Four things from IndyCar and Formula E's bonkers weekend | GRR
A week ago at the IndyCar season opener, Josef Newgarden spun on the first lap at Barber in Alabama, triggered a scary multi-car shunt and wiped out a closely following Colton Herta. Seven days later at St Petersburg, the pair found themselves together again – but this time instead of crunching misfortune there was nothing but smiles after 100 hard laps of the tough street circuit in Florida, as Herta led Newgarden home to secure a stunning lights-to-flag victory that has shaken up the IndyCar order.
Herta’s blistering performance
The raw blisters on his hands were the tell-tale of how hard Herta had worked to make his win look so easy. The Andretti Autosport driver converted his fine Saturday pole position into a secure lead on Sunday, while third-placed starter Newgarden got the better of Englishman Jack Harvey on lap 31 to bid for what would have been his third straight win at St Pete. Yet despite two safety car interruptions closing up the pack in the final 27 laps, 21-year-old Herta kept his cool and made the best defensive use of his push-to-pass power boost to keep Newgarden at bay, despite the Penske ace having the benefit of the softer option red-walled Firestones for his final stint. In truth, the tyres didn’t make enough of a difference for the former double champion and 21-year-old Herta was in a class of his own in front of a Covid-limited crowd of 20,000. He fully deserved his accomplished victory.
“I’m so happy to rebound from Barber,” said the Californian in exhaustion after stepping from his Honda-powered Dallara. “Josef is so good around here and I was nervous because he was on those red tyres.”
But Newgarden admitted he had been a little conservative in his attack, given what had played out between the pair a week earlier. “I just didn’t want to over-extend myself, even though I was very close to an opportunity to go for the win,” said the 2017 and '19 series champion. “It’s a great rebound for both us. I felt bad for Colton after last week.”
Herta’s victory marked his first on a street circuit and the fourth of his IndyCar career – which makes him even with his father Bryan, who was calling the strategy for his son on the Andretti pit stand. “When he first started in IndyCar people used to ask if he was better than I was,” said the proud dad in Victory Lane. “Nobody asks anymore!”
Golden day for Pagenaud
Behind the front two, the golden Penske entry of Simon Pagenaud also got the better of Harvey’s front-row starting Meyer Shank Dallara to take the final podium spot. Harvey knew that fourth place was still a great result for his small team among the IndyCar giants, but he couldn’t help admitting to disappointment for dropping off the podium.
In fifth was six-time champion Scott Dixon, who put in a typically canny performance for Chip Ganassi Racing, quietly rising from eighth on the grid to score decent points. Double-Indy 500 winner and ex-Formula 1 ace Takuma Sato was even more impressive, climbing from 15th to sixth in his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry. He beat former Sauber F1 driver Marcus Ericsson and Penske’s Will Power, who rose from a lowly 20th on the grid for his eighth-place finish.
Grosjean does the triple…
Romain Grosjean deserves a word of credit for his performance too. A week after finishing 10th on his series debut – his first race since that fiery accident in Bahrain – the former Haas driver acquitted himself well on his maiden IndyCar street race. Grosjean did hit the wall three times – on one lap! But with encouragement from his Dale Coyne Racing team he kept plugging away to finish a worthy 13th.
In the drivers’ standings, Barber winner Alex Palou continues to lead the way, despite the Ganassi driver enduring a fairly anonymous afternoon in St Pete following the 24-year-old Spaniard’s remarkable maiden breakthrough in Alabama. That’s how quickly form can turn in IndyCar. He heads Power, Dixon and Herta in the points table – but that will undoubtedly all change next weekend as IndyCar heads to Texas for its third straight weekend of racing action: a double-header on the fearsome high-banked 1.5-mile oval. All bets are off.
Dennis Formula E win overshadowed by farce
Earlier in the day, on the other side of the Atlantic in Valencia, Spain, British Formula E rookie Jake Dennis began what turned out to be a fantastic day for Michael Andretti’s racing operation when he also scored a surprise lights-to-flag win. The BMW works driver deserves all credit for his mature performance – but sadly the Valencia weekend will mostly be remembered for the poor show put on by Formula E in the wet Saturday race that ended in farcical confusion.
On the electric single-seater series’ first event on a proper race track rather than a pop-up street course, expectations were high that here was an opportunity for Formula E’s high-calibre teams and drivers to put on an extravaganza of overtaking and great action. The race was certainly incident-packed – but in the end for all the worst reasons.
The electric Mini safety car was certainly kept busy, the race disappointingly starting behind it because of the conditions, then it returned on four more occasions to control the pack in the wake of accidents and some clumsy moves from drivers who should know better (yes, we mean you, Andre Lotterer). Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa was leading for DS Techeetah, but then a mix of awkward race regulations and officials choosing to stick to them when common sense really would have helped led the race to unravel in the most bizarre of circumstances.
Formula E racing is built around energy management, with teams and drivers having only a set amount of charge to last them the 45 minutes plus one lap race duration. But there’s a rule that 1kWh for every minute run under caution must be docked from each car – and this time, with so many interruptions, that meant a total of 19kWh of the original 52 was stripped away.
The race director has some discretion to play with on this rule, but still chose to stick to the letter as da Costa approached the start of the final lap – and like others behind him suddenly found he didn’t have enough energy within the rules to complete the race. In the end, only nine cars were classified as finishers with Mercedes EQ driver Nyck de Vries passing da Costa to take what will surely be the strangest win of his career.
Good for de Vries and his team for doing a great job in managing its energy allocation. But the way the rules were implemented made the majority look incompetent and stripped away any extra credibility Formula E might claim it has gained this year in its first season as a top-grade FIA World Championship. It was just embarrassing.