With all due respect to winner Simon Pagenaud, the story of the race happened much earlier than the checkered flag. Sebastian Saavedra surprised everyone by scoring a pole position, but unfortunately he never got the chance to take a lap as pole sitter. His car would not go during the standing start, and he suffered a violent impact after both Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin crashed into him. His promising day was sadly cut short. OK, so can we please finally admit that standing starts DO NOT WORK in IndyCar, at least right now? With all the hype surrounding this historic race and a chance to showcase IndyCar on national television, a start like that was a major letdown and I'll bet some viewers immediately changed the channel. I agree with Ed Carpenter, I am not a fan of them. For one, they're just not that exciting. And after witnessing Saavedra's collision, I think they're downright dangerous. Unless technological changes to these cars are made, someone is going to get killed during these standing starts. Derrick Walker apparently does not see this, as he announced this week that standing starts would continue. I wonder, can he live with himself if something tragic does happen?
I'm not sure what IndyCar is trying to do with these restarts, but I don't think they're working, either. It seems most, if not all, drivers concur. The wait-to-accelerate strategy not only causes accidents, it doesn't work well for how fast these cars are. Graham Rahal was the most vocal critic of the restarts, after he was victimized by Montoya, who was a lap down. Granted, the leader can and should set the pace, and the cars in the back should be patient. But it seems to make more sense to let IndyCars accelerate as they come off of a turn, rather than wait until they are halfway down the straightaway. I suspect they will fix these new rules before the next road race.
It was interesting to see Scott Dixon and Will Power battling once again, though this time Dixon appeared to run himself off the road more than Power. And Power did actually receive a penalty, as he should have, for running over a hose in pit lane. Can this quiet the conspiracy theorists for now?
We saw a scary moment with James Hinchcliffe, after a piece of Justin Wilson's car clocked him on his visor and knocked him out briefly. He suffered a concussion, but he has already been cleared to resume racing, which is great news. I feared the worst when we saw him holding his head while he was carted off on a stretcher. When news broke that he blacked out and drove off course, we also realized how lucky Hinch was. It could have been much worse, so let's be thankful it wasn't.
Jack Hawksworth continues to impress. He qualified on the front row, led much of the first half of the race, and now leads the Rookie of the Year standings. He has been a pleasant surprise this season.
In the end, the race did have some suspense as a fuel-mileage strategy played out. Oriol Servia came in for a splash-and-dash, though he may not have needed to. Pagenaud pitted around the same time as Servia and he was able to make it to the end. Servia's team either didn't want to take that risk, or they weren't getting as good of fuel mileage as Pagenaud. Pagenaud's win made Honda look good, as the Japanese manufacturer got their first win of the year.
It sounds like the GP of Indy will return next year, and why not? The event appeared to be a success, with 1.3 million viewers and better-than-expected attendance. All those naysayers who criticized IndyCar for hosting another race at IMS in May can eat their words. I still think it would be better to have the road course race later in the year, perhaps even as the season finale, but it was a good idea and they prepared a good track for racing. Now, on to the big one!
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