Simon Says Sweep Indy

A fantastic enjoyable race with another classic finish. Simon Pagenaud outdueled Alexander Rossi to win his first Indy 500. The look on Rossi's face and sound his voice told the story of so-close, but no win disappointment. Look at the elation from Pagenaud as completes sweep of both Indianapolis races. His month of May started with a victory on Indy Grand Prix road course follows it up with winning the pole position for Indy 500 and finishes it with a dominating victory at the big race. Both, Pagenaud and Rossi, had the best cars of the race as spent most of the race 1-2. There were plenty of good drives and some low-lights throughout entire Indy 500. Here are my opinion the best drives and the low-lights of the race.

Best drives:

Simon Pagenaud - the pole sitter dominated the race once the green flag flew leading 116 out 200 laps. Out-snookered Rossi in a the cat and mouse game passing him on the outside going into turn 3 to take the lead with two laps to go and held on to win.

Alexander Rossi - ran 2nd most of the race taking the lead when Simon pitted. Had impressive charge from 6th to 3rd from laps 140-170 after bad pit stop when refueling rig failed. Use short fill strategy which got him to 2nd when pit stops cycled through. Passed Simon on 178 for the lead just before the big crash showing him he came to win just like him setting up dual to the finish with 14 to go. 

Takuma Sato - 2017 Indy 500 winner had bad first half falling a lap down. He quietly came back from out of nowhere to threaten a challenge to the leaders in the final 14 laps before finishing 3rd.

Santino Ferrucci - he continue to turn heads in his rookie season with impressive smooth race this year. He was aggressive once he out of the pits and went wheel to wheel with 2011 Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan on the warm up lane which no one done before. Showed good control when he dodged a big wreck and gunned it. He finished the race in 7th, the highest finishing rookie of the race.

Pippa Mann - why is 16th place finisher on this list? After not qualifying for the race last year, she made in the top 30 locking her in the field in a brand new team. She drove a clean race and for first time in her six races at Indy she completed all 200 laps. She even finished a position higher than five-time Indycar champion and 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon.

Low-lights:

Marco Andretti - on the 50th anniversary of his grandfather and famed Mario Andretti winning Indy and qualifying 10th you expect Marco to in contention for the win. Then the green flag dropped and so did he dropping down the order like a brick. After spending the entire race with ill handling car he finished five laps down in 26th as the final car on the track. Obviously if it wasn't for nepotism his career wouldn't lasted this long.

Jordan King Takes Out His Crew - Indy rookie Jordan King makes his second pit stop only to slid in his pit stall hitting a tire which bounced right into his right front tire changer. OUCH! 

Juncos Racing Cinderella Drive Strikes Midnight - Kyle Kaiser and Juncos Racing was feel good story last week as cash-strapped team qualified bumping famed McLaren team out of the race. The result gave the team a much needed sponsorship money from various companies. Their run ended on lap 73 when Kaiser spun coming out of turn 3 and hit turn 4 wall ending their race. It was second wreck for the team at the track as the clock struck midnight for Juncos Racing. 

Marcus Ericsson Nearly Made History After Spinning It Away - former Formula 1 and Indy rookie Marcus Ericsson was having fine run til he spun it going into the pits and bounced off the wall lightly damaging the car. Luckily team made repairs and send him out where he finished 2 laps down in 23rd thus avoid making bad history. If he crashed out he will be first driver to crash out at both Grand Prix and 500 races in a same year. 

What the Hell is Oriol Servia Doing? - during Alexander Rossi frantic charge from 6th to 3rd he encountered a lap car of Oriol Servia. In two occasions he pushed close to inside wall on the front straight prompting Raging Rossi shaking his fist at him when he finally passed him. Oriol must channeling his inner Eliseo Salazar.

McLaren Spectacular Indy Failure

Famed Formula 1 McLaren team try their hand at Indy this year and failed miserably in spectacular fashion as their driver, two-time Formula 1 champion, Fernando Alonso failed to qualify for the race. The team struggled the entire week getting up to speed going into the weekend. Alonso totaled a car during practice. Come qualifying Saturday they couldn't able get themselves locked in top 30 forcing them qualify for final three spots of the field with six cars gunning for it in one shot on Sunday. Alonso qualified in the field only to get bumped out by the last car on track, a sponsorless cash-strapped Juncos Racing team driven by 2017 Indy Lights champion Kyle Kaiser.

How could this happen to well-known world racing team pumped with full of money failed miserably? I been reading articles and listening to podcasts on the subject that came out afterwards. It was series of follies that started when McLaren announced their running of the Indy 500. 

The big difference from their run in 2017 to this year is that they had partnership with Andretti Autosports, who have years of running Indycar, in their 2017 run. McLaren decide go at it alone with upstart Carlin Racing providing support. Originally they approached Ed Carpenter Racing to partner up, but they declined. Another note Andretti uses Honda engines while Carlin uses Chevy. Why is this important? Cue back to 2015 to McLaren Formula 1 season where they are in their downward spiral stretch of a difficult season along rocky relationship with Honda. After a race in Japan, their driver Fernando Alonso called the engine a "GP2" (lower tier series) pissing off Honda. When McLaren and Honda split in Formula 1 they will work with team in the future, but not with Alonso driving. Cue to late 2018 where they announce running the only engine available to them, a Chevy, for this year's Indy 500.

There is their preparation going to Indianapolis. McLaren arrogantly thought they can drive in and waltz through the field expecting to win. They end up learning the hard way what they can do in Formula 1 does not work in Indycar. Here's a small rundown on McLaren road to Indy follies....

- order a steering wheel for the car, but did not order the required paddle shifters for it because the team said they do not need them.
- electrical issues plagued their Indy test. Instead finding the problem they removed member of the team. The electrical gremlins continued, but this time it was on week on Indy practice to qualify losing valuable track time.
- purchased a backup car from Carlin and complained about orange paintjob isn't "papaya orange." The car sat in Carlin's shop being repainted and not ready when Alonso crashed in practice. Meanwhile other teams get backup ready in few hours (see James Hinchcliffe and Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports) Alonso sat by wayside for almost two days, yet again losing much valuable track time.
- poor car setup with very low ride height as bottom of the car scraping the track at times.
- couldn't converted inches to metric system.
- couldn't set up gear ratios

Fans surprised to see McLaren bombed badly, but not for those within the garages and paddock area. They knew its was going be trainwreck a mile away. The teams who been around Indy know how they must work as cohesive unit taking steps at time with setups and input to get car running in practice and make necessary changes during the time before going to qualifying. Even the brand new DragonSpeed team did it to reach their goal of qualifying for Indy 500. Juncos Racing, despite a setback, went to work repairing the wrecked car and got in the field. McLaren team turned into comical disorganized chaos with too many chiefs running it with no direction from beginning to end. The team's road to Indy run will go down as one biggest qualifying disasters at the speedway.

I bought this at COTA during Indycar race weekend. Let's say I own a piece of "reject" merchandise.