Where to begin after that intense, unpredictable, wild weekend in Houston? The races themselves were enjoyable enough, but there were so many other sub-plots you'd think we were watching The Young and the Restless. I have boiled it down to three main storylines from the Shell/Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston: rookies, Marco, and #IndyRivals.
Rookie Performances
Saturday's rain-soaked timed event featured an all-Colombian podium on a day when the country also won its World Cup match against Uruguay. On that podium were two rookies, including first-time winner Carlos Huertas. Dale Coyne proved he has mastered the art of the timed race, as a good strategy and the ability to stay out of trouble handed Huertas the win. To say it was a surprise victory would be the understatement of the year. Huertas has had only two top tens this year, with his previous best finish an eighth-place result at Detroit race 1. I would not have picked him to be the first rookie to win this year, but that's one reason why IndyCar is so exciting right now. You just have no idea who's going to win one weekend to the next. I noticed a lot of people criticized Huertas for not showing more emotion after winning. Having also noticed this trait in Carlos Munoz, who finished third in race 1, I wonder if it's a cultural thing. Or perhaps just a Carlos thing.:)
Unfortunately Huertas was the first car to retire in race 2, but the rookies weren't done for the weekend yet. Mikhail Aleshin scored his first podium, as did Jack Hawksworth, who finally, finally got some good luck. These results were, to me, less surprising than Huertas's victory. It was only a matter of time until we saw one or both of them on the podium. Aleshin was guilty of some overly aggressive driving on Saturday (though he was not alone in that characteristic this weekend, that's for sure) but he bounced back Sunday. Hawksworth's battles with Juan Pablo Montoya were some of the best racing we've seen in a long time, despite Montoya's complaints about it. Welcome back to IndyCar, JPM. These rookies aren't going to move over for anyone. They're here to play, and they showed their chops this weekend. The rookie of the year fight is going to be as exciting as the one for the championship!
Marco
The big talking point of the weekend was Marco Andretti's failure to obey a blue flag command, and subsequent $2500 fine and probation. There seems to be a great divide among fans (and drivers) on whether or not Marco should have even received the blue flag. He was the last car on the lead lap but not of his own doing. He had pace and was understandably fighting to avoid getting lapped. I see nothing wrong with that. Some, such as AJ Foyt, called it gamesmanship, as Marco held up Takuma Sato to allow his teammate James Hinchcliffe to close the gap. Perhaps that's true, but I don't think Marco was feeling too friendly toward his teammates at that point after Munoz punted him. And if Sato was faster, he could have passed Marco easily.
That being said, Marco did opt to ignore the commands from race control to move over and was justifiably black-flagged for it. I applaud people for standing up for their principles and fighting for what's right, but a better solution might have been to file a protest right then and there rather than disobey authority. After reading Derrick Walker's comments after the race, too, it seems Andretti Autosport would have had a case because he implied they had made up a new rule. All this has done is make Marco look like the bad guy, when really he wasn't. And a three-race probation, really? Are you really going to enforce that as Marco heads to his home track of Pocono? Would you deny the fans a chance to cheer for their favorite driver?Obviously race control considered these questions because Marco had some questionable moves in Sunday's race that could have warranted parking him for a race. All in all, a precedent has now been set. My take is that Marco shouldn't have been blue-flagged, but he also shouldn't have ignored official orders.
#IndyRivals
Was there anyone who came away from Houston liking each other? Graham Rahal and Tony Kanaan probably have the biggest reason to dislike each other, as Rahal's blatant running into TK cost both of them a shot at a victory or at least a podium. My initial reaction was to get pissed off, for two reasons. One, Rahal took out my favorite driver. Whatever, I can get over that because I like a lot of drivers in the field. But more significantly, Rahal's ineptness cost the fans a shot at an exciting finish. Instead the race ended under caution, which was a huge let-down after great racing the last few laps. Everyone was on the edge of their seat on that restart. Who knows what might have been.
After watching the replay, though, I'm not sure the fault lies entirely with Graham, though I'd say he shares the vast majority of the responsibility. TK did not seem to be speeding up for the restart, and Graham may have been anticipating that. But new restart rules this year probably complicated things even more. And it didn't look good for Graham. He looked, quite frankly, like a bad driver, and all the recent criticism against him seemed justified. TK showed remarkable composure during Graham's apology and the post-race interview. I grew to respect and admire him even more after that.
Helio Castroneves' strong Sunday drive quickly came to an end because of one ill-advised move. Helio seemed to place the blame on Sebastien Bourdais, but come on, Helio. The wreck was caused by you. Helio moved up like he was going to pass Simon Pagenaud, and when Bourdais saw that, he rightly moved into the opening that Helio had left. Bourdais had to be anticipating a pass there, not a quick cut back in front of him. Helio's day was over (which was unfortunate because he looked strong, and would surely have improved his championship standing), while Bourdais went on to finish fifth with a broken front wing. That's impressive.
Why does it seem like drivers are unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, more so this year than ever before? Instead they blame other drivers or label these crashes "racing incidents" rather than acknowledge their role in causing them. Helio and other drivers are guilty of what we in my field call the self-serving bias. This means that when we fail at something, we are more likely to attribute our failures to circumstance or some other external characteristic, rather than an internal one. We blame the situation. When we achieve success, though, we attribute it to internal characteristics, such as "I'm talented" or "I worked hard." We do the opposite when we observe others' successes and failures; this is called the fundamental attribution error. We saw the fundamental attribution error in effect this weekend, as many fans claimed Huertas had the win "handed to him," (including me, above) rather than saying his win was the result of talent or skill. Research shows that the most successful, elite athletes avoid those external attributions. They take ownership of both their successes and their failures, which leads them to keep improving. So these drivers would be wise to own up to their mistakes. Even Rahal, who apologized to TK and accepted some responsibility, didn't fully do this. He said he "couldn't see" and blamed the restart confusion from this year. This is something I'll be keeping an eye on as the season progresses.
Other Random Notes
The wet standing start seemed like a bad idea, but amazingly went off with only a minor hitch (Rahal's car stalled but quickly recovered). It seemed odd that they did a standing start in the rain but not in dry conditions on Sunday.....Reigning champ Scott Dixon is having a tough year, and doesn't seem to be driving like a champ. All of Team Ganassi appears to be struggling this year. Charlie Kimball has been the most consistent, and he's the least experienced IndyCar driver on the team.....I'm very glad I did not go to the races this year. I went to Houston last year, and last year's Saturday was insanely hot and humid. I can only imagine how much worse it was this year, and we've had fairly mild summer weather in Texas so far. Houston in June is a bad idea, and I felt for the drivers as they climbed out of their cars on Sunday. I have to say I'm not really a fan of the doubleheaders, though both races were highly entertaining. It was tough to commit to watching two races in one weekend. However, I much preferred watching the races in my AC than in the Houston heat!
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