INDIANAPOLIS – With the season-opening race at St. Petersburg only a couple days away, we should take a look at four of the greatest storylines heading into the Verizon IndyCar Series season.
Will Team Penske Complete 1-2-3-4 in Indycar?
Absolutely, not exclusively did Penske run roughshod through the series last season, winning 10 of 16 races (counting four of the first five), and 11 poles in transit to a 1-2-3-8 finish in the final point standings, it may have become better.
The team gives back the drivers who completed 1-2-3, while replacing Juan Pablo Montoya with the man who finishes fourth a year ago: Josef Newgarden. Only 26, Newgarden is a standout amongst the most skillful youthful drivers in the game, and joins the most dominant team in the series. This could be the year everything meets up for the rising American star, who has his sights set on the Borg-Warner Trophy and a series title.
Obviously, in the event that anybody will keep Newgarden from achieving those milestones, it likely could be one of his new team mates. Helio Castroneves, who will turn 42 in May and is entering his twentieth season, is tired of being this current era’s bridesmaid. He has finished in the top five 13 times — including third a year ago — without winning a championship.
“That completes this year,” Castroneves said not long ago. “It has to.”
On Team Penske, that leaves the 2014 champion (and 2015 runner-up) in Will Power and, obviously, defending series champion Simon Pagenaud, who scored five wins and top-10 finishes a year ago.
So would they be able to clear the main four spots? Totally. Actually, insane as it may sound, betting against them may not sound good.
Honda Versus Chevrolet
Since Chevrolet came back to the series in 2012, it has steamrolled Honda, winning 59 of 84 races, four of five driver championships — including the previous three — and owning the top three spots in the standings three years running. Chevrolet aero kits have proven far prevalent on street, and short ovals in a series that runs more than twelve races for every season on those tracks.
Be that as it may, with regards to the greatest race of the season, Honda has enjoyed a leg up — at any rate as of late. With Alexander Rossi’s victory last season in the 100th Indianapolis 500, Honda has delivered three of the previous five champions in the circuit’s premier event. A year ago, it claimed the top two spots with Rossi and Carlos Munoz.
Still, Chevrolet’s general advantage has been overpowering. However, there’s motivation to trust this season could deliver greater equality. Following a three-year run with Chevrolet, series power Chip Ganassi Racing has came back to Honda.
Nineteen-year IndyCar veteran and Ganassi driver Tony Kanaan, said his team’s shift will add some required spice to the season.
“I believe it will be the greatest clash of the year,” said Kanaan, who finished seventh in the series in 2016. “Chevy has won the manufacturer’s title (five years consecutively), so Honda is not glad about that, and that is likely one reason that we’re back with them. That will be their goal.
“It’s better for (media). You have more stories to tell and more rivalry — there will be more competitions, and (it’s great) for the fans, as well. So I think it will be enormous.”
What’s Next?
With the 100th Indy 500 in the rearview mirror, IndyCar has turned its concentration to the future with its “What’s Next?” campaign. The thought is to start anticipating the next 100 years, by advancing the sport’s best in class stars — a list that is highlighted by Rossi (25 years of age), Conor Daly (25), Newgarden (26) Graham Rahal (28), James Hinchcliffe (30) and Pagenaud (32).
In spite of the fact that the sport, is in no race to lose its senior statesmen, and fan top choices (Castroneves and Kanaan to name two), it has as of now attempted to put its more youthful drivers in the spotlight. Look no more distant than Hinchcliffe’s effective run on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” a year ago.
“One of the huge sparks for wanting to do it, was to help get IndyCar in the prime-time spotlight, and I think we did that a bit,” said Hinchcliffe, who additionally showed up on a scene of “Superstar Family Feud” alongside Daly. “We were around sufficiently long on that show, when people began to care, and ideally that converts into more fans tuning in on TV, and ideally appearing at the racetrack.”
It was as discovered that Rossi and Rahal, were two of alternate drivers considered for “DWTS,” so the push to elevate the sport’s young personalities is there.
Obviously, “What’s Next” is about more than quite recently the drivers …
Pay Special Mind To The New Car
Sleeker and sexier. That’s what IndyCar hopes fans will think about its new retro chic race car, which will make a big appearance in 2018 and be utilized through 2020.
The underlying ideas, which layout the bodywork that will cover the Dallara IR-12 chassis, were uncovered in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The essential change will be that the downforce will start from the undercarriage, rather than the wings on top, a large number of which will vanish. This alteration is designed not exclusively to make the car look sleeker and sexier, additionally to deliver more passing, as drivers won’t deal as much turbulence when closing in on opponents.
Obviously, the new car is running over well with drivers.
“I haven’t seen the finished product by any means, but I think it looks quite great,” Rahal said. “I’m amped up for it. For me, it’s more similar to what I feel IndyCar ought to resemble.”IndyCar has said it plans to release renderings soon and put the car on display at the Indianapolis 500.