Round 14: Gallagher Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Aug 11-12

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 14: Gallagher Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Aug 11-12

This weekend will be the fourth consecutive year, a second race at the IMS Grand Prix circuit will be held. Like the previous two years it will be a single race event.

History
On October 1, 2013, after a feasibility test which had previously been held in September, it was announced that an IndyCar race for 2014 would be held on the GP Circuit, either as a double-header event in the Month of May prior to the Indy 500, or as a stand-alone race in the autumn/fall. Up until the announcement IndyCar hadn't raced on the GP Circuit, though Indy Lights had four times.

The inaugural race was held on May 10, 2014 and was won by Simon Pagenaud, driving a Dallara DW12- Honda HI14RTT for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The race featured a standing start, something IndyCar had tried out for a couple of races in the previous season.

The standing start was not without incident, when Pole sitter Sebastián Saavedra stalled as the lights went out and his car was rear ended by Carlos Munoz's and Mikhail Aleshin's cars, showering the track with carbon-fibre and forcing a restart. It was decided that from 2015 onwards there would be a conventional rolling start.

In 2020, as part of the revised schedule due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a second event the Harvest Grand Prix, was added to the race calendar and held at the IMS Grand Prix circuit, from October 1-3. It was also the fifth double-header of the 2020 season.

IndyCar decided to keep the event on the calendar for the 2021 season. However, it would be just a single race rather than a double-header. There was an entry list of 28 drivers, the second largest field to compete outside of the Indy 500. The largest field was the abandoned Round 17, of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series at Las Vegas, with 34 cars.

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Some trivia
Driver with the most wins 2:
Will Power, 2020, 2021.

Team with the most wins 3:
Team Penske, 2020*, 2021.
*2020 was a double-header event, with Team Penske wining both races.

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IMS Grand Prix Circuit



Length:
2.439 Miles (3.925 Km)
Turns: 14

Lap record:
Will Power, May 12, 2017. 1:07.704, 129.69 mph (208.44 km/h).
Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6.
Verizon IndyCar Series.

Last Year's Race
https://www.indycar.com/news/2022/07...llaghergp-race

Pole:
Felix Rosenqvist,
Arrow McLaren SP,
Dallara IR18-Chevy IndyCar V6

Winner:
Alexander Rossi,
Andretti Autosport,
Dallara IR18-HI22TT Indy V6

Laps: 85
Distance: 207.315 Miles (333.641 km)
Race Time: 1:48:39.1825
Average Speed: 114.483 Mph (184.243 Km/h)
Fastest Lap: Simon Pagenaud-Team Penske, Lap 12. 71.4537 sec. 122.882 Mph, (197.759 Km/h)

Cautions: 2
Laps: 3 - 4, 36 - 38

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Practice and Qualifications

Practice 1
Friday, Aug 11.
8:00 AM - 10:30 AM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 1
Friday, Aug 11
12:30 PM - 12:40 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 2
Friday, Aug 11
12:55 PM - 1:05 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 2
Friday, Aug 11
1:20 PM - 1:30 PM ET

Qualifications - Firestone Fast 6
Friday, Aug 11
1:45 PM - 2:00 PM ET

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TV Broadcast:
Saturday, Aug 12
USA, Peacock: 2:00 PM ET. 6:0 PM UTC, 7:00 PM BST
Sky Sports F1. 7:00 PM BST

[mstets]

Practice results.

[joeb]

Nice to see the Rahal cars in the mix early. Lundqvist mid pack which is not bad for sure.

[broadrun96]

Completely forgot quali was on this afternoon, apparently RLL is on point or well off, there is no medium any more there

[joeb]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Completely forgot quali was on this afternoon, apparently RLL is on point or well off, there is no medium any more there

The early qualifying caught me off guard as well, and I completely missed it. Amazing to get a Rahal front row and Harvey in 8th!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying Result

Looks like things may have turned around for RLL, as they lock out the front row, with Grahan Rahal taking his first pole since June 2017, at Detroit. Jack Harvey gets into the top ten with 8th spot.

Not such a good a result for Team Penske, who have won this race twice before.

Another good for showing for Honda.

[Coach Ep]

What just happened to Newgarden? He has to sit out the remainder of the last 'warm up' practice session!

[joeb]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result

Looks like things may have turned around for RLL, as they lock out the front row, with Grahan Rahal taking his first pole since June 2017, at Detroit. Jack Harvey gets into the top ten with 8th spot.

Not such a good a result for Team Penske, who have won this race twice before.

Another good for showing for Honda.

No Penske or Ganassi cars in Fast 6 is pretty rare!

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

What just happened to Newgarden? He has to sit out the remainder of the last 'warm up' practice session!

Late to driver weigh-in apparently cost him the final 10 minutes of the session. Yeah, I didn't know that was the rule either

[joeb]

and keeping with the theme here, Final practice just happened and none of the top 6 in qualy were at the top.

https://racer.com/wp-content/uploads...results-pf.pdf

[Adam43]

https://twitter.com/guy_keesee/statu...482267648?s=61

Don’t we all.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by joeb

The early qualifying caught me off guard as well, and I completely missed it. Amazing to get a Rahal front row and Harvey in 8th!

Harvey has a six position grid penalty for an engine change.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by joeb

No Penske or Ganassi cars in Fast 6 is pretty rare!

I was thinking the same thing. Wonder when that last occurred.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result

Looks like things may have turned around for RLL, as they lock out the front row, with Grahan Rahal taking his first pole since June 2017, at Detroit. Jack Harvey gets into the top ten with 8th spot.

Not such a good a result for Team Penske, who have won this race twice before.

Another good for showing for Honda.

RLL seems only to be able to make the cars work at certain tracks. I'll believe they have turned the corner if they put a couple of cars in the top ten at Gateway. My guess is that they will be reasonably competitive at Laguna Seca with the new pavement.


I'm really happy for Graham. He gets so much online hate despite all he has done to promote the series. We wouldn't have the Iowa races and Hy-Vee's sponsorship at other tracks without him. I think that he's much like his dad in that both require(d) a car that suited them to be competitive. I remember races at Milwaukee and Phoenix with Bob when our car was mid pack, particularly the 1984 Milwaukee race when we finished behind.....Dick Simon. 7th place at Indy after a mid pack qualifying was also disappointing. We improved the car a lot before the next short oval (Sanair) where Bob was on pole and finished second. At the last 1984 oval race Bob's results were reversed with a win from 2nd on the grid. My point is that the car/setup is a majority of the equation. Graham proved today that he is still fully capable. The question is whether the team can deliver cars that are consistently up to the task.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

What just happened to Newgarden? He has to sit out the remainder of the last 'warm up' practice session!

And now 6 place penalty for engine change as well, not their weekend is it

[joeb]

Nearing green, and I totally forgot there was a NASCAR race here as well.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Blimey, De Francesco takes the lead and there is the first caution of the race.


Not too sure what caused it but Newgarden's car ended up on Armstrong's car.

[fergus_r]

Great move by De Francesco, but boy, Palou...

Will he get away with that without a penalty?

[joeb]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Blimey, De Francesco takes the lead and there is the first caution of the race.

That was very opportunistic by Devlin, and can't believe he made it stick.

That was a pack incident with so many top drivers mired back there. Josef's spotter maybe could have been a bigger help to get him to be not on top.

[joeb]

Is there a race on? Somebody should tell the race director for NBC.

[fergus_r]

Palou nearly turned De Francesco round, too.

Speaking of De Francesco, it'll be interesting to see how his alternate strategy plays out. Down to 8th at the moment.

Edit: and now he pits.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by joeb

Is there a race on? Somebody should tell the race director for NBC.

commercials about every 6 laps. And no side by side

[broadrun96]

Some reason I thought 330, then saw an NBC promo online that says 330 so they're just on point this weekend

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by joeb

commercials about every 6 laps. And no side by side

WTF was that side by side there? Running this thing on 1992 Amiga this weekend?

And rain coming? God must be an SVG fan since I think Cup qualifying is after the race

Edit-nope already run

[joeb]

Did the 45 have fuel issues on purpose? Team orders?