IndyCar 2022 thread.

pole for Power. his championship to lose tomorrow

 

Will Power takes the first step toward a Championship weekend. Well done.

 

classy move by Mario

 

Yes. As always.

 

What did Mario do?

Since I don’t get peacock I don’t get qualifying. I wonder how the sponsors feel about this.

 

he walked over and congratulated Power for breaking his pole record (which he's had for like 30 years)

 

first lap was entertaining

 

Kellett and Johnson have crashed so it’s an official race now

 

A dominant win by Palou. Where will he be next season??

In the meantime Will Power did all he needed to do to clinch the series championship. Congratulations to Will and the Penske team.

 

Chip wants $10mm to let Palou out of a contract that I guarantee didn’t pay Palou $10mm

congrats to Will. consistent and level headed season earns him a championship.

 

I’ve lost track. Where does Palau want to go? He was inch-perfect today.

 

A great season, just frustrated theirs is so short: too few Indycar races (and too many GP's, specially badly managed ones like Spa 2021 or Monza yesterday ending so disappointingly...).
I really prefer Indycar, sooo competitive, very high driver level, so many can win, great atmosphere....wish they would have a race or three in Europe again but on proper road courses, they would be awesome at fast circuits like Mugello, Silverstone, Spa etc....

 

He signed with McLaren but Ganassi said they have him signed...same sort of conflict as for the Aussie kid in F1 between Alpine and...McLaren.

 

I would like to see a longer season too. even if it was the same number of races spread out over an extra month (years ago during the dark ages of the IRL, some know-nothing consulting group convinced Tony George they needed to end their season in September to avoid conflicting with football, and it stuck).

If they add more races I think they should all be in north America, this is a national/regional series not a world championship and the only overseas race that had any real staying power or fan base was Australia.

Monza started with half the grid getting penalties and ended with a SC/red flag debacle, not F1's shining moment

 

Used to be that drivers had management that handled their business affairs and contract negotiations
and nothing was announced until the ink was dry on the contracts.

These days, the drivers seem to be on their own, get over excited about an approach from a team and
automatically think they've got a signed contract and make premature announcements on social media
catching teams (and everyone else) wrong footed.

Hopefully, Palau has learned a valuable lesson. One he should have learned dating to his karting days.

The Indy Car season is compressed into eight months starting at St. Petersburg in February. The thinking
obviously is competing for media attention versus college and NFL football seasons, it's ratings suicide,
thus the season is over early. Things have been this way for quite a while now as even during the
heydays of CART, their season was usually over by late September and the teams would all be at
Sebring testing in early October.

NASCAR counteracts this with their artificial "playoffs" scheme in order to gain attention once the football
seasons crank up. Not sure this has any effect on NASCAR's ratings or not but seems unlikely. Even
though NASCAR still commands big numbers compared to other racing series, they've fallen way off
over the past few years.

BHW

 

to the best of my knowledge all the drivers involved (Palou, Danny Ric, Piastri, Rossi, etc) have agents and/or marketing firms representing them.

Piastri's agent is Mark Webber!

 

Wasn't Webber managed by his sister?

BHW

 

Flavio Briatore was Mark's manager for at least his Red Bull days

 

I presume you mean American football with the odd outfits and rugby ball?

Since no one at all in Europe watches that, Indycar should have a mini season in Europe right then in the fall/autumn, three or four races in France UK, Italy, Spa or Germany on grand fast road courses -no ovals existing yet or not as the rain chance is much higher cf UK oval race joke back 20 years ago- with a Cup to the winner. Full paddock access to the public contrary to the snotty VIP stalag of F1. They could call it the Atlantic Cup or the race of two worlds and have guest cars for some major European drivers who don't normally take part. A bit like when Indianapolis cars came to Monza in the 50's though this time only with Indycars. This would be amazing and F1 would feel the breeze of a more exciting series down their backs (which would have red flagged yesterday's Monza GP to ensure a green finish, Duh!).

 

lol, yes, hand egg. aka NFL. Sir Lewis has a vested interest it

A Tasman Series type mini-championship would be fun IF you could get some F1 (or at least feeder series) and/or sports car guys in it too. just running some IndyCar races in fall in Europe (cold and damp?) may not be so compelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Series

the ever-growing F1 calendar plus contractual constraints makes that a pipe dream, though.

 

Great year for Team Penske. After Saturday's error, I thought it was significant that RP stood with Newgarden down at the back end of the grid for the anthem. Seems like the mojo is still working for Roger, given the drive Josef had afterwards.

 

Ah ok thanks I still confuse Footbase and ball bat, never watch herd sports but was up late for the Alcaraz crowning at the US open last night;-)

There is no shortage of top level European drivers who could be drafted for this and rest assured the weather does not have to be cold and miserable. I will discuss the idea with my 1988 Formula Ford teammate, a certain Gil de Ferran. If he likes it he can mention it to RP.

 

sportsball!

I think Race Director of the Euro Indy Championship would be a good retirement gig for Gil

 

Spot on on both counts!

 

Interesting take: I was going to watch Nascar first and had the Indycar race DVR to watch after since they both ran at the same time. First observation was Kansas Raceway was half empty. Why? Chiefs were playing so dumb scheduling move. All nascar races in cities where NFL is are going to be this way for the rest of the season. I wish they would learn this. Second, as I watch the race dumb@#$ NBC reports Will wins championship. So much for watching that race. Here they promote recording of shows and events but why bother if you're going to announce on sister station. What a bunch of idiots they have at NBC (and others).