Rolling off at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis

Hey there Internet! It's Guido here with another Scoring Indy update! This week we have a brief update with a preview of the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis and a couple of pressing questions. Let's get to it!


Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis Preview

Here's what happened at the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis:

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P	Race Score
1	Pagenaud	4	6	82	3.60	69.64
2	Hunter-Reay	3	18	82	3.39	70.80
3	Castroneves	10	15	82	6.52	72.07
4	Bourdais	7	1	82	6.66	59.53
5	Kimball	23	0	82	11.63	71.15
6	Briscoe	14	0	82	10.78	57.63
7	Hawksworth	2	31	82	4.82	59.51
8	Power	5	0	82	7.59	44.55
9	Sato	16	0	82	15.50	46.00
10	Kanaan	9	0	82	12.33	38.23
11	Wilson	18	4	82	10.85	51.15
12	Servia	22	7	82	12.37	53.02
13	Huertas	17	0	82	11.59	41.89
14	Andretti	13	0	82	14.04	30.62
15	Dixon	6	0	82	10.71	23.06
16	Montoya	8	0	81	15.07	17.19
17	Newagarden	15	0	80	18.14	19.63
18	Plowman	20	0	80	14.46	28.28
19	Conway	24	0	58	21.64	18.16
20	Hinchcliffe	11	0	56	6.41	17.64
21	Rahal	12	0	50	9.56	12.72
22	Montagny	21	0	47	15.30	12.75
23	Saavedra	1	0	0	23.00	4.00
24	Munoz	19	0	0	24.00	2.67
25	Aleshin	25	0	0	25.00	1.33

In short:

- Jack Hawksworth showed promise.

- Oriol Servia almost pulled it out.

- Pagenaud got a win that will be more popular than if he has a repeat performance.

- Fuel was the chief concern.

- And, Sebastian Saavedra (for whom I seem among the chief apologists on the internet) got robbed by a car that was never meant to do a standing start.

Questions in Search of Answers

- Will the GP track race more like Barber, or more like the street circuits from earlier in the season? That is to say, will the Honda drivers even have a fighting chance? Chevy proved that it was the dominant engine/aero combination on street courses for reasons that are far over my head I'm sure. (Said reasons are probably something about drag reduction and the ability to get on the gas quickly out of street course turns, which are taken mostly via braking, rather than high-downforce cornering, as is seen on many road courses. But, I could be COMPLETELY wrong, and this is way above my pay grade.) Anyway, what will the result be on a world-class road course, but a flat one?

- Will my pet drivers stay hot? As everyone knows by now, I just can't quit finding Graham Rahal fascinating. I sometimes have to remind myself that Will Power is my favorite driver (All Hail His Overlordship) because during every race I'm always trying to figure out what's going on with Graham. He's been the best performing Honda in GP practice. Will he stay that way? My other pet driver is Sebastian Saavedra. I'm going to take up the flag for the young Colombian because everyone else on the internet decided it was the travesty to end all travesties when he got a tiny tiny share of the seat time in the #8 away from Sage Karam. Well guess what? Saavedra posted that entry's best result of the year at Long Beach. He's back in there for the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indy, where he won the pole last year. I smell another Top 10. I am, of course, wrong most of the time that I make predictions.

- Finally, will we see a breakout? Here is a list of drivers I expected to be much more competitive than they have proved to be so far. Coletti, Filippi, Hunter-Reay, Pagenaud (all things considered), and Kimball. Will any of these drivers break out on the hallowed grounds of IMS? We'll find out tomorrow.

Stay Tuned

The blog updates on Friday. You can follow along @ScoringIndy on Twitter for updates. See you next week!!

-- Guido