Friday, July 11, 2014

Pocono & Iowa Mega-Post

Hello Internet! Guido here with a Scoring Indy Mega-Post. This week: I've got Pocono scores; I've got an Iowa preview; I've got numbers; I've got opinions. Should be fun! Let's hop to it!


2014 Pocono 500 Scores

Here are the scores for the Pocono 500 (feels good to say the words "Pocono 500"):

FinishDriverGridLedCompletedA.R.P.Race ScoreRSWC Points
1Montoya1452002.1072.4310
2Castroneves702004.5567.028
3Munoz302004.5457.884
4Briscoe1002006.9661.545
5Dixon1502008.7263.226
6Pagenaud11020010.1851.73
7Aleshin1202007.2554.812
8Newgarden21720012.7057.853
9Andretti5020011.7130.91
10Power2692002.7049.07
11Kanaan8782003.9854.531
12Hinchcliffe6019913.1120.87
13Carpenter13019910.3632.67
14Wilson16019915.6125.81
15Saavedra19019916.6825.55
16Bourdais18119912.3227.99
17Kimball17019815.0518.86
18Hunter-Reay9018117.230.86
19Rahal14015715.227.26
20Huertas2008919.434.99
21Sato40259.240.90



Observations

- Now, I'm a weird person, but I'm just going to come out and say it. I love fuel mileage racing. And, I don't mean that in the sense of "every race is a fuel mileage race." I mean that I love it (love, love, LOVE it) when strategy decides a race. I understand that expressing my opinions this way makes me a minority, but I'm not a gear-head. I don't know the first thing about cars (maybe the first, but by the eleventh thing, I'm probably toast). What I am, is a gamer. I love playing games. I have an undergraduate minor in Economics, which I got accidentally because I wanted to take a course in Game Theory. And strategy: that's gaming, that's my bag.

- Ok, for those of you that are still here, you might imagine that I loved the Pocono 500. With only the one caution period, strategy was at a premium, and for the love of Pete, it was a 500-miler with an average speed of 202.402. That's incredible!

- But, none of you are here to read me waxing poetic about fuel mileage racing. Let's look at the nuts and bolts of last weekend's race: First, it is slightly incredible that the eighth-best drive of the day: that of Tony Kanaan, comes from outside the top half of the field. Kanaan's P11 score of 54.53 is a testament to a strategy that put him out front with a chance to win in the last stint if he'd have gotten some yellow. A good run by TK, even if he thought it could have been a winner with a strategical tweak or two.

- Speaking of Kanaan, three of the four Ganassi cars wound up with Race Score World Championship points. Briscoe and Dixon both netted Race Scores of over 60 to go along with TK's 54.53. Could this season's littlest sister among the Big Three begin to turn things around similarly to last year?

- Big ups to Carlos Munoz, who just flat shows up at the big ovals. Check these numbers out: 2013 Indy 500 - 62.05; 2014 Indy 500 - 61.24; 2014 Pocono 500 - 57.88. He did crash out at Fontana in 2013, but that was in a substitute role.

- Finally, a good result for Josef Newgarden. I will say no more for fear of putting on the jinx.


Hall of Averages

I'll have more to say about all these things after Mid-Ohio, when the series gets a week to breathe, but for now, presented without comment, the average Race Scores for full-timers (I'm counting Hawksworth), then part-timers, and finally the Race Score World Championship table:

Full-Timers

DriverAverage Score
Power63.5
Castroneves52.26
Pagenaud48.97
Hunter-Reay47.13
Montoya44.27
Kanaan42.79
Dixon41.3
Briscoe39.38
Wilson38.26
Kimball38.06
Andretti38.04
Munoz35.59
Hawksworth34.04
Aleshin33.36
Bourdais33.27
Huertas30.98
Hinchcliffe28.83
Saavedra25.92
Rahal25.51
Newgarden22.91
Sato19.93

Part-Timers

DriverAverage ScoreRaces
Karam65.511
Hildebrand48.161
Tagliani45.081
Villeneuve43.731
Carpenter42.633
Davison41.471
Servia40.234
Bell31.261
Conway28.238
Plowman25.362
Filippi15.832
Mann14.761
Montagny12.751
Lazier4.151


RSWC Table

DriverPointsDifference
Castroneves51--
Power45-6
Hunter-Reay41-10
Montoya35-16
Pagenaud31-20
Dixon28-23
Kimball23-28
Munoz21-30
Aleshin16-35
Wilson15-36
Hawksworth15-36
Andretti14-37
Hinchcliffe14-37
Huertas12-39
Conway10-41
Carpenter10-41
Bourdais10-41
Kanaan10-41
Rahal8-43
Briscoe8-43
Karam5-46
Newgarden5-46
Saavedra3-48
Servia2-49
Sato1-50
Busch1-50


2014 Iowa Preview

Now, moving on to the second portion of our mega-post: briefly previewing the Iowa Corn Indy 300. I have found Iowa races to be some of my very favorite ovals, and last year's race produced something really special. Here it is:

FinishDriverQualyGridLaps LedCompletedARS
1Hinchcliffe3222625098.57
2Hunter-Reay1412025069.82
3Kanaan85025060.75
4Carpenter641825059.69
5Rahal96125059.20
6Pagenaud118025058.39
7Servia107025052.79
8Castroneves111025044.37
9Andretti43025042.27
10Viso1916025050.06
11Wilson1310524940.21
12Kimball1714024935.80
13Vautier1513024832.69
14Bourdais2219024833.96
15Newgarden1622024827.60
16Dixon515024723.86
17Power2102479.19
18Jakes2124024723.78
19Saavedra2018024713.63
20Franchitti2421024618.78
21de Silvestro232002439.35
22Beatriz182301838.66
23Sato71701622.61
24Tagliani12901390.07

- Look at that performance from Hinchcliffe: 98.57 is IMPRESSIVE stuff. Couldn't he use a performance like that again?

- Andretti and Kanaan have both been good at Iowa in the past. I wonder how they'll perform this weekend. Practice times seem to indicate that they've got a shot.

- Finally, Graham Rahal keeps making it hard for me to quit him. He had a good performance in Iowa last year, and his practice times have been good so far. We'll see after qualifications...


Stay Tuned

As always, be sure to follow me @ScoringIndy on Twitter for blog updates and (generally) terrible race predictions. Should be an exciting weekend! Enjoy the racing!

-- Guido

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