Indianapolis Mega-Post

Hey there, Internet! It's Guido, back with another Scoring Indy update. This time, we're going ALL THE WAY back over the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, giving the Race Scores and Quick Hits for the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500. It's a lot of numbers and a lot of fun, so let's get right to it!


A Word of Apology

So, we're not getting right to it. Instead, I want to offer a couple of words of apology to you my tens of loyal readers. I know that by now the Indianapolis Mega-Post has become a bit of a tradition here at Scoring Indy. But, I promise you that I didn't mean to do it this year. I had every intention of getting a post out there after the GP, mostly so that I could continue to say "let's all just enjoy Simon Pagenaud." However. things got crazy at church, and I got delayed. So, enjoy the Mega-Post. I hope it won't be back.


Grand Prix Scorecard

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P.	Race Score
1	Pagenaud	1	57	82	1.66	88.96
2	Castroneves	13	7	82	6.61	75.37
3	Hinchcliffe	3	0	82	3.35	60.86
4	Rahal	24	2	82	8.98	79.51
5	Kimball	2	2	82	4.13	53.97
6	Daly	22	14	82	9.21	76.08
7	Dixon	7	0	82	6.50	51.33
8	Montoya	6	0	82	9.44	43.41
9	Hunter-Reay	15	0	82	7.33	55.56
10	Rossi	12	0	82	9.21	46.39
11	Pigot	18	0	82	11.76	48.33
12	Munoz	17	0	82	10.44	46.08
13	Aleshin	9	0	82	11.13	31.82
14	Chilton	11	0	82	12.38	30.16
15	Andretti	19	0	82	14.63	35.15
16	Brabham	14	0	82	16.84	22.88
17	Chaves	23	0	82	19.05	29.27
18	Sato	20	0	82	19.85	21.53
19	Power	10	0	82	19.04	6.62
20	Hawksworth	4	0	82	14.09	2.55
21	Newgarden	25	0	82	18.62	21.84
22	Hildebrand	16	0	81	19.62	5.84
23	Tagliani	21	0	81	22.07	6.54
24	Bourdais	8	0	20	24.00	-1.89
25	Kanaan	5	0	0	25.00	1.33

GP Quick Hits

- I promised that I wanted to say it. Let's all just sit back and enjoy Simon Pagenaud. The first five races of this year's Verizon IndyCar Series were basically the Pagenaud Show. We'll get to the 500 in a hot minute, but the GP was a masterclass (just like Barber and Long Beach and to a lesser extent Phoenix and St. Pete). Guy can drive.

- Let's get nerdy. I'm pretty sure that this is the drive that got Spencer Pigot his job at ECR. Let's look at his two road course drives this season:

Race	Finish	Grid	Led	Comp.	A.R.P.	Race Score
St Petersburg	14	21	0	100%	15.24	35.80
GP of Indy	11	18	0	100%	11.75	48.33

Those are a couple of brilliant displace of Road Coursemanship. Gaining 7 positions each time. Finishing marginally better than he ran. I don't know when Ed Carpenter decided he wanted to run the 20 car on the twisties again, but Pigot is the right call. If Ed's been waiting for Pigot's three-race deal with RLL to finish up, it's a great display of patience; and if he just decided to do so after the month of May, it's an great way to capitalize on the opening.

- That last one wasn't the quickest of hits. This is. It's also a hot take, but I think I can back it up with numbers (I just won't do it here). Rossi, Daly, and Chilton (possibly including Pigot as well) are the most impressive crop of rookies since Reunification. On to the oval!

Indy 500 Scorecard

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	R.R.P.	Race Score
1	Rossi	11	14	200	11.30	68.70
2	Munoz	5	10	200	5.67	65.64
3	Newgarden	2	14	200	4.00	62.94
4	Kanaan	18	19	200	5.83	76.06
5	Kimball	16	0	200	15.53	59.06
6	Hildebrand	15	4	200	12.67	59.59
7	Hinchcliffe	1	27	200	4.10	55.91
8	Dixon	13	0	200	9.00	56.57
9	Bourdais	19	0	200	14.93	54.61
10	Power	6	8	200	12.63	43.12
11	Castroneves	9	24	200	7.37	52.11
12	Servia	10	0	200	15.60	38.79
13	Andretti	14	0	200	11.77	44.68
14	Rahal	26	0	200	15.27	51.25
15	Chilton	22	0	200	21.00	39.39
16	Hawksworth	31	0	200	21.63	45.82
17	Tagliani	33	11	200	17.40	51.93
18	Mann	25	0	199	23.80	33.45
19	Pagenaud	8	0	199	15.07	23.12
20	Chaves	21	0	199	19.63	29.59
21	Bell	4	12	199	13.10	19.04
22	Brabham	27	0	199	22.80	28.40
23	Clauson	28	3	198	25.87	24.74
24	Hunter-Reay	3	52	198	12.67	19.01
25	Pigot	29	0	195	24.83	22.06
26	Sato	12	0	163	16.58	10.89
27	Aleshin	7	0	126	12.16	8.24
28	Wilson	30	0	119	26.76	11.61
29	Daly	24	0	115	19.35	10.65
30	Lazier	32	0	100	31.40	6.36
31	Carpenter	20	0	98	22.43	3.31
32	Karam	23	2	93	12.07	8.25
33	Montoya	17	0	63	18.7	0.79

Indy 500 Quick Hits

- First of all, I was actually able to attend the 500 this year. Being clergy, I have relatively few Sundays of vacation baked into my compensation package (for obvious reasons), but I've had this one circled for almost four years. Amazing day. Amazing race. Big thanks to my buddy Hoff and his dad for one of their tickets. You guys are amazing.

- Now, on to the numbers. This is one of those rare cases where the winner of the race did not have the highest Race Score. This usually happens in races where an "oddball" strategy takes home the win. And, we can certainly say that Alexander Rossi's herculean stretching of his fuel supply counts as an "oddball" strategy. So, let's take a quick look at our winner, and the best Race Score.

- Race winner: Alexander Rossi. Here's his line:

Driver	Finish	Grid	Led	Comp.	A.R.P.	Race Score
Rossi	1	11	14	200	11.30	68.70

Rossi found himself off sequence about mid-race, bouncing around the lead with Alex Tagliani from lap 117 to 137. But, his last stop was right with the rest of the top drivers under yellow at lap 164. Just super-human fuel stretching from there. That literally shouldn't be possible in a current generation Indy Car. Hats off to you, Mr. Rossi. You're my new pick for Rookie of the year.

- Top Race Score: Tony Kanaan. Here's his line:

Driver	Finish	Grid	Led	Comp.	A.R.P.	Race Score
Kanaan	4	18	19	200	5.83	76.06

Let's compare TK to Rossi. Kanaan started farther back. He made up more places on track. He led more laps. And, to just go by the "eyeball test," TK was in the proverbial camera shot for pretty much the entire race. It could be that I'm biased a little. Hoff's dad pulled TK in the top-of-stand-H pool, so I might have been paying closer attention. But, insofar as anyone who didn't win could be happy with an Indy 500 drive, I'd say Tony Kanaan should be pretty pleased.

Stay Tuned

And just like that, we're on to Detroit. Enjoy your weekend of racing, friends. I know I will.

See you later!

-- Guido