IndyCar’s craziest race of 2024 so far explained

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Ganassi’s Scott Dixon scored his second victory of the year and took the IndyCar Series points lead in a frankly ridiculous street race in Detroit that included eight caution stops and rain upended the order.

At times it felt like we were never going to finish the race – 47 of the 100 laps were under caution, such was the propensity for incidents at Turn 3, the first corner after the restart here – but another fuel gamble from Dixon allowed him to surge ahead, albeit under late pressure (in different ways) from two intervening Andretti drivers, Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson.

Rain around lap 33 gave the drivers a decision to make and 18 had to stop for the rain tires as they turned yellow, but by the time the race turned green the track was dry and these drivers were had to stop again for dry tires.

That, coupled with the number of warnings, meant a confusing order. A total of 12 penalties were also given, amid six different leaders and a wild finale.

How did Dixon win?

Dixon started fifth and on the preferable hard tyres, and avoided taking the wet tire gamble – which had been made even more tempting by a caution caused by Scott McLaughlin’s crash at Turn 1.

While running second with 43 laps remaining, Dixon elected to pit, effectively betting that there would be more cautions as it was too early to get to fuel otherwise. And there it was, allowing him to take the lead when Kyle Kirkwood arrived nine laps later.

The only downside for Dixon was that the final stint was still long on fuel and an excited Kirkwood had about 10 more laps of fuel to burn to get into the chase.

But Dixon’s teammate Marcus Armstrong in second – perfectly showing how wild this race was as he was caught up in an incident on lap 53 but 13 laps later he was in the top three – did a great job to support Kirkwood, giving Dixon a two-second lead combined with a teammate buffer so Dixon could save fuel.

But after 10 laps Kirkwood was no longer the Andretti driver to watch as an inspired Ericsson came third and pushed Armstrong towards Dixon, while he was stuck behind Herta who were on the verge of losing a lap at this point. stadium – although he started the race. pole race.

With five laps to go, Dixon sent one inside at Turn 3 and at Turn 5, Herta jumped out and sportingly gave track position to the leader, a move that sealed Dixon’s victory.

It was Dixon’s 58th victory and another achieved with fuel economy, just like his admittedly more spectacular win at Long Beach.

With two laps to go, Ericsson passed Armstrong at Turn 3 and closed the gap to Dixon to 0.8567 seconds for his best result since joining Andretti, joined by his Ganassi teammates last year on the podium.

Armstrong scored the best result of his IndyCar career in his first full season, despite running out of fuel as he crossed the finish line, while Kirkwood took fourth ahead of McLaren’s Alexander Rossi who also experienced a wild ride full of incidents.

Disaster for points leader and Indy 500 winner

Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden started from fifth place on a restart with 29 laps to go, picking up former points leader Alex Palou.

Newgarden had been one of the drivers to risk the rains, and later received a drive-through penalty for crashing his wheel gun in the pits. When he crashed he was fifth and under Dixon’s strategy he theoretically would have stayed there for the week he won the Indy 500 and announced a contract extension with Penske.

Palou, last year’s Detroit winner, started second on a set of second-hand soft tires – probably hoping the soft tires would be better and he could save his only new set for the end of the race – but he was in for a rude awakening when he went from second place to the back of the top 10 in just two laps and had to pit very early on lap 12.

Additionally, IndyCar rules require you to use a new set of soft and hard tires, so starting with a used set meant Palou had to use soft tires again.

He took them on lap 12, then pitted under caution from 21st on lap 16, fulfilling his obligation to use the softs where many of the lead drivers still needed them.

When the rain came he stopped, but was still back in the top six by staying out of trouble and making some smart overtakes, when he was picked up during the Newgarden incident as the latter attempted to avoid hitting Kirkwood but still did a slow spin himself.

Palou finished 16th and Newgarden 26th after dealing with what looked like an engine problem late on.

Newgarden has four results outside the top 15 in six races. For Palou, his 16th is his worst result since his 18th on the Indy road course in May 2022, more than two years ago! His last result outside the top 10 dates back to Portland in August 2022.

Where was the pole sitter in all this?

Herta had taken control of the start of the race on the preferable hard tyres, but when the rain arrived he and strategist Rob Edwards jointly called for the pits.

There were a considerable number of caution laps and the track was virtually dry by the time the race went green and like the other 17 drivers to bet, Herta had to backtrack.

Then he got stuck entering Turn 5 and crashed in the runoff zone, edging out Tristan Vautier, returning to Dale Coyne’s IndyCar, with him.

Herta finished 19th, one place ahead of McLaughlin who received a penalty on his return for hitting Sting Ray Robb.

Lundgaard’s lost victory

There was a real chance that Christian Lundgaard would win this race.

Driver Rahal Letterman Lanigan started 11th but found himself in the top five in the opening laps and took the lead after rain as he urged his team to back his gamble to stay out.

Because he had started on the soft tyres, he had to return to the pits shortly afterwards for fuel and tyres, but his fightback was canceled when he collided with Romain Grosjean at turn 3 on lap 57 and was penalized for this.

He ran into Grosjean’s car but managed to reverse.

But then, after passing Rossi with four laps to go, Lundgaard dropped to 11th when he had to make a pit stop on lap 99 for some fuel – after running out of fuel, causing confusion of his team.

Grosjean questioned why he was continuing racing after the Lundgaard incident, saying “the championship is over for me”. Shortly after, he was given a pass penalty for maintenance in a closed pit.

The driver with at least five penalties

Will Power had a day!

Its sanctions:

Closed pit emergency service
Impossible to pack up under caution – loss of 3 positions on the track
Avoidable contact
Complete closed pit service

And these are the ones we were able to count…

He started eighth but found himself at the back of the field on the first lap, caught out by a multi-car incident.

He was furious at being penalized for contact with Rinus VeeKay, but apparently managed to refocus and keep his championship hopes alive with a sixth-place finish.

Pato O’Ward was also involved in that first-lap incident and bounced back to seventh, while eighth-place finisher Felix Rosenqvist was also relegated to the back at the start with a puncture and bounced back to another top-10 finish. His only race outside of that so far this year was when his engine failed at the Indy 500 last week.

Santino Ferrucci was at war all weekend and was criticized for hitting Helio Castroneves early on. He bounced back to ninth in front of Théo Pourchaire.

The McLaren driver was penalized for hitting the impressive Agustin Canapino but recorded his best IndyCar result in his fourth race.

It’s fair to say that the second year at this new Detroit street circuit will produce varying opinions from fans on whether or not the racing was good. The 1,645-mile track has just nine turns and is so narrow and short that drama is almost guaranteed.





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