Detroit 2 & Texas Mega-Post

Hello Internet! Guido here, back from a one-week hiatus to attend a seminary classmate's wedding, and my baby sister the #LittlestGuido's high school graduation. (Just made up that hashtag, pretty sure she'd hate it, keeping it anyway.) So, you and I have some catching up to do, Internet. I have two whole races to bring to you and three races worth of updates to the Hall of Averages and RSWC. So, let's dive in!!


Detroit Race 2

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P	Race Score	RSWC Points
1	Castroneves	3	42	70	3.63	85.71	10
2	Power	8	2	70	5.61	68.20	5
3	Kimball	20	0	70	8.11	78.61	6
4	Dixon	22	0	70	6.77	80.65	8
5	Hinchcliffe	2	10	70	5.90	53.40	3
6	Pagenaud	7	0	70	6.04	52.97	2
7	Aleshin	16	1	70	7.96	61.15	4
8	Munoz	6	0	70	8.31	41.95
9	Kanaan	17	0	70	10.83	51.77	1
10	Briscoe	5	0	70	9.91	31.95
11	Conway	4	4	70	8.84	30.93
12	Wilson	13	0	70	13.64	32.36
13	Montoya	15	0	70	15.11	30.13
14	Hawksworth	19	1	70	14.10	35.17
15	Huertas	12	0	70	12.64	23.27
16	Andretti	18	0	70	12.34	29.78
17	Newgarden	10	0	69	19.77	3.46
18	Sato	1	10	69	11.86	3.53
19	Hunter-Reay	21	0	61	15.33	18.83
20	Bourdais	11	0	58	13.45	5.24
21	Rahal	14	0	43	21.19	-1.80
22	Saavedra	9	0	9	7.00	2.10

General Observations

- Redemptive run for Conway after a disastrous Race 1. More on him below.

- Serious All-You-Can-Punt Buffet for My Australian Overlord, Will Power on lap 2. THAT SAID, smart strategy (serving the drive-through as early as possible) got Power a BUNCH of laps in clean air, which put him in good position for a result.

- No one was going to catch Helio.

- Is Aleshin for real?


A Word on Strategy

I was going to do a strategy breakdown like I did for Race 1 for Race 2 as well. But, there was EXTRAORDINARILY little strategy in play in Race 2. Basically, every driver but Conway was able to fulfill their "run the reds" requirement after the aforementioned All-You-Can-Punt Buffet. Conway stuck to his guns and went for a long black run early, but wound up needing to stretch his reds for (most of) an entire fuel run. This (the fall-off on the reds & the inability to make it into the final pit window) put him out of contention.

ASIDE: I think that running prime tires in a first stint is genius. If fuel distance is not a factor, then running long on a first stint is full of glorious benefits. Of course, yellows and track position dictate a lot of strategy, as they did here in Race 2. END ASIDE.

That's enough about Detroit. A thoroughly enjoyable double-header. Let's jump back in to the numbers, however, and take a look at Texas:


2014 Firestone 600

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P	Race Score	RSWC Points
1	Carpenter	5	90	248	3.19	81.51	10
2	Power	1	145	248	2.10	81.45	8
3	Montoya	4	13	248	5.85	59.54	6
4	Pagenaud	6	0	248	5.33	58.59	5
5	Dixon	7	0	248	4.40	58.48	4
6	Kanaan	3	0	248	3.63	50.57	1
7	Aleshin	11	0	247	8.71	51.85	3
8	Castroneves	14	0	247	10.21	51.08	2
9	Briscoe	13	0	247	11.20	45.06
10	Kimball	15	0	247	13.02	42.31
11	Newgarden	2	0	247	7.32	28.27
12	Rahal	21	0	246	15.29	41.78
13	Munoz	10	0	245	12.47	26.43
14	Hinchcliffe	9	0	244	14.72	18.53
15	Hawksworth	20	0	244	18.70	25.98
16	Huertas	22	0	244	16.39	29.41
17	Saavedra	19	0	244	16.56	21.67
18	Sato	16	0	238	16.14	14.64
19	Hunter-Reay	12	0	136	8.54	12.26
20	Bourdais	18	0	118	15.87	8.24
21	Wilson	8	0	118	9.73	3.23
22	Andretti	17	0	3	8.67	1.69

Observations

- Maybe Aleshin really is for real...

- Best of a bad situation for Rahal. Increased his position a solid 10 spots by staying out of trouble. He'll get there one of these days...

- Ok, enough of having an ellipsis at the end of each observation, I'm not being wistful today.

- Back to the track. If you look at how the scores break down, you can observe some clear tiers take shape at the top of the table: Tier 1 - Carpenter and Power. By FAR the two best drives of the race. The winner and the leader of the most laps were only separated (in terms of Race Score) by .06. Tier 2 - Montoya, Pagenaud, & Dixon. These three were in the proverbial camera shot all race long. I'm not convinced that any of them had a chance to win it without something going wrong (well wrong-er, since Power had his drive-through) in front of them. And, finally, Tier 3 -  Kanaan, Aleshin, & Castroneves. Solid, if not truly contending performances. Texas is hard to master, and these three can say they did it.


RSWC Update

Here's what the Race Score World Championship looks like post-Texas:

Driver	Points	Difference
Castroneves	43	--
Power	43	--
Hunter-Reay	34	-9
Dixon	22	-21
Pagenaud	21	-22
Kimball	17	-26
Montoya	16	-27
Andretti	14	-29
Wilson	14	-29
Aleshin	11	-32
Conway	10	-33
Carpenter	10	-33
Munoz	9	-34
Kanaan	9	-34
Rahal	8	-35
Hinchcliffe	8	-35
Bourdais	6	-37
Karam	5	-38
Hawksworth	3	-40
Saavedra	3	-40
Briscoe	3	-40
Huertas	2	-41
Newgarden	2	-41
Servia	2	-41
Sato	1	-42
Busch	1	-42

- Here also, there are some tiers, but I won't quite do the same level of detail. You can see that the two Penskes who share the lead. Power and Castroneves have had the same level of dominant performances, which is really what this traces. Hunter-Reay, despite his troubles in the last couple of weekends, stays near the top because of the dominance that he's shown at times (not unlike last year.)

- But, for more of a snapshot of how seasons are going on the whole, let's take a trip to the:

Hall of Averages

Here are the full-timers:

Driver	Average Score
Power	70.27
Castroneves	56.74
Hunter-Reay	50.31
Pagenaud	48.60
Dixon	46.93
Kanaan	41.42
Wison	39.82
Kimball	39.35
Andretti	36.07
Montoya	36.05
Briscoe	35.34
Huertas	32.02
Aleshin	31.86
Munoz	31.81
Rahal	28.05
Bourdais	27.76
Saavedra	25.69
Hinchcliffe	25.42
Hawksworth	25.19
Sato	24.55
Newgarden	21.39

And, the part-timers:

Driver	Average Score	Races
Karam	65.51	1
Hildebrand	48.16	1
Carpenter	47.62	2
Tagliani	45.08	1
Villeneuve	43.73	1
Davison	41.47	1
Servia	40.23	4
Bell	31.26	1
Conway	29.34	6
Plowman	25.36	2
Mann	14.76	1
Montagny	12.75	1
Lazier	4.15	1

And, because I know you're interested, if you combine Carpenter and Conway, you get:

Driver	Average Score
The 20 Car	33.91

Which puts the combined Fuzzy's crew right between Briscoe and Huertas.

Observations

- The average scores for full-timers show how the balance of their seasons has played out. The scores for part-timers show potential. So, we'll look at them individually.

Full Time

- Looking at the full-timers, I'm unsurprised by how the list looks. I think only the Top 5 (down to Dixon) have shown anything approaching the consistency needed to win a championship.

- That said, I think only the top half of the group there (down to Briscoe) have shown true race-winning form this season. You could argue that Hawksworth looked like he could win the GP of Indy, but he didn't. He finished P7.

- I am surprised about 2 things (on the whole) looking at this list. First, I'm astounded that Sebastien Bourdais and Josef Newgarden are bottom-halfers. If you'd told me before the season that two of: Bourdais, Newgarden, Montoya, and Kimball were going to be on the bottom half of the table, I'd have said Kimball and Montoya, whom I both think are good. That shows you my shock here. Second, I'm surprised at the performances of Huertas and Aleshin. These two have really made the most of their shot. Good on 'em.

Part Time

- Again, the part-timers show potential. With a small sample size, all you can get is what could be.

- I could, at this point, re-hash all the glowing words that have been said about Sage Karam. The kid seems to have the potential to be the real deal. We won't know if he has the consistency for it until he gets a consistent ride, however. I'm on record as saying he has heaps of talent, and that's true, but how far can one Indy 500 performance take you?

- Speaking of "how far can one Indy 500 performance take you?" how about JR Hildebrand? You see that the potential is there. He had some good runs in 2013, notably at Long Beach and (while he was running) at Fontana. Is there the space for him to get the ride he deserves? Probably only with an expanded field.

- Somewhere buried in the Weird Files is this idea that Jacques Villenueve wants to get back into full time IndyCar racing. His performance in the 500 was encouraging, but his occasional (and underwhelming, especially at the highest level) NASCAR starts were not.

- If I fell backwards into tens of millions of dollars, I would fund full-season entries at existing race teams (because I have neither the time nor the inclination to start my own) for Buddy Lazier and Pippa Mann. I keep looking at their numbers and wanting to write them off, but I just like them both too darn much. With a full season of data on each, I could come up with a real-live opinion...


Stay Tuned

As a recap, my Detroit predictions were awful; and I didn't make any for Texas, because I was traveling all weekend. Be sure to follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter for said terrible predictions as well as blog updates and my occasional opinion. I'll see you in one week for something fun, and then after that to go racing down in Houston. See you then!!

-- Guido

Dual 1 Quick-Post

Hello Internet, Guido here with a Scoring Indy quick update on Race 1 from Detroit. I said quick, so here are the numbers:


2014 Detroit Race 1 Scores

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P	Race Score	RSWC Points
1	Power	16	21	70	5.91	91.95	10
2	Rahal	9	10	70	7.31	70.95	8
3	Kanaan	8	0	70	7.30	61.67	4
4	Wilson	19	0	70	11.50	68.94	6
5	Castroneves	1	30	70	4.67	63.27	5
6	Hinchcliffe	2	0	70	6.00	45.45
7	Munoz	11	0	70	10.50	49.24	1
8	Huertas	12	0	70	12.14	45.24
9	Kimball	20	0	70	11.49	55.32	3
10	Andretti	18	1	70	10.39	51.41	2
11	Dixon	10	1	70	9.27	37.94
12	Montoya	6	0	70	10.21	26.95
13	Bourdais	7	0	70	12.99	21.23
14	Saavedra	13	0	70	14.06	25.67
15	Briscoe	5	5	70	8.37	21.52
16	Hunter-Reay	21	0	69	12.06	34.42
17	Aleshin	22	2	68	11.69	34.02
18	Sato	15	0	66	18.64	9.52
19	Hawksworth	3	0	65	14.66	-4.72
20	Newgarden	14	0	36	9.08	10.71
21	Conway	4	0	14	4.00	3.64
22	Pagenaud	17	0	4	15.75	1.71

A Word on Strategy

The one observation from this race is a quick look at the three (plus one) main strategies that we saw yesterday, by looking at some example drivers:

The Stop-Early Three-Stopper

Power -- Power's winning strategy was a textbook "get off sequence early" three-stop strategy. Power dove into the pits under an early yellow, losing virtually no track position, and in doing so allowed himself to A) not worry a lick about fuel, and B) run alternate/option/red tires for as little of the race as possible. Here's to you, Will Power. Masterclass.

Kimball -- Kimball's strategy worked similar to Power's, except that he started on primary tires. This resulted in Kimball staying out later than Power for his second stop (blacks-to-reds) but coming in sooner for his final stop (reds-to-blacks) in order to get rid of the troublesome alternates.

Effectiveness -- You have to say it was effective, it won the race. Andy, by and large drivers on this strategy, who used this strategy and finished the race out-performed their Average Running Position.


The Short-Stint Three-Stopper

Rahal -- This strategy is a variation on the strategy seen above. But, while Power started on alternates, and pitted early to ditch them; Rahal started on blacks (as did Kimball), and needed to short-stint his reds somewhere else. He wound up running longer on his alternate tires than Power, and had to make all three pit stops under green, circumstances that may have served to lose him the race (although, I can't imagine that Graham Rahal is disappointed with a runner-up finish.) Rahal did, however run fewer laps on reds than Kimball, which may have served to his benefit.

Unintentionals -- Rahal was the only driver to try this strategy on purpose. But, a couple of drivers wound up inadvertently on similar strategies. Carlos Munoz took a fuel-only stop under yellow during the second caution period, and Carlos Huertas functionally adopted this strategy by serving his drive-through penalty.

Effectiveness -- It allowed Rahal to get his best result of the year, and he did so by out-performing his car, based on A.R.P. If the yellows had fallen differently (or if Power had bobbled out front), Rahal could have gotten it.


The Two-Stopper

Castroneves & Hinchcliffe -- These strategies are actually identical, and are the baseline by which the other strategies can be evaluated. Both drivers pitted first at lap 17 under yellow, then 29 laps later on 46. Both drivers also started on scuffed alternates, and ran sticker blacks the rest of the way.

Effectiveness -- As I said, this is the baseline strategy, and I call it this, because cars on this strategy basically finished right on track with their spots in the running order: Helio P5 with an A.R.P. of 4.67 and Hinch P6 with a 6.00 A.R.P.


The All-Yellows Four-Stopper

Wilson -- This is the oddball strategy of the bunch. Wilson made one more stop than other drivers in contention, and made each stop under yellow flag conditions. This led to Wilson being behind on running position (but because he only pitted under yellow, not necessarily track position) all day, but it kept him with fresh tires under him, which seem to have served him well.

Effectiveness -- It certainly didn't help Wilson run up front, his A.R.P. is quite low down the order (11.50), but he was able to stay on track laying down green laps while others pitted. Big payoff for the off-the wall call.


Stay Tuned

Be sure to follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter. You can already see my (sure to be) terrible race predictions for Race 2 of this weekend's event. You'll also get blog updates, for when new scores and previews go live. See you after Race 2!!

-- Guido