2015 Texas Motor Speedway Strategy Review

I found the Texas race enjoyable.  It wasn't the pass-fest that we were treated to at the Indianapolis 500, but every point in the race seemed to have cars on an alternate strategy that might vault them up a few spots on the leaderboard.

I was also relieved that there were no crashes.  Before the race, IndyCar was concerned about cars flipping if they were in an accident.  They mandated higher minimum rear wing angles than they had in previous years, and mandated that manufacturers seal off the end of the rear wheel guards.  I was a bit concerned that the sudden changes would bring back the 'pack racing' that was so common at Texas during the IRL years.  Mercifully, it didn't.

Caution Breakdown for Texas Motor Speedway

Lap	2009	2010	2011 #1	2011 #2	2012	2013	2014	2015
1
2	Yellow 1
3	Yellow 1
4	Yellow 1
5	Yellow 1					Yellow 1	Yellow 1
6	Yellow 1					Yellow 1	Yellow 1
7	Yellow 1					Yellow 1	Yellow 1
8	Yellow 1					Yellow 1	Yellow 1
9	Yellow 1					Yellow 1	Yellow 1
10						Yellow 1	Yellow 1
11						Yellow 1
12						Yellow 1
13						Yellow 1
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31					Yellow 1
32					Yellow 1
33					Yellow 1
34					Yellow 1
35					Yellow 1
36					Yellow 1
37					Yellow 1
38					Yellow 1
39					Yellow 1
40
41
42
43
44
45
46		Yellow 1
47		Yellow 1
48		Yellow 1
49		Yellow 1
50		Yellow 1
51		Yellow 1
52
53
54						Yellow 2
55						Yellow 2
56						Yellow 2
57		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
58		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
59		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
60		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
61		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
62		Yellow 2				Yellow 2
63		Yellow 2
64		Yellow 2
65		Yellow 2			Yellow 2
66					Yellow 2
67					Yellow 2
68					Yellow 2
69					Yellow 2
70					Yellow 2
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84								Yellow 1
85								Yellow 1
86								Yellow 1
87								Yellow 1
88								Yellow 1
89								Yellow 1
90								Yellow 1
91								Yellow 1
92								Yellow 1
93								Yellow 1
94			Yellow 1					Yellow 1
95			Yellow 1					Yellow 1
96			Yellow 1					Yellow 1
97			Yellow 1
98			Yellow 1
99		Yellow 3	Yellow 1
100		Yellow 3	Yellow 1
101		Yellow 3	Yellow 1
102		Yellow 3	Yellow 1
103		Yellow 3	Yellow 1
104		Yellow 3
105		Yellow 3
106		Yellow 3
107		Yellow 3
108		Yellow 3
109		Yellow 3
110		Yellow 3
111		Yellow 3
112
113						Yellow 3
114						Yellow 3
115						Yellow 3
116						Yellow 3
117						Yellow 3
118						Yellow 3
119						Yellow 3
120						Yellow 3
121						Yellow 3	Yellow 2
122							Yellow 2
123							Yellow 2
124							Yellow 2
125							Yellow 2
126							Yellow 2
127							Yellow 2
128							Yellow 2
129							Yellow 2
130		Yellow 4					Yellow 2
131		Yellow 4			Yellow 3		Yellow 2
132		Yellow 4			Yellow 3		Yellow 2
133		Yellow 4			Yellow 3		Yellow 2
134		Yellow 4			Yellow 3
135		Yellow 4			Yellow 3
136		Yellow 4			Yellow 3
137		Yellow 4			Yellow 3
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150	Yellow 2
151	Yellow 2
152	Yellow 2
153	Yellow 2
154	Yellow 2
155	Yellow 2
156	Yellow 2
157	Yellow 2
158	Yellow 2
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173	Yellow 3
174	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
175	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
176	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
177	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
178	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
179	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
180	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
181	Yellow 3				Yellow 4
182					Yellow 4
183					Yellow 4
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242							Yellow 3
243							Yellow 3
244							Yellow 3
245							Yellow 3
246
247
248

Cautions per Year

	2009	2010	2011 #1	2011 #2	2012	2013	2014	2015
Total Cautions	3	4	1	0	4	3	3	1
Total Caution Laps	26	36	10	0	32	27	23	13
Average Caution Length (Laps)	8.7	9.0	10.0	0.0	8.0	9.0	7.7	13.0
First Caution Lap	2	46	94	N/A	31	5	5	84
Last Restart (Laps Remaining)	47	91	11	N/A	43	107	3	152

The single caution period in 2015 means that the average number of cautions per race with the DW12 is now very close to the average number of cautions per race with the old IndyCar chassis.  The box score lists the cause of the lone caution period as a 'track inspection,' whatever that is. Again, it was a relief that there were no crashes after an expensive month of May.

Lap Number of the Winner's Pit Stops*

Year	2013	2014	2015
Winner	Castroneves	Carpenter	Dixon
Stop 1	53	52	43
Stop 2	116	89	86
Stop 3	175	126	141
Stop 4	N/A	172	185
Stop 5	N/A	213	228

*Each cell contains the lap number and track condition (green or yellow) for each of the winner's pit stops.

A 5 stop strategy was clearly best at Texas in 2015.  Marco Andretti and Carlos Munoz tried to complete the race on 4 stops, but had to run the last 10 laps below 200 mph to save enough fuel to reach the finish line.  The 5 stop strategy meant that race winner Scott Dixon didn't have to conserve fuel at the end of the race.

Downforce is King
Penske cars marched to the beat of their own aerodynamic drum on Saturday night.  Even though Honda was initially rumored to have over 1 million combinations of various aerodynamic bits included in its aero kit, it was the Team Penske Chevrolets that were aerodynamically unique in Fort Worth.  Will Power, Simon Pagenaud, and Juan Pablo Montoya all decided to run without any downforce producing 'loops' above the rear wheel guards.  Helio Castroneves went with a single loop on his right side, leaving his left rear wheel guard empty.  The single 'loop' would give Helio a bit more top speed while sacrificing just some stability in the corners.

Team Penske knew that running with fewer loops would give the cars more speed.  The trade off was that the cars would struggle in traffic as the airflow to the car was disturbed by other cars that the Penskes were following.

Penske's cars would all regret their decisions.  Castroneves was the only Penske car who finished on the lead lap, but Castroneves never challenged for the lead.  Montoya and Pagenaud had speed when running in clean air, but were unable to pass slower cars effectively.  Will Power was a non-factor and finished 4 laps down.  I'm surprised that the Penske cars were so slow relative to Ganassi's cars.  I would have expected them to discover the importance of downforce during practice and choose to run both 'loops.'

On another interesting note, before the race Scott Dixon wanted to use a single 'loop' over his right-rear wheel guard like Helio Castroneves did during the race. Fortunately for Dixon, his crew convinced him to use 'loops' over both rear wheel guards during the race.  It was a  race winning decision.  Kudos to Dixon for being willing to listen to his engineers.

Penske Mistakes
This seemed like the race that no one wanted to win.  Simon Pagenaud showed early speed, but had a terrible pit stop while running 4th on the lap 86 pit stops.  Pagenaud almost went a lap down and restarted the race in 8th.  Pagenaud was unable to recover the lost track position and finished 11th, probably due to the low downforce configuration on his car.

Juan Pablo Montoya fell from 1st to 5th in one lap when he strangely tried to give the lead up to the then 2nd place running Helio Castroneves.  Montoya took a higher line than he had been using so the Castroneves could pass him on the low side.  Castroneves didn't get the memo: he took the exact same line as Montoya and had to lift to avoid a collision with his teammate.  Tony Kanaan took advantage of the miscommunication and darted to the low side to pass Montoya, Castroneves, and then 3rd place car, Scott Dixon.  Dixon passed both Montoya and Castroneves to move to 2nd.  Montoya fell to 5th, while Castroneves fell to 3rd.

That was the moment of the race.  From that point on, Ganassi cars would only relinquish the lead while making pit stops.

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