re: IndyCar 2021 Season Thread

Dramatic, but I still think he'll be faster than Enerson and De Silvestro.

Wow, I'll be happy if Simona makes the field, she's a good racer. A brand new team, partnering with Penske (usually a smart move) made for a tough situation. Paretta should have partnered with Carpenter.

Oh also, Helio got lucky that things didn't work out with Penske this year. Now he has a much better chance of winning.

It’s crazy to me how solid ECR is year in and year out in the MoM.

It's Carb Day! That's when the drivers all go to an Italian restaurant after the final practice and carbo load on pasta to fuel up for the race. It can't have anything to do with tuning up carburetors since IndyCar hasn't used carburetors since 1963 (meanwhile, NASCAR used carburetors through the 2011 seaon ).

Dixon (Ganassi) is dominating the final practice at 228 mph. Very interestingly, for a while the next four cars were the four Penske cars, which all qualified pretty poorly relative to expectations. Conor Daly (Carpenter) is up to P3. Kanaan (Ganassi) and Sato (RLL) are up there too.

Final practice is about driving in traffic and fine-tuning your race setup, so this can indicate which cars are most comfortable and fast in heavy traffic conditions.

For the race, 40% capacity is allowed, so there will be 135,000 fans at the track, easily the largest event held since the lockdowns began last year. It's considered a sell-out, so the race will be shown live locally.

Indy 500 on Sunday.

Conor Daly just called Santino Ferrucci a psychopath on the radio.

My bets:

To win:
Herta +700
RHR +2500
Castroneves +3000
Any CGR car +200
Any ECR car +900

LFG!

I think the chances of anyone winning outside the top 10 starting position is going to be tough. The Penske cars are strong but can they move up through the field? It’s going to take some creative strategy. I think anyone other than Rossi (the dude moves forward every year) not starting in the first three rows are long shots.

It's race day!

I believe the forecast is for a partly-cloudy day, and cool temps. The drivers said that the conditions should make for good racing. I think they said that the aero kit tweaks for this year is expected to allow more passing in the race. So cars that qualified poorly but have good race pace have a chance to move up.

I feel like there is a really strong field this year. Let's look at it from a few angles.

1. Scott Dixon is the prohibitive favorite this year. But he was the easy favorite last year as well and we saw how that turned out. Luck is always a significant factor in the race, and his late-race fuel-saving strategy (let Sato lead and eat more fuel) didn't work out because the race effectively ended four laps too early.

2. Of the nine former Indy 500 winners in the race, six of them start in the first five rows, and I believe all of them have a reasonble chance to win the race.

3. Other veterans who haven't won but have shown that they have to potential to win include Ed Carpenter, Graham Rahal, and Josef Newgarden. There are also some savvy veterans in the back who probably can't win unless they go off-strategy on the pit windows and get lucky with full-course yellows.

4. The big reason for me that this field seems so strong are all of the young guys who are fast, have at least one year of experience at the Indy 500, and have already won races. Colton Herta, Rinus VeeKay and Alex Palou have all won races this year and all start on the first two rows. Pato O'Ward won his first race this year and starts on Row 4. Scott McLaughlin is a rookie but has driven well this year and drives for the best Indy 500 team on the grid.

5. I believe there are only two rookies in the race, Scott McLaughlin and Pietro Fittipaldi. Romain Grosjean and Jimmie Johnson didn't enter the race, and RC Enerson did not qualify.

I expect that with this strong field, the tweaked aero kit, and the reasonable temps, that there will be more than two cars racing for the win in the last 10 laps.

I’m all in for Jimmie Johnson