The curse of second place strikes again in IndyCar

Weekend Racing Wrap

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Second place in the championship is not the place to be in IndyCar this year as for the third race running the closest rival to Simon Pagenaud hit trouble.

Indycar

Race 10 of 16: Iowa Corn 300

Newgarden was quick enough to win on this
It began with Helio Castroneves in Detroit: the Penske driver had worked his way up into second place in the championship behind Simon Pagenaud and passed his team mate to lead the race, only to be disadvantage by a late caution period.

That allowed Scott Dixon to take second in the standings, but an electrical problem struck him down at the following round in Road America. Castroneves took second back, but yesterday in Iowa he lucked out twice by pitting just before the race was neutralised.

The upshot is while Pagenaud hasn’t won a race since May he retains a very healthy championship lead of 73 points, reduced by just one in yesterday’s 300-lap race at Iowa. The new occupant of second place is Josef Newgarden, who stormed to a dominant win despite still carrying his injuries from Texas. Cam Newgarden break the curse at Toronto this weekend?

NASCAR

Race 18 of 36: Kentucky 400

Brad Keselowski won his second race on the bounce after playing a fuel-mileage game and just crossing the finish line in time before running out of fuel. Carl Edwards closed six seconds in the final ten laps but had to settle for second by 0.175.

V8 Supercars

Round 7 (Races 14 & 15 of 29): Townsville 400



Red Bull claimed both 70-lap races around the streets of Townsville. Jamie Whincup won the first while team mate Shane van Gisbergen battled thrillingly with Chaz Mostert on his way to second. Van Gisbergen took honours in the second race and now trails his team mate by 53 points at the top of the standings.

IMSA

Race 7 of 12: Mosport

Video not available yet.

Dane Cameron and Eric Curran shared victory as Chevrolet Corvettes occupied the top four finishing positions at Mosport in Canada.

Also last weekend

Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen after team mate Nico Rosberg was penalised following the race for illegal radio messages from his team.

After over 1,000 win-less days, Pierre Gasly finally got the monkey off his back in GP2 by claiming the feature race win, while Jordan King made the most of reverse grid pole to take the sprint race victory. Oliver Rowland now leads the championship despite not having won any of the ten races so far.

In GP3 it was Alexander Albon who won race one from pole position – but a failure to score in race two and a double podium over the weekend for Charles Leclerc ensured the Ferrari junior kept the championship lead while Antonio Fuoco closed in with his first win of the season in race two.

Over to you

What racing action did you watch last weekend? Let us know in the comments.

Next weekend IndyCar are racing again while Super Formula and Euro F3 are also back in action. NASCAR and DTM will be the tin-top action.

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7 comments on “The curse of second place strikes again in IndyCar”

  1. What do people think of Fuoco’s chances of an F1 drive in the future? We’ve gone from having Trulli, Fisi and Liuzzi on the grid and Marciello as a test driver to no Italians at all. Does he have a chance? Or one of the Italians in GP2 maybe, like Ghiotto?

    1. @sam3110 … or Giovinazzi? His Azerbaijan’s weekend was quite impressive and he was a solid second in the feature race this weekend. Let’s hope it continues like that.

      Also I think Giovinazzi is in a better machinery with Prema than Ghiotto with Trident, which will help being seen on the podium. Marciello is looking good in the championship too but since he’s been let down by Ferrari I don’t know if he will ever make it.

      So honestly, for an Italian, I’d put my money on Giovinazzi but let’s see how the gp2 championship unfolds (it has been better than F1 so far this year) :)

  2. Is ‘V8’ back in the Supercars name?

    It looks so bleak without the tag; I think they made one of the biggest mistakes in motorsport government in recent years dropping what was one of their core values, a big fat V8 engine which resulted in a high power-to-weight ratio despite the heavy tourers (almost as high as in NASCAR), which guaranteed challenging driving and an emblematic name.

    Now it’s all gone and the Supercars name kind of reminds me of the short-lived Superstar Series in Europe. It folded all too quickly, it reflects a failure.

    1. no, it is still supercars, i thought it was stupid to drop the V8 bit as well, but if having other engine configurations enter increases their field size then good luck to them!

  3. I’ve been watching Indycar for 5 years now, and that was the most dominate win I’ve seen in that time. Pretty amazing considering Newgarden did that with a broken right collar bone and a broken right hand.

    1. Lee Porcelli
      12th July 2016, 1:26

      Agree. For such a regulated open wheeler category he was a cut above thru that race.Still wishing Will Power can come from behind after missing one race . Unfortunately Newgarden will miss Texas. No V8s in category name but the sound remains.

  4. Wow! People at grandstands during an Indycars race. That’s nice to see..
    Also, I really like how the Indylights cars look. They’re basically GP3 cars aren’t they?

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