Detroit 2016 Mega-Post

Hey there, Internet!! I'm just hanging out here while they dry the track at Texas Motor Speedway, and I've got most of the running positions calculated for last weekend's Chevrolet Dual in Detroit. So, I'm gonna get this write up finished, and we'll all enjoy it together during the Firestone 600 tonight. Let's get to it!


Race 1 Scorecard

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P.	Race Score
1	Bourdais	13	12	70	9.36	77.90
2	Daly	16	4	70	10.33	74.13
3	Montoya	3	13	70	3.07	66.69
4	Rahal	10	0	70	5.90	63.79
5	Castroneves	2	0	70	4.91	50.13
6	Munoz	5	0	70	7.29	48.05
7	Hunter-Reay	15	0	70	11.73	53.44
8	Kimball	6	0	70	10.21	39.07
9	Kanaan	7	0	70	10.31	37.40
10	Rossi	17	0	70	14.66	42.94
11	Sato	11	0	70	14.00	31.82
12	Chaves	20	0	70	16.10	39.24
13	Pagenaud	1	35	70	3.93	42.53
14	Newgarden	14	0	70	12.71	29.22
15	Aleshin	12	0	70	11.51	24.98
16	Andretti	19	0	69	16.06	25.45
17	Pigot	21	0	69	18.20	22.23
18	Hinchcliffe	4	0	65	9.95	6.23
19	Dixon	6	1	56	8.36	8.43
20	Power	9	5	44	3.68	13.96
21	Chilton	18	0	8	12.25	4.37
22	Hawksworth	22	0	0	22.00	1.52

Race 1 Quick Hits

- "Dale Coyne is the Napoleon of Race Strategy" is this year's "Mike Conway is a Destroyer of Worlds." Perhaps I just like to make outlandish statements, but I think this one's true. Coyne is able to make chicken salad out of chicken feet, just as long as he gets a little bit of help. In Race 1, he got Conor Daly onto the podium with the yellows falling right (and an Average Running Position greater than 10). In previous years, he's won races with the likes of Carlos Huertas and the aforementioned Mike Conway: Destroyer of Worlds. He puts his drivers in position to win. Solid work Dale.

- Big credit to Ryan Hunter-Reay for posting a score of 53.44 from P7. It seems to me that 53.44 is a good score for that spot. Maybe I should try and figure out a "par" score for each position. I could make a formula for that...

- Finally, let's mention Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais has never had a good ride. A Newman-Hass was certainly the ride to have in CART in 2004, but no heavy hitting teams were still in CART in 2004. And, Bourdais made the best of it, winning like a million races from 2003-07 in CART. But, after reunification, he's had the following rides: 2011 part time for Dale Coyne; 2012-13 Dragon Racing (during which he managed a top 10 under Lotus power, remember those engines?); 2014-Present at KV, where he has managed the organizations only wins without an asterisk (other than Tony Kanaan's Indy 500 win in 2013). Imagine what he could do in a decent car.

- OK, I'm gonna go crunch some more numbers and get back with Race 2.


Race 2 Scorecard

Did you miss me? Here it is:

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.P.	Race Score
1	Power	8	10	70	5.09	75.84
2	Pagenaud	1	40	70	2.01	81.15
3	Hunter-Reay	2	0	70	3.76	57.94
4	Newgarden	17	0	70	8.34	70.69
5	Dixon	4	0	70	7.36	49.46
6	Daly	21	0	70	11.13	66.47
7	Kanaan	6	0	70	7.97	45.50
8	Bourdais	12	8	70	7.33	56.34
9	Andretti	22	0	70	15.2	52.73
10	Sato	16	0	70	14.14	42.21
11	Rahal	7	1	70	12.04	29.20
12	Rossi	18	1	70	14.26	39.48
13	Chaves	13	0	70	15.53	26.47
14	Castroneves	3	10	70	6.20	27.19
15	Munoz	13	0	70	12.66	24.76
16	Kimball	11	0	70	9.13	24.05
17	Aleshin	5	0	70	11.99	7.60
18	Pigot	20	0	67	14.72	22.49
19	Hawksworth	9	0	48	15.75	3.20
20	Montoya	10	0	33	7.94	8.16
21	Hinchcliffe	14	0	0	21.00	3.03
22	Chilton	19	0	0	22.00	1.52

Race 2 Quick Hits

- Two particular fascinations of mine have coalesced back in P18. I wonder what the "par score" for P18 in this race would be. I also think Spencer Pigot's Race Score is better than that par score would be. I'm really gonna have to figure this out. Maybe I'll use my free week after recapping Texas (still hasn't started, for those playing the home game) and before Road America (which is 3 hours from my house and I won't be at, grumble grumble....) to try and figure that out.

- Back to the front of the pack: My Australian Overlord, Will Power actually won a race! Interesting fact. Ever since he won the Chase for My Heart last year, Will Power has been winless. I was beginning to think that I was a jinx. OK, I wasn't beginning to think it. I know I'm a jinx. My teams never win. Just ask my wife, she's the one who developed the theory. Well, JINX BROKEN. Power wins it. Good strategy. Good pass on Pagenaud. Good racing.

- Speaking of Pagenaud, how impressive is this guy?!?! In 140 total laps on Belle Isle he led 75 of them. 75!! That's more than one full race. Of course, it doesn't matter if you lead 138 laps at Belle Isle if you don't lead Lap 70 of each race. Pagenaud didn't, and he failed to achieve the top step of the podium. However, if Race Scores are measures of how happy a driver should be with their day, Pagenaud should be the happiest after Race 2. He scores an 81.15 to Power's 75.84.

- Conor Daly with a monster day again. Finishing P6 after starting P21. Ran 11.13, and finished a full 5 spots better than that. Coyne + Conor = Gold.


Bonus Content

Well, the track is still being dried. I've switched to watching soccer. (Costa Rica is HANDING Group A in Copa America to the USA.) I'll be back, IndyCar. But, I just had a crazy idea. The Dual in Detroit, is a two-event weekend. What if someone with a spreadsheet (like this guy) aggregated everyone's performance over the two events? That could be cool. And, it'll keep me busy while this soccer game happens. (Columbia has drawn within 1, this could be bad for USA.) Let's see if anything interesting comes up.

Here's the ranking of everyone's Average Race Score from the two events at the Dual in Detroit:

Driver	Mean
Daly	70.30
Bourdais	67.12
Pagenaud	61.84
Hunter-Reay	55.69
Newgarden	49.96
Rahal	46.49
Power	44.90
Kanaan	41.45
Rossi	41.21
Andretti	40.90
Castroneves	38.66
Montoya	37.42
Sato	37.01
Munoz	36.41
Chaves	32.86
Kimball	31.56
Dixon	28.95
Aleshin	24.51
Pigot	22.36
Hinchcliffe	4.63
Chilton	2.94
Hawksworth	2.36

NB: I labeled the averages "mean" because I learned that word in math class and it makes me sound smart. I also label my notes "NB" because I learned that means something in Latin and it also makes me sound smart. Also, it is late. I'm now watching IndyCar Chronicles, because we're still drying the track at Texas. Anyway, here are some Quick Hits:

- OBVIOUSLY the best weekend goes to Conor Daly. I mean, wow.

- Hunter-Reay, Newgarden, and Rahal were all surprisingly good, in my opinion. I don't remember them spending tons of time in the discussion. But, I'll have to watch again with an eye to those three.

- OK, I'm tired; the race isn't happening tonight; I'm turning in.

Stay Tuned

I basically said it all up there. I'm looking forward to channel-surfing all the racing tomorrow. I should also be constantly tweeting the action on the track and the action on my remote, so give a follow @ScoringIndy and we'll have a good time together.

See you out there,

-- Guido

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