re: 2023 IndyCar Season - R17 Laguna Seca 9/10 2:30 pm ET (NBC)

I don't follow the now stupidly-named "Indy NXT" series (formerly Indy Lights), but I did want to talk about HMD Motorsports. I mentioned them in last year's thread as well.

HMD Motorsports is the family racing company of up-and-coming IndyCar driver David Malukas. David's parents immigrated here from Lithuania when the Soviet Union broke apart. His father started as a truck driver and eventually built a trucking company, which is now obviously successful enough to pour money down the drain. Uhh, I mean pour money into racing.

It's an immigrant success story, but it's also the story of a family/company supporting American racing. We need more companies and stories like this. Thanks HMD!

I recommend reading their story!
Malukas’ Parents Living American, '500' Dream as Immigrants

Will be interesting to see how the not so usual leaders do up front...

here we go...

I had to watch the race on delay, just finished.

Really interesting for 2/3 of the race when it wasn't clear who had the advantage, but then it became clear Palou was going to dominate. Poor Lundgaard gets no reward for his great starting position.

And Graham's alternate strategy was intriguing for a while. But the screen showing that he still had all of his push-to-pass left highlights what a great strategic tool PTP is compared to DRS. Because an early stop forced him into a fuel-saving strategy, he couldn't waste fuel using PTP! Before his 2nd stop, I thought he was in a good position to finish pretty high up, but he ended up fading in the last part of the race, just like his teammate Lundgaard. But with Graham he was probably using an engine setting to save fuel.

Full Race Results and Season Standings

2023 Podiums so far. Five different winners in five races!

R01 St. Petersburg - P1 Marcus Ericsson, P2 Pato O'Ward, P3 Scott Dixon
R02 Texas Motor Speedway - P1 Josef Newgarden, P2 Pato O'Ward, P3 Alex Palou
R03 Long Beach - P1 Kyle Kirkwood, P2 Romain Grosjean, P3 Marcus Ericsson
R04 Barber Motorsports Park - P1 Scott McLaughlin, P2 Romain Grosjean, P3 Will Power
R05 IMS Road Course - P1 Alex Palou, P2 Pato O'Ward, P3 Alexander Rossi


2023 Season Standings (after 5 races)
(+/- number of positions gained or lost since the previous race)

P01 Alex Palou (Ganassi / Honda) 174 pts (+2)
P02 Pato O'Ward (McLaren / Chevy) 168 pts (+0)
P03 Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi / Honda) 155 pts (-2)
P04 Romain Grosjean (Andretti / Honda) 134 pts (+1)
P05 Scott McLaughlin (Penske / Chevy) 133 pts (-1)
P06 Josef Newgarden (Penske / Chevy) 131 pts (+0)
P07 Scott Dixon (Ganassi / Honda) 127 pts (+1)
P08 Will Power (Penske / Chevy) 122 pts (-1)
P09 Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) 111 pts (+3)
P10 Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti / Honda) 108 pts (-1)
P11 Alexander Rossi (McLaren / Chevy) 108 pts (+3)
P12 Colton Herta (Andretti / Honda) 107 pts (-2)
P13 Felix Rosenqvist (McLaren / Chevy) 97 pts (+2)
P14 Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger / Chevy) 92 pts (-3)
P15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) 86 pts (+1)
P16 David Malukas (Coyne / Honda) 79 pts (-3)
P17 Marcus Armstrong [R] (Ganassi / Honda) 77 pts (+0)
P18 Rinus VeeKay (Carpenter / Chevy) 64 pts (+1)
P19 Agustín Canapino [R] (Juncos Hollinger / Chevy) 56 pts (-1)
P20 Hélio Castroneves (Meyer Shank / Honda) 53 pts (+0)
P21 Jack Harvey (Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda) 53 pts (+2)
P22 Santino Ferrucci (Foyt / Chevy) 51 pts (+0)
P23 Simon Pagenaud (Meyer Shank / Honda) 50 pts (-2)
P24 Conor Daly (Carpenter / Chevy) 49 pts (+0)
P25 Devlin DeFrancesco (Andretti / Honda) 46 pts (+2)
P26 Sting Ray Robb [R] (Coyne / Honda) 42 pts (-1)
P27 Benjamin Pedersen [R] (Foyt / Chevy) 40 pts (-1)
P28 Ed Carpenter (Carpenter / Chevy) 17 pts (+0)
P29 Takuma Sato (Ganassi / Honda) 5 pts (+0)

Indy 500 Schedule

Tuesday - Practice 9:00 AM ET (Peacock)
Wednesday to Friday - Practice 12:00 PM ET (Peacock)
Friday practice will be with qualifying boost

Saturday May 20
Practice 8:30 AM ET (Peacock)
Qualifying 11:00 AM ET (Peacock)
Qualifying 2:30 PM ET (NBC)

Sunday May 21
Practice 11:30 AM ET (Peacock)

Top-12 Qualifying 2:00 PM ET (Peacock)
To set Rows 3 and 4 (P7-P12)

Pole Shootout and Bump Qualy 4:00 PM ET (NBC)
To set Rows 1 and 2 (P1-P6)
Plus the slowest four cars will compete for the last row of the grid. One car will go home!

Monday May 22
Practice 1:00 PM ET (Peacock)

Friday May 26
Carb Day Practice 11:00 AM ET (Peacock)

Sunday May 28
Pre-Race 9:00 AM ET (Peacock)
Race 11:00 AM ET (NBC)

Last weekend racing/

Adam Stern
@A_S12

@NBC got a 0.46 rating and 715,000 viewers for Saturday's IndyCar race @IMS (TV only), down from a 0.60 rating and 998,000 viewers last year.



Adam Stern
@A_S12

@FS1 got a 1.43 rating and 2.689 million viewers for Sunday's m @NASCAR race at Darlington versus a 1.45 rating and 2.614 million last year.

That's the fifth straight week of viewership increases for NASCAR and the race was No. 2 sport of the weekend behind @NBA playoff games.

34 entries.
I can remember when there were 75-80

100 Days to Indy coming on at 10pm on Vice

quote:

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34 entries.
I can remember when there were 75-80

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The issue is the engine supply. From a car-count perspective the series is very healthy with 27 full-time entries.

However, Honda and Chevy say they are maxed out on supplying enough engines for the Indy 500. IndyCar has been trying to get a third engine supplier to commit to the series for years now. A few years ago Ferrari was rumored to be considering entering a team and being an engine supplier. With McLaren joining the series, it doesn't seem so far-fetched.

With a new hybrid engine package coming next year, there was hope that a third supplier would join then, when everyone would be dealing with a new system. But nope.

The 34th team, which was announced just a few weeks ago, said securing an engine was the hardest part of getting the program together. Oh, also there's a shortage of Dallara tubs and parts. They were supposed to introduce a new car (finally) to coincide with the new hybrid power unit, but the new car was postponed. But they are reluctant to make more cars and parts than absolutely necessary, because soon they will be obsolete.

I believe there would be a few additional teams entering the 500 if there wasn't a shortage of both engines and Dallara tubs and parts.

Tuesday was a wash-out, so the teams only have Wednesday and Thursday to work on general race setup. Friday they get qualy boost so Friday is for preparing for qualifying.

Wednesday went smoothly. The only incident was Graham Rahal brushing the wall coming out of Turn 3. He said he was trying to make an adjustment, and just didn't aim the car right before looking down at his steering wheel. Only one car had significant issues. Callum Illott was unable to get up to speed for most of the day. At the recent open test, he was the slowest car, and on Wednesday he was again looking really bad. By the end of the day they were able to get the car into the ballpark, but it was still the slowest car, even slower than the just-put-together Abel Motorsports team of RC Enerson. Afterwards, the team were trying to decide whether to switch to a backup chassis for Illott.

Notable team results: As expected, Chip Ganassi dominated the speed charts, taking the top two spots, and all four cars were in the Top 7. Penske got all three cars into the Top 12. Notably far away from the top was McLaren, with their four drivers ranked P19, P20, P23, and P27.

Wednesday speeds: