The inaugural Nashville INDYCAR race had a few hiccups, but provided the avid fanbase plenty of thrills and solid racing.
The NTT IndyCar Series held its inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville, TN this past weekend.
Like many first-time events, it had its glitches. Some grandstands weren’t completed until Sunday’s race, lines for ingress/egress to the circuit were difficult. But fans came in droves – even in searing midsummer heat – and stayed through the 80-lap Sunday event. Even through nine caution periods and two red-flag stoppages.
The fastest pole-winning racer led the most laps but crashed out with five to go. That was Colton Herta the second-generation racer at Andretti Autosport whose father, Bryan, is his strategist. The winner caused the second caution period when he nearly went airborne on the restart after caution No. 1, taking out four-time INDYCAR champ Sebastien Bourdais in the process. That was former Formula One racer Marcus Ericsson, who is beginning to show his value to Chip Ganassi Racing, earning a second win this year.
Jimmie Johnson tore up more equipment in one weekend than some drivers do in a year of competition – or more. The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion is definitely having a tough time acclimating to open-wheel street racing after being at the sharp end of roundy-round NASCAR competition. Next year he says he’ll run the full series of street, road and oval circuits on the NTT IndyCar Series championship trail. Johnson was disqualified from continuing the race on the 19th lap after illegally taking service under red flag conditions.
Herta led from the start until his final pit stop when Ericsson took over. Herta led 39; Ericsson 37 laps with Romain Grosjean upfront for four laps of the skinny circuit. After his get-together with Bourdais, the Swede had to start at the rear of the field, having taken emergency service in a closed pit. He also had a stop-and-go penalty for avoidable contact – and still made it to the front.
Yeah, race control was busy during this contest, meting out as many penalties as there were caution flags, most of them for avoidable contact, including one to Will Power, who had contact with teammate Simon Pagenaud on the 24th lap! I thought that was a definitive no-no in Roger Penske’s world? And it was strange to see the four-car Team Penske squad finish 10th (local boy Josef Newgarden, who was expected to lead the team, if not the field), Power in 14th, Pagenaud 21st with rookie Scott McLaughlin in 22nd place of the 27 racers.
The track layout could have been responsible for the many cautions, as only the bridge crossings were wide enough for any side-by-side racing – even though many drivers did manage to execute passes during the race. Many of those passes came from the misfortune of the other driver such as Herta’s wall-smack in the ninth turn, a popular spot for crashing this weekend.
The results were interesting, with Ericsson leading Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, followed by Andretti Autosport’s James Hinchcliffe, giving Honda a sweep of the podium. Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport), Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), Ed Jones of Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan, Ganassi’s Alex Palou, Felx Rosenqvist from Arrow McLaren SP, Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing and Newgarden made up the top 10.
Only Rosenqvist and Newgarden have Chevrolet power behind them. Incredibly, 18 cars finished on the lead lap, the final car being Max Chilton’s Chevy-powered Carlin entry. His was the last car on the lead lap and the next-to-last car still running after carnage removed everyone else but McLaughlin, who completed only 67 laps.
After the race, the postmortems were fast and furious. Those who watched in person or on television were quick to throw stones at course designer Tony Cotman, who did a good job putting the track together – considering the tarmac he was given – but will surely listen to the drivers who had more than a few suggestions heading his way. Leading those ideas was moving all starts and restarts to the bridge area, where passes could be made. There was also the issue of the Penske problem on the 20th lap that impacted well more than Power and Pagenaud as others got caught up in their midst in the final turn.
At the end of the day the fans had a race, albeit not the usual INDYCAR tour de force this time around. Many realized that this wouldn’t be a showcase, new street circuits rarely are – do San Jose, Baltimore, Las Vegas ring a bell? – but everyone came away with their cars mostly intact. Those on-site were exceptionally pleased by the fan turnout and enthusiasm; hopefully, those fans will return after changes are made to make the race more enticing for them and for those participating.
During the weekend, there was an important announcement that McLaren is taking on 75% of the team they’ve been working with, Arrow McLaren SP. The deal is expected to close by the end of the calendar year, and both Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson are expected to remain with the squad. Will there be a name change to McLaren? We’ll find out when they decide to tell us…
This weekend INDYCAR returns to familiar territory, the road course of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a venue it will share, for the first time, with NASCAR’s Cup and Xfinity Series. It’ll be the second time on the road course for Xfinity and the first for Cup. Perhaps this time the Indy cars can show them tin-top racers how it’s done?
It’s BS when Erickson screws up bad enough to take out Bourdais and isn’t penalized enough to make sure he has no chance of winning the race. Indycar needs to revamp their rules.