After impressing the team on his debut last weekend in Nashville, Linus Lundqvist will remain in Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 Honda on Friday and Saturday at the 85-lap Brickyard Grand Prix as the substitute for the injured Simon Pagenaud. It will …
After impressing the team on his debut last weekend in Nashville, Linus Lundqvist will remain in Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 Honda on Friday and Saturday at the 85-lap Brickyard Grand Prix as the substitute for the injured Simon Pagenaud. It will mark the sixth straight race where Pagenaud has not been cleared to drive by IndyCar’s medical staff.
Lundqvist qualified 11th on the unforgiving street course and ran as high as third in the 80-lap contest, but he made a mistake late in the event and struck the wall. Despite the error that left the No. 60 in 25th, the young Swede energized the MSR outfit — which also saw teammate Helio Castroneves earn a solid 11th in the No. 06 Honda — and made it easy for team owners Mike Shank and Jim Meyer to keep Lundqvist in the car for his second consecutive event.
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“Linus did an awesome job for us in Nashville,” Shank told RACER. “He had the fastest lap of the race, which is really cool, and he passed more people than I could ever imagine. He did a really did a good job and showed a lot of respect for Simon, which we appreciated.”
Lundqvist was humbled by MSR’s decision to keep him in the car.
“First I want to say a massive thank you to Mike and Jim for their trust to put me back in the car again,” he said. “The Nashville weekend was great in so many ways. Obviously, a lot of impressions and a lot of new stuff for me going on that weekend and I was pretty disappointed with the way that it ended. It was my mistake and I enjoyed it up until that point. I think it also left me and the team wanting more, which I am grateful for another opportunity at Indy.
“I know it is going to be tough again, but now I have a whole race weekend under my belt. Hopefully we can string some good results together and find some good speed, but I feel like it is going to be a super weekend.”
The dream IndyCar debut continues for Linus Lundqvist who rocked qualifying on Saturday at Nashville after earning a start in the Firestone Fast 12 for the heavy-hearted Meyer Shank Racing team. Everyone from team owners Mike Shank and Jim Meyer to …
The dream IndyCar debut continues for Linus Lundqvist who rocked qualifying on Saturday at Nashville after earning a start in the Firestone Fast 12 for the heavy-hearted Meyer Shank Racing team.
Everyone from team owners Mike Shank and Jim Meyer to the crews of the Nos. 06 and 60 Honda, the MSR organization has been in a funk since the scary crash that has sidelined Simon Pagenaud since the end of June. And thanks to Lundqvist’s run that earned 11th among the field of 27 drivers on the starting grid, the team felt joy and happiness for the first time in a long time.
“It feels good to do this for Simon and for every person and every company associated with this team,” Lundqvist told RACER. “I know how much of a hard time they’ve had since the crash, and Simon was helping me coming into the weekend to get ready with some phone calls giving notes and tips–and we’ve been texting—and it’s helped really quite a lot.
“I had no idea what to expect in qualifying, so that we even made it made it through the first group there was the best possible outcome for us. I’m just over the moon at the moment.
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With the run to 11th, Lundqvist also secured the No. 60 entry’s second-best start of the season, bettered only by Pagenaud’s 8th-place performance in qualifying at Detroit. MSR teammate Helio Castroneves will open the 80-lap race in 17th.
Despite the giant learning curve to overcome, Lundqvist has been fast and composed since the start of practice, and for those who watched the Swede utterly dominate last year’s Indy Lights championship, his remarkable pace and laser-focus should not come as a surprise in his maiden IndyCar outing.
“I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a very, very long time, and in my mind, I’ve been ready for a very long time,” he said. “So to get this opportunity, I’ve had this moment play in my mind so many times that now that I’m actually here, it feels a little bit surreal. But also, this is what I’ve been expecting, so I think that helps.
“And the team has done a tremendous job to make me feel at home, both within the car but also outside of the car, and the engineers are very good at making me feel comfortable in the car and getting to grips on an IndyCar weekend. It’s been a pretty tough time for the team, so seeing them smiling means a lot.”
It has been a long time since Meyer Shank Racing ended the first day of running on a road or street course with one of its cars near the top 10. Reigning Indy Lights champion and NTT IndyCar Series rookie Linus Lundqvist solved that problem on …
It has been a long time since Meyer Shank Racing ended the first day of running on a road or street course with one of its cars near the top 10. Reigning Indy Lights champion and NTT IndyCar Series rookie Linus Lundqvist solved that problem on Friday in Nashville after he produced the team’s best opening practice results since April 28 at Barber Motorsports Park where the currently-injured Simon Pagenaud placed the No. 60 Honda in ninth on the time sheet.
Lundqvist, on his IndyCar debut, came close by finishing the 75-minute session with the No. 60 car in 11th, one spot and 0.0648s behind six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon from Chip Ganassi Racing, winner of last year’s Music City Grand Prix.
The 24-year-old product of Sweden also stepped from the car as Friday’s fastest rookie, one position ahead of Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong. Among his countrymen, Lundqvist was the quickest Swede, out-pacing Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist (18th) and Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson, winner of the inaugural Nashville race, in 25th. Teammate Helio Castroneves was 16th in the sister No. 06 Honda.
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Altogether, MSR’s decision to give Lundqvist his first shot in IndyCar while Pagenaud is on the mend appears to have been a smart one.
“Really, really happy with FP1,” Lundqvist told RACER. “I think neither me or the team knew what to expect, and we still don’t know. There’s a long way to go and I don’t think everybody maximized what they had, ourselves included, but either way, super happy. Speed was there, but obviously, there’s a lot of time within myself to find, but a big thank you to the team.”
Lundqvist got to sample Firestone’s faster alternate tires to prepare for his first IndyCar qualifying session on Saturday, but didn’t get much of a feel for their full potential which could limit his results as the grid is set.
“The car that we rolled out with was very, very quick, but we definitely were on the safer side, so I think we’re gonna dial it up a little bit for tomorrow and more time is gonna come with it myself,” he said.
“And I only got the one lap on the alternates, for example, which was my first pushing lap. I think there’s a lot of time to gain there just to get more experience and know more of what to expect. Nonetheless, it was a very good first day.”
Reigning Indy Lights champion Linus Lundqvist will make his long-awaited NTT IndyCar Series debut this weekend at the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville aboard the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda. The young Swede is the newest substitute for Simon …
Reigning Indy Lights champion Linus Lundqvist will make his long-awaited NTT IndyCar Series debut this weekend at the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville aboard the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda.
The young Swede is the newest substitute for Simon Pagenaud, whose crash nearly a month ago at Mid-Ohio has left the Frenchman with concussion-related symptoms that continue to linger and prevent the resumption of his season. To date, MSR has used Conor Daly and its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title winner Tom Blomqvist to keep the No. 60 Honda in motion.
With Blomqvist committed to race the No. 60 MSR Acura ARX-06 IMSA GTP car this weekend at Road America, and the team’s desire to sample new talent as it evaluates its 2024 lineup, Lundqvist was at the top of Shank’s list to stand in for Pagenaud if his recuperation time extended through Nashville.
He’ll have big shoes to fill and plenty of peril to avoid on the Tennessean street circuit that’s produced high attrition in its first two runnings. Last year, Pagenaud was one of the lucky few who started in the midfield and survived, motoring from 13th to ninth at the finish.
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“This is a moment I’ve been dreaming of literally since the start of my career. I could not be more excited about the prospect of finally making my NTT IndyCar Series debut; I am extremely grateful to Meyer Shank Racing for this opportunity,” Lundqvist said. “This will be an incredible experience, but also the toughest challenge of my life. Sitting on the sidelines all year, it would be a massive task to join any championship towards the end of the season – let alone the NTT IndyCar Series on the streets of Nashville.”
Lundqvist was previously scheduled to make his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut in the LMP3 class, but with the chance to start his IndyCar career, the 24-year-old was given a release to reroute himself from Road America to Nashville where he’ll have four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves to guide the way.
“There’s been very little time to prepare, but I feel like the sheer excitement of this moment will make up for some of that,” he said. “Of course, working alongside Helio – one of the true legends of this sport – will also be a huge asset. Last but not least, I would like to wish Simon Pagenaud a continued speedy recovery. While fully aware of everything I have to learn this weekend, I will do my very best to make him and everyone else on the team proud in Music City.”
Most rookies would be thrilled to start 20th out of 27 cars for their first NTT IndyCar Series race, especially on three days’ notice, on a track they hadn’t driven before Friday, and while it was raining. But not Tom Blomqvist. The reigning IMSA …
Most rookies would be thrilled to start 20th out of 27 cars for their first NTT IndyCar Series race, especially on three days’ notice, on a track they hadn’t driven before Friday, and while it was raining. But not Tom Blomqvist.
The reigning IMSA DPi champion, who also starts third among the five rookies in the field, was visibly disappointed after earning 20th for Meyer Shank Racing, which speaks to the Briton’s high expectations for himself in even the most daunting circumstances.
Frustrated by his inability to transfer into the Firestone Fast 12 as his group searched for traction on the wet, gripless street circuit, Blomqvist wanted more from the session and struggled to find satisfaction after stepping from the No. 60 Honda normally occupied by Simon Pagenaud.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get a dry session, in a way, because I think we were making a step in the right direction,” Blomqvist said. “That was obviously another challenge with the wet. I didn’t know what to expect. I just need some more laps, which is the story of the weekend. But we kept it on the black stuff.”
Although he wasn’t impressed with his qualifying result, Blomqvist eventually managed to smile and did concede that things are looking up after his first two days as an IndyCar driver.
“Nonetheless, it’s the first weekend,” he said. “And every little bit, it’s been getting better and better, slowly.”
Team co-owner Mike Shank had nothing but compliments for his full-time IMSA star.
“I put him in the car as a test. I wanted to see how he adapted to something that was totally different,” he said. “I know he can be hard on himself — all drivers want to be up front — but we are happy with where he is at. He is progressing just like we wanted him to and making all the right strides to keep improving. We’ve definitely thrown a lot at him and it’s been like drinking from a fire hose for him, but he’s doing great, and just where we thought he would be.”
Conor Daly isn’t slotted in to drive the No. 60 Honda this weekend, but the Meyer Shank Racing team values his experience and input and has asked the NTT IndyCar Series free agent to plug back into the program at Toronto as a resource for rookie …
Conor Daly isn’t slotted in to drive the No. 60 Honda this weekend, but the Meyer Shank Racing team values his experience and input and has asked the NTT IndyCar Series free agent to plug back into the program at Toronto as a resource for rookie driver Tom Blomqvist.
Daly was deputized to step into the No. 60 for the injured Simon Pagenaud earlier this month at Mid-Ohio and earned rave reviews from the team, and with an opportunity to give MSR’s IMSA champion a look in the car after Pagenaud was ruled out for Toronto by IndyCar’s medical staff, Blomqvist was given the green light to make his series debut and will have Daly on his timing stand and in engineering meetings to support the multi-talented star.
“It’s just been great being involved with the team and Mike Shank’s been super honest with me about this, because obviously it’s a changing situation,” Daly, a veteran of 105 IndyCar races, told RACER. “This is Simon’s car and we’re just here to help the team until he jumps back into his car. But until he does, the team needs to keep racing and so whatever the week-by-week assignments are to help until Simon’s driving again is what we’re here to do.
“I completely understand why Tom’s in the car because he’s got plenty of trophies, and I’ve known Tom for a long time since our GP3 days, so I’ve already been texting with Tom this week trying to help with stuff to prepare for Toronto and it’s just a good relationship. And the MSR guys are super friendly to me.”
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An unrewarding stint with Ed Carpenter Racing came to an end for Daly in June, and with a wide-open future in front of him, the Indiana native is doing exactly what he should be doing by being present at IndyCar events and making his skills and availability known to every team in the paddock. So far, MSR has been the first to make use of his services, and with a recent pole position at Iowa Speedway to his credit, Daly would be a natural fit for the No. 60 car next weekend if Pagenaud is unable to make his return at the doubleheader.
“It’s been a win-win situation,” he added. “It’s great just to be able to offer whatever I can from experience that I’ve got — because, oddly enough, I do have a lot of experience and with a lot of different teams. I do want to get back to racing here as quickly as I can because I still have so much to prove. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future, but if you’re ready for one opportunity, as Eminem would say, you’ve got to be able to take advantage of that.
“MSR has a very large footprint in sports cars and IndyCar, and I’ve never lost that drive to be successful. So it’s good to be affiliated. I’m going to be helping however they ask. I’m gonna be here, ready — who knows what that might lead to down the road, but I’m gonna be ready to go racing anytime, anyplace.”
RACER’s three-part analysis at the halfway point of the IndyCar season concludes with three teams who are facing big and very different tasks to close the season. MEYER SHANK RACING Helio Castroneves, No. 06 Honda, 20th in drivers’ standings (-273 …
RACER’s three-part analysis at the halfway point of the IndyCar season concludes with three teams who are facing big and very different tasks to close the season.
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MEYER SHANK RACING
Helio Castroneves, No. 06 Honda, 20th in drivers’ standings (-273 points to Palou)
Simon Pagenaud, No. 60 Honda, 25th in drivers’ standings (-289 points)
Lots of questions, not many answers thus far for Pagenaud (left) and Castroneves at Meyer Shank Racing. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Just when it looked like Meyer Shank Racing’s couldn’t get any worse, Simon Pagenaud suffered a brake failure and barrel-rolled his car at Mid-Ohio, sustaining concussion-like symptoms that have kept him on the sidelines since. Amid his worst IndyCar season to date, the Frenchman experienced the harshest crash of his career. The Jim Meyer- and Mike Shank-owned team continues to soldier through a season that cannot end soon enough.
Add in the ever-present spins and incidents with Helio Castroneves in the sister car, and more than any other IndyCar team, MSR is in dire need of a fresh start.
As a single-car team with Jack Harvey at the controls in 2021, MSR performed like a true extension of Andretti Autosport as the No. 60 Honda paid six visits to the Firestone Fast 12. Two years later, the biggest mystery in the series is how MSR, with Andretti Technologies providing dampers, chassis setups, and race engineers, is on an entirely different island than its partners.
With 18 combined opportunities for its cars to start inside the top 12, it’s happened just once, with Pagenaud (Detroit). Andretti sophomore Devlin DeFrancesco’s done it twice, for the sake of comparison. Castroneves’s best qualifying performance has been a 15th (St. Pete), and seven of his nine starts have been 19th or worse.
Before we target MSR’s drivers as the place where the qualifying problem starts and ends, consider how the two veterans have taken a nearly identical downward plunge in 2022-to-2023 average starting positions. Pagenaud owns the greatest retreat in the series (+6.03 positions, from 12.22 to 18.25), and it isn’t much prettier for Castroneves (+5.89, from 14.89 to 20.78). The year-to-year separation from Andretti is particularly alarming.
Consider that Andretti’s best average qualifier of 2022 was Colton Herta (9.22) and that Pagenaud wasn’t too far behind last year (12.22, +3.0 positions). In 2023, Kyle Kirkwood is Andretti’s best average starter (8.89) and MSR’s best is still Pagenaud (18.25, +9.36), but he’s well back on average from where he was a year ago (+6.36). Together, MSR’s drivers are suddenly six spots down on the grid from last year, and when you’re rolling off in 20th or so in most events, you’re in trouble.
Through Mid-Ohio last year, Pagenaud’s average finish was strong (10.44), but as expected, he’s had the biggest negative change among all drivers this season through Mid-Ohio (+8.69, down to 19.13, and only counting the eight races he’s contested). In 2022’s first nine races, he started 12th or so and improved to 10th or so by the checkered flag. In 2023, Pagenaud has started around 18th and finished around 19th, which is sobering.
The slide for Castroneves hasn’t been as bad across the same metric (+2.67, from 15.89 in 2022 to 18.56), but the net result has been where both drivers are frequently crossing the finish line out of sight of the TV cameras and buried among rookies and smaller teams who should be behind MSR.
Short-term fixes are squarely placed on Saturdays, where the eternity between MSR and the Andretti mothership — which has taken five poles — demands everyone’s full attention. Pull the Nos. 06 and 60 up a few spots in qualifying, and the corresponding finishes should mirror that progress.
It’s also worth noting that with such a large year-to-year discrepancy to resolve, the problem MSR is experiencing is significant, and if the fixes were readily apparent, they would have been applied.
Unlike a Scott Dixon who needs to find two or three grid positions to improve his chances of winning, MSR is trying to recover the four or five rows it’s lost, and just as Ed Carpenter Racing is busy hunting for the ground it’s given up in 2023, MSR is mired in the same frustrating and humbling quest. The two organizations share the same reality in that both are loaded with really good people.
Qualifying shortcomings have made for a steep uphill climb for Pagenaud (pictured) and Castroneves. Motorsport Images
But something’s broken in a methodology or something’s getting lost in translation that wasn’t before, and with no immediate answers for how to fix things, MSR’s riding the struggle bus and doesn’t know how to get off the thing. Nonetheless, changes and additions are a must if they are going to break free from the bottom half of the field.
In that regard, Pagenaud was 15th and Castroneves was 18th in last year’s championship, which left everyone — drivers included — feeling dissatisfied. The feeling has only intensified. Castroneves is currently 20th and has hovered there or as low as 23rd for all but one race to date. Prior to missing Mid-Ohio, Pagenaud was 24th, has been as high as 21st, and as low as 26th. He’s 25th and could lose at least one more position after being ruled out of racing at Toronto.
The other unfortunate part for Pagenaud is that the race prior to Mid-Ohio at Road America presented him with a ton of encouragement for where the No. 60 car was headed. It was the first race of the year where things felt great, and the team was expecting it to continue at Mid-Ohio. The brake failure and crash during the opening practice session ruined that trajectory.
After two consecutive seasons of underwhelming results, the winds of change will be present when we reconvene in 2024. Pagenaud’s Toronto sub, MSR IMSA star Tom Blomqvist, is tipped to take over the No. 06, and if Pagenaud can return soon and put up some strong finishes, he’ll be in a better position to get a new contract to stay in the No. 60.
With Andretti as its point of reference, the rest of the season will be little more than a race-by-race measurement of whether MSR is inching forward, holding station, or falling farther behind.
RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING
Graham Rahal, No. 15 Honda, 14th in drivers’ standings (-232 points to Palou)
Jack Harvey, No. 30 Honda, 23rd in drivers’ standings (-282 points)
Christian Lundgaard, No. 45, 10th in drivers’ standings (-183 points)
Lundgaard (right) has been Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s most consistent performer but Graham Rahal is starting to share in the rising form. Phil Abbott/Motorsport Images
The saga of RLL’s year is well known. Huge efforts were made during the offseason to ensure an unrewarding 2022 wasn’t repeated, and yet the team went backwards in almost every way. Only Christian Lundgaard, an encouraging 10th in the standings, has been largely bulletproof in that capacity as he’s earned RLL’s only pole and only visits to the top five in 2023. If an RLL driver is having a decent weekend, it’s usually the 21-year-old Dane.
Lundgaard also ranks as the biggest mover in year-to-year average qualifying improvements, motoring forward on the starting grid more than any other driver who stayed with their team (+4.00 positions, from 17.67 to 13.67). In road course qualifying, he’s been a monster (+8.00, with an average starting spot of 4.75), and he also leads the team in street course qualifying (+2.34).
Lundgaard showed his overall prowess as a rookie, and of the tasks to complete as a sophomore, improving on ovals was his main job. Ovals are also the tracks where RLL has struggled the most, and as expected, Lundgaard was unable to make meaningful progress at Texas or Indy. If the team has something to offer at Iowa and WWTR, it would do wonders and help him develop the finer oval racecraft he’ll need to make another leap in the standings.
Mid-Ohio offered a rare glimpse of Graham Rahal outperforming Lundgaard on a road course in qualifying and the race, but an issue in the pits ended that rosy run. In what surely feels like a year from hell, it’s interesting to note that Rahal exited Mid-Ohio last year 15th in the championship and he’s 14th at the moment.
If the very recent rays of competitive sunshine continue to break through, Rahal is capable of mounting another second-half charge. In 2022, he went from 15th at Mid-Ohio and turned that into 12th to close the year, so it wouldn’t take much for him to join Lundgaard in the top 10 if the mid-season turnaround stays on track.
Although street courses remain a concern for RLL, Rahal’s road course qualifying has been strong (+4.50 positions on average), which bodes well for the second Indy GP, Portland, and Laguna Seca.
Jack Harvey needed to open his second season with RLL by making everyone forget his dismal debut in 2022, and sadly, the situation has worsened. He showed plenty of grit during RLL’s depressing month of May, leading the team home in 18th, but he’s tied with IndyCar rookie Agustin Canapino for 23rd in the championship, three spots behind where he was at the same point last year where he missed scoring points at Texas.
A change of race engineer and strategist at Road America was made in the hope of moving the No. 30 car forward, and while the entry itself is getting stronger, the team is unlikely to be continuing with Harvey in 2024.
A few teams have expressed some interest in the talented Briton, and from Toronto onwards, the final eight races for Harvey are all about creating new opportunities elsewhere in the series.
Independent of its three drivers, RLL’s clear priority for the remainder of the season is to produce the kind of results that will attract high-profile drivers and more high-caliber engineers to help achieve its goals in 2024.
Anxious times await, as five of the eight races left are on RLL’s weakest tracks. Toronto, the Iowa doubleheader, Nashville, and WWTR are the real turnaround tests that will reveal how far the team has or hasn’t come since it recently hit the reset button.
TEAM PENSKE
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Chevy, third in drivers’ standings (-116 points to Palou)
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Chevy, sixth in drivers’ standings (-148 points)
Will Power, No. 12 Chevy, seventh in drivers’ standings (-151 points)
It hasn’t been the party mode of 2022, but Team Penske’s Newgarden, McLaughlin and Power have all had a share of the spotlight. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images
The biggest pre-season objective for Team Penske was to successfully address its performance issues at the Indy 500. Josef Newgarden’s big win in May spoke volumes about how far the team has come at the Speedway, but did the grand engineering effort to win at Indy tip its competitive balance too far in the 500’s direction?
Following its year-long dominance during which its drivers finished first, second and fourth in the championship and amassed nine wins and 21 podiums, Penske’s title defense has been somewhat disappointing when measured against 2022 where it had won six of the nine races and claimed 10 podiums through Mid-Ohio.
Using that benchmark of six and 10, Penske has three wins and seven podiums this year, which would be remarkable for most teams, but on the heels of its championship ownership last season, its glaring year-to-year gap to Chip Ganassi Racing can’t be ignored. Newgarden has been the perfect example of the situation where he’s either spraying champagne or in need of commiseration.
Two wins and a second at Road America are the highs, but it’s the five races with unrewarding runs between ninth and 17th have him 116 points out of the lead. Last year, Newgarden was 34 behind the championship leader entering Toronto.
The same is true of Scott McLaughlin, the breakout star of 2022, who departed Mid-Ohio with a deficit of 69 points to the championship leader. He’s seen the margin more than double to 148 in 2023. The Kiwi has one win so far, and like Newgarden, that tally could be higher, but the year just hasn’t been as kind as the last. The consistency that propelled the team to great heights last year has, through Mid-Ohio, been a challenge to find and maintain.
With that being said, the team can capture a few more wins and go on a streak to close the season, but it will require a complementary collapse from Chip Ganassi Racing for Newgarden or McLaughlin to have a shot at the title. Just as MSR is trying to figure out how it’s lost touch with Andretti, Penske’s asking itself how it fell so far behind Ganassi in just nine races.
Without his customary qualifying flair, Power has been looking up the grid to his Chip Ganassi Racing rivals more often than not this season. Motorsport Images
Qualifying has been the root cause for most of Penske’s newfound difficulties on race day. It took nine poles last year, with each driver having at least one through Mid-Ohio, but now, it’s zero across the board for Penske in this category after nine races.
And it’s not the lack of poles that’s most problematic. It’s the step back in starting positions for Newgarden (-3.11 positions, from a 2022 average of 6.56 down to 9.67) and McLaughlin (-2.11 to 10.22). The longer average distance to get to the front has made for tougher days for Penske’s two leading contenders, and yet, Newgarden has charged forward undaunted and improved his average finishing position (by 0.89) over this point in 2022 and so has McLaughlin (by 2.22), which shows the progress they’re capable of making.
After capturing the second IndyCar title of his storied career last season, reigning series champion Will Power is having a comparatively anonymous season. He was second in points leaving Mid-Ohio in 2022, just 20 back from Marcus Ericsson, with a pole, a win, four podiums, and seven out of nine finishes inside the top four. Leaving Mid-Ohio in 2023, he has three podiums, and no wins or poles.
Power kept the bad results to a minimum last year and had just four finishes outside the top 10 in 17 races. He’s already had four outside the top 10 this season.
Unlike last year where Power’s front-running consistency was impossible to deal with, his title defense has been more like 2021 when he ended up ninth in the championship. In qualifying, his average starting spot is only down slightly (+0.66), making the fall in average finishing position (+3.22) the one that stands out and fits what we’ve witnessed to date. Barring a miracle, Power’s hopes of earning back-to-back titles will go unrealized.
If it weren’t for Ganassi, Team Penske would be having another standout season, but if it ends the season as the Indy 500 winners and nothing more, it’s not the worst thing in the world…
And while there’s no way Alex Palou will have a misfortune-free run through Monterey, would a few bad races for the Spaniard be enough to bring Newgarden and McLaughlin back into the title frame? Place your bets now, because change is the only constant in IndyCar.
Two full-course cautions in the final hour allowed Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to go 76 minutes and 52 laps from the team’s final pit stop to claim victory for he and Tom Blomqvist in the Chevrolet Grand Prix at …
Two full-course cautions in the final hour allowed Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to go 76 minutes and 52 laps from the team’s final pit stop to claim victory for he and Tom Blomqvist in the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. It was the team’s second official win of the season, and the team became the first to repeat victory in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after their victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, for which they were subsequently docked points for manipulating tire data.
“I managed to hand the car over in the lead early on to Colin, but then it kind of went against us a bit,” said Blomqvist. “We lost (position) in the stop – which we didn’t really foresee, so we need to look at that, understand what went went on – which made our life a little bit more difficult.
“We kind of just rolled the dice and said, ‘There’s no point finishing third, we’re not really in the championship. Let’s roll the dice, hope for some yellows.’And that was really the only chance. We were going for the win. And that last yellow really saved us because it just enabled us to basically go almost flat out to the end. So yeah, awesome job by Colin,” he continued.
Blomqvist had already proven the team’s pace by putting the car on pole and leading the first stint as both Acuras pulled away from the rest of the field, Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura pursuing him. But that pace was nearly negated by strategy and a lucky break for the No. 10. Just before the race’s second full-course-caution with 55m left, Filipe Albuquerque brought the No. 10 in for what would be its final stop; if there were no more yellows, most of the rest of the field would have to stop and the WTR crew would be sitting pretty.
“It was a roller coaster in terms of strategy going on,” Albuquerque stated. “So we were lucky, initially, to go to the pits and then right after a yellow came. I didn’t know if this was good or not for us. If everyone pitted, then we were kind of virtually P1. Then the No. 60 car just took a massive risk, which paid out to go to the end. My initial feeling I got from the team was they are on fumes, like they don’t have enough fuel and old tires, so they might struggle. So I just took it easy; I think it was super important to finish somewhere on top.”
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When Robby Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 ran into the back of Aaron Telitz in the No, 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 in Moss Corner and ended up off track with broken suspension, Braun had the opportunity to get into the pits before the third full-course caution came out and the pits closed. However, he drove on past, and the ensuing long yellow allowed the No. 60 to go to the end. A hard crash for the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Renger van der Zande going into the tires at Turn 8 after contact with Augusto Farfus in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M Hybrid V8, with five minutes left sealed the victory.
“I still had a bit bit of fuel save to do, but I pushed pretty hard for the first couple laps (after the final restart),” Braun explained. “I knew if I could get a bit of breathing room then I could hit some of these fuel numbers a bit easier and not have to worry so much about about the 10 coming back in some of the brakes zones where you’re lifting early to save. So once once I got a bit of a gap, I kind of settled in and started hitting that fuel number really well. I was surprised the kind of the number we could hit and the pace we could still go.”
Albuquerque and Taylor ended up second for an Acura one-two. The No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly gambled with a different strategy early, coming in after less than 20 minutes to top off the energy, and the team came away with a third-place finish, BMW M Team RLL’s 100th podium, to create a virtual tie at the top of the points with Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims. Derani and Sims’ No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac finished seventh after an extra trip through the pits when they didn’t make it into pit lane before it was closed for a full-course caution.
Sims and Derani still lead the points with 1872. De Phillippi and Yelloly are only 10 behind, and Albuquerque and Taylor were propelled back into the championship fight, sitting at third with 1843, 34 points ahead of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy.
The surprise of the race in GTP was Mike Rockenfeller and Tijmen van der Helm finishing fourth in the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, the highest placing Porsche. The No. 5 made its first stop earlier than most of the other GTP cars, and hit its third stop with perfect timing, just before the race’s third full-course caution.
Jake Galstad/Lumen
LMP3 turned into a battle between a driver with immense local knowledge and the team that has now won every LMP3 points race this season. Felipe Fraga, after taking over the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier from polesitter Gar Robinson, was leading on the penultimate restart. But Ontario native Garret Grist in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier he shared with Ari Balogh was coming hard. Grist took the lead from Fraga shortly after the restart.
However, Grist lost any advantage he had with some unlucky breaks in traffic, and with less than 10 minutes to go, Fraga attacked, going inside Grist in the final turn. Running side-by-side through the turn, Grist had no room at the exit and went off course, Fraga sailing by while Grist recovered. The incident was reviewed by officials, but no action was taken.
“It was a crazy race,” said Fraga. “Today they were a little bit faster than us, especially in the straights. At Watkins as well, we were fighting crazy hard. In the GT traffic, I basically caught (Grist), two or three seconds in two laps. I think he didn’t expect me to try in the last corner, and I did it. I tried to put him inside, he turned on me, and we had contact. I think that’s what happens when you race really hard. I’m really happy; I expected to finish second today because of our pace, but I’m happy it worked out.”
Grist disagreed with Fraga’s assessment of the situation. “It’s pretty clear what happened. At Watkins Glen I raced clean, here I raced clean. I guess we know how we can race now.”
Fraga and Robinson ended up with the victory, Grist and Balogh were second, and Wayne Boyd and Anthony Mantella were third in the No. 17 AWA Racing Duqueine. Fraga and Robinson have 1115 points, with Boyd and Mantella in second with 934. Grist is alone in third at 928 after Balogh missed the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.
Qualifying for the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park turned into a repeat of the second practice, with Meyer Shank Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing fighting for the top spot and making Acura the star of the show. This time, …
Qualifying for the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park turned into a repeat of the second practice, with Meyer Shank Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing fighting for the top spot and making Acura the star of the show. This time, however, it was Tom Blomqvist putting the No. 60 MSR ARX-06 on pole with a 1m5.653s lap, 0.081s ahead of Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 WTR ARX-06 as Acura locked out the front row. For Blomqvist, it was a repeat pole after setting a blistering record lap in qualifying for last year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.
“It’s always a hell of a commitment around here, regardless of what car you’re in,” Blomqvist stated. “When you put new tires and then take the fuel out, around here, your minimum speeds pick up drastically. This year the GTP car carries about 100 kilos of fuel, so it’s just night and day difference. When you take it for a qualy run, it’s such a good feeling. Last year was a lot more of a wild ride. We’ve got a good car this year, it’s a bit more forgiving; nonetheless, I wasn’t actually happy with my personal performance in that session, just a little bit messy from from my side. I wasn’t super happy with where I was on track. But I can’t complain, I’m still sitting here. It’s just testament to the job the team’s done in preparing the car.”
The second row will be the two Cadillac Racing V-Series.Rs, Pipo Derani qualifying third in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac at 1m5.829s. Sebastien Bourdais, after spending the first part of the session scrubbing the three set of tires allotted for qualifying and race, will start on the outside of the second row in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac.
“I think we did a good job from free practice two to qualifying,” said Derani, who with Alexander Sims is leading the GTP points and looking for their second win of the season. “The car was really good yesterday and we tried a couple of things that didn’t go as planned for practice two. We were able to turn the tables around again and come back to qualifying with a strong car. To be that close to the Acuras after what they displayed in practice two, I think it shows that we are on the right path. So, thanks to the team for providing me a good car. Starting on the second row is good, especially on a track that is difficult to pass.”
Gar Robinson posted a dominant qualifying time in LMP3, his 1m12.946s lap in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier more than 0.4s ahead of Orey Fidani in the No. 13 AWA Duqueine. Ari Balogh marked his return to the cockpit, having sat out the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen after a qualifying crash, by putting the the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier third.
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Jack Hawksworth claimed the GTD Pro and overall GT pole in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, his second of the season after taking the top spot at Long Beach, where he and Ben Barnicoat went on to take victory. Hawksworth posted a new track record – beating his own GTD record from 2018 by half a second and Mathieu Jaminet’s GTD PRO mark from last year – with a 1m15.029s lap to beat Jules Gounon in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG by 0.074s.
“It’s been, obviously, a perfect start to the weekend so far,” said Hawksworth, who hasn’t raced at CTMP since 2018, having missed last year’s race due to a back injury. “The car’s always been strong here. If we have a track on the calendar that we have circled that we feel like we’ll be good at, this is that track. The minute we rolled off the car felt good, and we executed a good clean weekend so far.”
GTD PRO teams occupied the first three spots, as Alex Riberas put the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin vantage GT3 on the inside of the second row with a 1m15.341s lap. The rest of the GTD PRO cars will line up right behind Riberas — Jordan Taylor in the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R qualifying fifth overall and Mosport rookie Klaus Bachler in the hometown favorite Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R qualifying seventh.
It will be an all Heart of Racing second row for the GT start, as Canadian driver Roman De Angelis took the GTD pole, the second in his career, on home soil with a 1m15.478s lap. That lap will stand as a new GTD track record as De Angelis looks to repeat the victory Heart of Racing scored at CTMP last year when the team won both GTD and GTD PRO.
“I’ve definitely had a had a lot of weekends here over my racing career. My first time ever in a car was at the driver development track and also tons of racing here in Formula Ford and Carrera Cup,” De Angelis recounted. “Tons of track time here, so hopefully I would perform decently. It’s been difficult for the last few years to put qualifying together for myself, that’s definitely been my weak point. I tend to overdrive, so really focusing on the last few rounds trying to talk with my co drivers and stuff and figure out what I what I needed to change and it’s been good so far this year. So happy to to get a pole in general and obviously to do it at home was great, with my family and friends at a circuit that I really enjoy being at.”
De Angelis will have a small buffer to the second-place GTD qualifier at the start, as Frankie Montecalvo (1m15.058) will be starting the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus directly behind him – Jordan Taylor qualified between them – and Madison Snow will line up behind on the outside of the fourth row, having qualified the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 third in GTD with a 1m15.595s lap. Mikael Grenier (No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG) and Patrick Gallagher (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) completed the top five in GTD qualifying.
Up next: A 20 minute warmup session takes place at 8:15 a.m. ET Sunday, ahead of a 12:05 p.m. race start.
Colin Braun pulled out a late flyer to take the top spot in the first practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Braun posted a time of 1m07.341s in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 …
Colin Braun pulled out a late flyer to take the top spot in the first practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Braun posted a time of 1m07.341s in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to take over the top spot that had been held by Pipo Derani in the No 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.
Braun’s time was 0.78s quicker than Derani’s best of 1m08.121s. The rest of the GTP field was in the 1m08s range as Acura and Cadillac alternated in the first four positions, Filipe Albuquerque third in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ahead of Renger van der Zande in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac. Philipp Eng completed the top five in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.
Garett Grist posted the top time in LMP3 at his home track, a 1m12.270s lap in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier, followed by Felipe Fraga in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier, 0.212s off Grist’s best. Matt Bell was third for AWA in the No. 13 Duqueine.
Frankie Montecalvo, who nabbed the GTD pole at CTMP last year, was quickest in the class in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 at 1m16.558s, 0.112s quicker than Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S. Those two headed the GT field overall, with Antonio Garcia third among the GTs and first in GTD PRO in the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R. Ben Barnicoat was right behind Garcia, only 0.02s off the Corvette’s time in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.
Alex Riberas was third in GTD PRO in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Robby Foley (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) and Loris Spinelli (No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo22) split Barnicoat and RIberas to round out the top four in GTD.
The session was interrupted by two red flags. The first was for the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG stopped on course in Turn 8. The second was for George Staikos in the No. 4 Ave Motorsports LMP3 stopped on course at Turn 5.
UP NEXT: Practice 2, a 1h45m split session beginning at 8am ET.
