the best chance for him to do it this year.

- Mike Conway -- Conway hasn't looked good in practice so far for Toronto. He didn't practice or qualify well last year, either. He did, however, DESTROY ALL THE WORLDS on track to post two scores right around the 60 mark. Might he be able to put some of his race pace into qualifying? Might it not matter, as the Destroyer takes on Toronto? We'll know after Sunday.

- Carlos Munoz -- Munoz stepped in for the broken-wristed Ryan Briscoe for Race 2 last year, and kept himself out of trouble. That was a big step in proving he was a mature road racer, as far as I'm concerned. Let's see if he takes the step from keeping his nose clean to attacking this time around.

- Takuma Sato -- Finally we come to Sato. I have a soft spot for Sato. Sato races for AJ Foyt. I have a picture of one of my parishioners with AJ Foyt. So, I feel a spiritual bond with Takuma Sato. I also feel bad for Sato. He has the worst average Race Score of any full-time driver, clocking in at an anemic 18.35. Unfortunately, Toronto was no friend to the #14 car in 2013. I see no reason to think it'll be better for the #14 in '14.

Stay Tuned

Well, that's all the trouble that I'm going to cause for this post. I'm excited for this weekend's races and I hope you are too! As always, you can follow me @ScoringIndy on Twitter for race predictions, blog updates, and to tweet me better ways to calculate Average Running Position. I look forward to getting you these results faster than the last couple! See you next time!

-- Guido