Q: Sixth race of the season, Grosjean gets knocked around a little bit, says “my hopes for a championship is over” and wants to park the car.
He needs some cheese to go with his whine. He’s never lived up to the hype and has wrecked as many cars as he’s finished races. He’s also lucky he went and ran his mouth to Larry Foyt, because A.J. would have knocked him around some more.
Has Juncos Hollinger come to the realization that they got a lemon of a driver yet?
John Hardaway, Culpeper, VA
MP: He just finished seventh for JHR at Road America, which is their best result of the season (John sent this before Sunday’s race). When things are going well, Romain is as fast as any driver in the series.
He was 17th in the championship and Canapino was 20th going into Road America. Last year, with Callum Ilott in the car, they were 14th in the standings and the rookie Canapino was 24th. Leaving Road America, Grosjean’s up to 16th.
Q: Detroit race… What a statistical challenge! The individual drivers are
my main focus, followed by the logistics of the teams. I do pay more
attention to Will Power than most drivers and Sunday it seems he passed
other cars about 75 times! Are there statistics for the number of times
individual cars make passes in a race?
Bernie
MP: Yes, IndyCar has made an effort to compile passing stats at each race for a while now.
Q: In your Detroit Cooldown Lap, you said “[Ferrucci]’s just five points back from the heralded Christian Lundgaard, which is remarkable for a team operating with a fraction of the budget and resources of RLL.” Do you think that says more about Ferrucci’s overachieving, or Rahal’s underachieving? I say the latter.
Daniel, Cincinnati, OH
MP: It’s an interesting question, Daniel. Ferrucci could be 20th or something like that, but they aren’t, so I can’t tie their impressive form to anything RLL is or isn’t doing. RLL got better after now-departed-again technical director Stefano Sordo arrived, but not to the degree they’d hoped for, and other than Lundgaard, the team is rarely up and fighting with the Penskes and Ganassis on a consistent basis. Rahal’s been more competitive at times, but if there’s a RLL car in the spotlight, it tends to be Lundgaard.
He has that cool win from Toronto last year, but none of RLL’s drivers have looked like they are a threat to reach victory lane anytime soon. Heading into Road America, Lundgaard was 11th in the championship, Rahal was 16th, and Pietro Fittipaldi was 21st.
The same thing that’s been missing for many years is missing today, which is hard to watch — great people work there — and after yet another failed attempt to start a new season in a strong manner, we have one podium (Lundgaard) and four combined top 10s from the trio. Throw in Takuma Sato’s run to 14th at Indy, and that’s one good result and three more decent ones from 22 tries. Some changes probably need to be considered if RLL wants to break free from the midfield.
Q: Once again, we have the death threats directed against our drivers. This time, a series rookie in only his fourth race.
All we are getting is silence from the Juncos Hollinger team, and from the series itself. Roger Penske, Jay Frye, and Mark Miles, get out of your chairs and do something. IndyCar has no need for this behavior, nor this type of team. We have other teams, seemingly without a toxic culture in tow, hoping and waiting to join the series.
The new charters will be valued commodities, and should only be offered to teams which will bring positive benefit and energy to the series.
Braxton
MP: Things move pretty quickly in the series; all of the JHR stuff was resolved shortly after this was sent. On charters, sure, but that’s a subjective thing. Who’s to judge that one? Change a bad driver to a good driver from one year to the next and a team that wasn’t positive for the series is now on the right side of the adjudication…so would they actively give and take charters away every year based on this criteria?
Q: I certainly don’t approve of Ferrucci’s comment, but it seems the track didn’t bring out the best in anyone. With that being said, what are the odds of the race going back to Belle Island?
John Furnis
MP: According to Penske Entertainment, they won’t be moving back to Belle Isle.
Q: There has been so much to talk about lately about a brilliant 500, a truly embarrassing Detroit, Blomqvist being benched, Santino… but I want to get your take on Juncos Hollinger and Canapino.
The appalling language and threats that come from Argentina via socials, first to Callum Illot and now Theo, are unacceptable. I acknowledge we can’t always be held responsible for every knucklehead on Twitter, but Ricardo and Canapino can’t bring themselves to condemn it, and basically tell everyone to grow a pair. They are enablers, end of. Canapino fans the hate on social media.
Ricardo’s story is inspiring, Canapino’s not far behind. But man, they have gone from being guys to root for to guys I wish would just leave the series.
Truly ugly behavior. They are a toxic pair.
John
MP: Ricardo, and now Agustin, are paying the price for failing to read the room and treat last year’s attacks on Callum Ilott as serious problems to fight with speed and vigor. Ricardo explained to me multiple times about the cultural differences in how such threats are made and received in their native Argentina, which we can’t overlook.
But he and Agustin also saw and felt how those threats were received here in the U.S., and that’s where their failure to react swiftly and harshly to push back — to demonstrate to IndyCar’s home audience that they are aligned on this — only made the latest attack worse.
Agustin is one hell of a driver, but he has a lot of growing to do outside the car. I hope he can admit to coming at this the wrong way with Pourchaire and get a second chance from the team and IndyCar fans. The rush to cancel or condemn Canapino and/or the team does nothing to help them to be better in the areas where they are lacking.