Buonasera! Despite a slow start to 2024, Indycar roared into life last weekend with all the unexpected acceleration of Josef Newgarden at a restart. Having witnessed the terrifying spectacle of Scott Dixon Scott Dixoning his way to another victory from the 30th row of the grid at Long Beach, the whole cavalcade of team transporters and hospitality units makes its way across the continent to Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. Barber is the first road course of the year, with long corners, grass, bits that go up and down, gravel, and the general sporting interest that comes from racing on a proper circuit for a change. Last year we had one of those races where the two- and three-stop strategies were about as good as each other and came together at the end, only this time they came together and then race leader Romain Grosjean ran off the track and Penske’s Scott McLaughlin won instead. Oh Romain! He’s still not won an Indycar race. Anyway, that’s the kind of thing that happens at Barber. The track is tight but the long and flowing corners mean overtaking can be done if the drivers get creative.
What changes for the weekend? New French Guy and recent F2 winner Theo Pourchaire gets another go in the third McLaren, subbing for personal injury victim David Malukas, and more immediately for Argentina victim Callum Ilott, who was Malukas’s original replacement at McLaren but has important grown-up responsibilities racing sports cars in Europe instead. Formula E simulator ace(?) Luca(??) Ghiotto(???) has somehow talked his way into Dale Coyne’s second car that’s already been driven by two different drivers this season, meaning it is still possible that Dale Coyne Racing could achieve its platonic ideal state of running a different driver in every race with no repeats. At which point we should all probably go home.
Speaking of going home, that’s what you might expect an unidentified Team Penske engineer to be doing after their drivers Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were disqualified for cheating at St Petersburg last month by illegally activating their push-to-pass engine boost on restarts. They were caught in an elaborate sting operation involving a false Indycar, an actor dressed as Scott Dixon and a push to pass button connected to a car horn in Jay Frye’s office the Long Beach warm-up session. Pato O’Ward has been retroactively anointed King of St Pete and, after his win last Sunday, Ganassi’s Scott Dixon installed in the championship lead. Amusingly the Most Laps Led point for St Pete was not reassigned to the second-most-leaderest driver Christian Lundgaard, resulting in the mysterious riddle that the majority of the Grand Prix of St Petersburg was led by … no one. A fine return to form for No One after his dominant performance all those years ago in the final laps of the 1995 Indy 500, you might say. Will Power was also docked 10 points, because when the Fates decide to give someone a kick they usually a way to dispense an extra one to Will Power.
When’s this thing on? I’m glad you (I) asked. Practice begins on Friday at 2.40pm CDT / 8.40pm BST and qualifying is on Saturday at 2.30pm CDT / 8.30pm BST. The race gets underway some time around 12 noon CDT / 6pm BST. It’s also an Indy NXT weekend (wknd), all their sessions are scheduled immediately before the Indycar ones.
So! That’s Barber. There’s a lot of excitement this weekend. And no F1, so you have no excuse not to take a look.
