The Grand Prix of "Meh"

No need to bury the lede on this one. The Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis was far from the most exciting race ever. It wasn't terrible by any stretch, or even the worst race of the weekend (I fell back to sleep watching the Spanish Grand Prix), but anyone looking for edge of your seat excitement was left wanting.

None of that takes away from the performance of race winner Will Power, who looking back was never really threatened. A couple of things had to go his way, but this one wasn't in much doubt. Graham Rahal, however, once again had the drive of the day with his second consecutive runner-up finish despite Honda's well-documented issues.

I'm still trying to figure how to approach these post-race entries. For now, here are the things that caught my eye.

First lap DERP of a different kind

It was supposed to be different this time they all said. By moving back to a rolling start, we wouldn't have a melee like last year.

Nope.

It started with Helio hitting Dixon from behind. It ended with chaos in mid-pack and half the field taking the oval course backwards. Just like that a front row starter, the last race's winner, and (presumably at the time) Honda's top gun had their races ruined. To the field's credit, this was the only incident of the day, but damn was it embarrassing.

We need to talk about Honda

How is Graham and Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan doing it? The only other Honda to finish in the top 10 was Takuma Sato in 9th. This of course happened after Jack Hawksworth was the only Honda to even make the Fast 12. This is after only Graham and Hinchcliffe made the Fast 12 at Barber. The Rahals have gotten a lot of crap on social media in recent years (now is not the time to debate how much of it is deserved), but credit where credit is due, they are the only Honda team not completely out to lunch right now.

As for the rest of the Honda contingent? Oof. Andretti Autosport was lost all weekend, especially Marco. The other teams weren't much better with the possible exception of Foyt, who got the aforementioned top 10. Obviously with reintroducing differentiation, there was always the risk that this would happen, and unless IndyCar starts hyper legislating this, there's not much the Honda teams can do. By all accounts, Honda most of their eggs in the Indy 500 basket. We'll find out in the next two weeks if that pays off.

The Penske appear to defy basic math

I was confused when I saw the leaders begin to pit on lap 20. I'm far from an engineer or strategist, but it was an 82 lap race. Thus, pit on lap 20, then lap 40, then lap 60, then oh crap. What was more odd is just about every car that didn't intentionally go off strategy was in the same boat save for Rahal and the Schmidt cars (whose tires got so worn it ruined any advantage they might have had). So, when Helio pitted with 24 laps to go, and Power and Montoya pitted with 23 laps remaining, I'm thinking they had to save and this was Graham's chance.

What actually happened is Power had no trouble and won by a comfortable 1.5 seconds. In the post-race press conference, Will indicated that they had not been doing a full stint previously, which makes sense. That's why they're doing strategy during races and I'm yammering on Twitter after drinking three beers.

One thing that could've helped Graham though was not pitting when Newgarden did. Graham was complaining of being held up, and one would think that pitting one lap after Newgarden would've given him a chance to lay down a big in lap that could've gotten him closer. Judging by when his other pit stops happened, he had the fuel to do so. It probably doesn't change the outcome, but it might have made it a little more interesting.

Broadcast and Attendance

The broadcast was what we have come to expect from ABC, an energy less slog. As usual, they missed thing and tended to stay with the leaders holding station than the fights going on farther back (although in fairness they did catch some nice TK passes). Poor JR Hildebrand didn't get mentioned until the Up to Speed segment, and he was running 6th at the time!

I'm sure those at the race had a blast. For those watching at home however, the broadcast has a responsibility to show as much of the action and the story of the race as possible. ABC is consistently sub par in this.

As for attendance, whatever. I have no idea how one can determine by looking around, and IMS doesn't announce the figures. Just add 10,000 to whatever Robin Miller estimates and that's probably close to correct.

Fantasy IndyCar Jinx of the Week

I have been terrible at the new Fantasy IndyCar game on IndyCar.com. This week my jinx came up in the first corner for poor Hawksworth. Later in the race, a bad ECU ended Pagenaud's day. Luckily for me, my other picks were Power and Bourdais, which at least salvaged me some points.

Miscellaneous

Good for Charlie Kimball is getting a top 5, and even better, not being hit for once...TK and Coletti had some battles going on. Coletti definitely races like a guy with a lot of GP2 experience...Bummer for both Hildebrand and Justin Wilson, as mechanical problems ruined both their races...One year after being on pole here, Sebastian Saavedra was arguably the most invisible driver of the race, not counting the Coyne duo...Speaking of the Coyne duo, Dracone finally let the leaders by without incident. It was on camera and everything!

Next Up

As Mark Knopler once said, we truly are "on to Indianapolis, Indiana in May." Nothing further needs to be said.