The Spotters' Stand: July 2015

Watching the MAVTV 500 was a 3 hour adrenaline rush. The race set a record for the most lead changes ever in an IndyCar race, accounted for 51% of the passes that have taken place during the entire 2015 IndyCar season, and had more passes than the last 3 seasons of Formula 1 put together. OK, I made that last one up. But it was certainly entertaining.

Unfortunately, I'm left with the sad feeling that the race could have been so much better than it already was. I'll explain why in my 'non-statistical soapbox' section, but first, here's a review of the cautions.

Caution Breakdown for Fontana

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

Cautions per Year

	2012	2013	2014	2015
Total Cautions	7	7	1	6
Total Caution Laps	43	55	12	46
Average Caution Length (Laps)	6.1	7.9	12.0	7.7
First Caution Lap	56	71	175	136
Last Restart (Laps Remaining)	7	9	64	4

This year's race at Auto Club Speedway seems to indicate that 2014's race, which featured a single caution period, was an abnormality. Drivers were somewhat calm during the first 300 miles, but after the first restart on lap 150, things got crazy.

This year's race also continued the trend of a long green flag run to start the race. Drivers seem to understand that no one wins a race in the first 50%, so there's no reason to risk crashing early.

Lap Number of the Winner's Pit Stops*

Year	2013	2014	2015
Winner	Power	Kanaan	Rahal
Stop 1	38	36	36
Stop 2	72	72	72
Stop 3	102	104	107
Stop 4	113	141	138
Stop 5	114	178	187
Stop 6	119	218	197
Stop 7	160	N/A	222
Stop 8	193	N/A	N/A
Stop 9	212	N/A	N/A
Stop 10	231	N/A	N/A

Race winner Graham Rahal made 7 pit stops on Saturday, one more than 2nd place finisher Tony Kanaan. Rahal's extra stop relative to Kanaan came under the lap 197 caution. Rahal left his pits with the fuel hose still attached when the lap count was at 187. He was able to shake the hitchhiking fuel hose from his car, but lost a lap to the leaders in the ordeal. When the leaders pitted under the caution for Rahal's deposed fuel hose, Rahal stayed out, took a wave around, and pitted before rejoining the field. Kanaan lost a lap as well, but opted to forgo the pit stop while taking the wave around.

The race's penultimate caution on lap 241 required drivers to make a choice: keep track position or pit for fresh tires. The top 7 cars plus 14th place Pippa Mann chose to stay out, but Ryan Briscoe crashed, so there were effectively 7 cars that stayed out. The remaining 9 cars on the lead lap stopped for new Firestone rubber (which thankfully did not experience the same problems as the tires of a well-known series that was racing a few hundred miles north of Auto Club Speedway last weekend. Thanks for making a great product, Firestone!).

I'm unsure how to evaluate a driver's decision to pit or stay out on the last yellow. Comparing the average position of each group before the final pit stops and at the end of the race is unsatisfactory: it seems likely that drivers running at the back of the lead lap were there because they weren't as quick as those at the front. It's also unhelpful to look at each drivers' plus/minus stats after the restart since those who stayed out can't improve their positions relative to those who pitted.

Of the 8 drivers who pitted on the penultimate caution and finished the race, only 2 finished ahead of cars that stayed out (excluding Pippa Mann, who didn't have the setup to run with the leaders). Those were Marco Andretti and Sage Karam, who finished 3rd and 5th respectively. That doesn't mean that pitting was a bad decision, it just means that new tires weren't especially effective.

Non-Statistical Soapbox #1 - Not Pack Racing

Many people have described Saturday's race as 'pack racing'. This is technically true because most of the cars drove around the track together, in a pack. However, the implication of these comments was that Saturday's racing was a return to the style of oval racing common in the IRL and IndyCar before 2011.

That theory is false. IRL style pack racing featured cars running side by side indefinitely. Drivers were unable to complete passes, and would lose momentum when they were alongside the car they were trying to pass. This led to situations where trailing drivers had no where to go. There would be a pair of cars running side by side in front of a driver, and another car to his/her side. That car literally couldn't go anywhere if (s)he got a run on the row in front of him/her. The IndyCar race from Kentucky in 2011 is a perfect example of this. Dario Franchitti and Ed Carpenter spent the last 17 laps of this race running side by side.

Drivers at Fontana did not stay side by side by side for long periods of time. Cars would race side by side in the corners, but cars were able to complete passes. They didn't stall out and run side by side because they were 'stuck'. Furthermore, cars would get somewhat strung out after pit stops. The top 15 cars would be running mostly single file, each drafting the car in front to maintain transitive contact with the leader. Fontana was a type of pack racing, but it wasn't the same pack racing that was often found in the IRL.

After the race, Will Power voiced his displeasure most loudly, complaining that someone in IndyCar needs to be held responsible for the racing that was on display. Power's comment painted IndyCar as indifferent to the pleas of the wise, helpless drivers. His characterization of both IndyCar and the drivers is inaccurate.

Since the introduction of the DW12, IndyCar has done a very good job of preventing pack racing. In fact, I would argue that they've erred on the side of removing too much downforce from cars because the racing on some ovals (Texas in particular, although not this year) had become somewhat boring. Don't misunderstand me: IndyCar has made plenty of mistakes, but this is one area where they've achieved their goals.

I understand that pack racing is still a sensitive issue for drivers, but I think IndyCar deserves a bit of slack here. The Fontana race on Saturday was the first race since 2011 that there has been even a hint of pack racing, although as I already pointed out, it was a different kind than what existed pre-DW12. IndyCar was expecting hotter weather, and consequently more tire wear, than what arrived on Saturday. In hindsight they should have removed just a bit more downforce from the cars, but this rules package was very, very close to perfect.

Power also inaccurately painted the drivers as helpless. The IRL/IndyCar has been pack racing on ovals since at least 2000, if not earlier. As far as I can tell, no current IndyCar driver ran a full IRL season until 2002 (Helio Castroneves). It's 2015: the IRL/IndyCar has at least a 15 year history of pack racing. Drivers know that ovals are a part of the IndyCar schedule, and that there will be at least a small chance of pack racing at some tracks. If you don't like that risk, then don't race IndyCar. IndyCar didn't trick drivers into pursuing a career with them, and then surprise drivers with pack racing. I suspect Ryan Briscoe, Justin Wilson, and Connor Daly (and others) would all love full season IndyCar rides, even if every oval race had pack racing.

The other reason IndyCar drivers aren't helpless is because they're the ones driving the cars. No matter what rules package IndyCar dictates, drivers share a large responsibility for driving safely. This brings me to...

Non-Statistical Soapbox #2 - Driving Standards

Surprisingly, most accidents during the Fontana race took place on either the front or back straightaways (as Ryan Hunter-Reay observed in this excellent race review by Marshall Pruett). I would have expected that cars running 3, 4, and even (just for a moment) 5 wide in the corners would become unstable, bobble, and stray into another car because there was little margin for error. With the exception of the crash involving Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden, all crashes were caused because drivers were unable to drive in a (relatively) straight line without running into each other.

Ryan Hunter-Reay called this ability to drive in a straight line 'lane integrity,' and there was a severe deficiency of it in Saturday's race. On lap 136, Ryan Briscoe changed lanes on the back straightaway while Helio Castroneves was alongside, which caused Castroneves to crash. In another incident, Scott Dixon, Takuma Sato, and Will Power were running side by side on the front straightaway on lap 241. Power, who was running on the outside, drifted down and made contact with Sato, who was running in the middle. Sato was pushed into Dixon's car as Dixon drifted high. Another incident happened on lap 249 when Juan Pablo Montoya, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Sage Karam were running side by side. Montoya, who was on the bottom, drifted up and touched Hunter-Reay, who had already been squeezed down by Karam. Hunter-Reay spun and collected innocent bystander Ryan Briscoe, who mercifully walked away from this violent crash.

It's ironic that Power was complaining about the dangerous racing given how he drove at Fontana. Power already has a history of questionable oval driving. In 2014, he attempted to block teammate Juan Pablo Montoya while leading at Pocono. The problem was that Montoya was already alongside Power when Power started to block. Power made contact with Montoya and broke the endplate off of Montoya's front wing. Race control even managed to correctly penalize Power for blocking, but more on that in a bit.

Power was easily one of the most aggressive drivers in Saturday's race, perhaps second only to Graham Rahal. He frequently weaved down the front and back straightaways, reacting to every move that trailing cars made in an effort to keep his position. Power's dangerous moves on Saturday included:

Forcing Graham Rahal onto the apron on lap 157
Turning down when running on the outside of 3-wide with 48 laps to go
Choosing to attempt a pass on the outside of a group of cars that were already running 3 wide with 45 laps to go
Forcing Ryan Briscoe down a lane entering turn 3 with 43 laps to go
Turning down on and hitting Takuma Sato so hard that Sato crashed with 10 laps to go

To be fair, seemingly every driver who lead laps at Fontana made at least one dangerous move. Power spent a lot of time at the front of the field, so his transgressions were easy to see relative to cars who didn't spend much time running in the top 3. In addition to Power, I noted that the following drivers made moves I found to be questionable between laps 150 and 210.

Marco Andretti (squeezed Graham Rahal towards the wall)
Tony Kanaan (squeezed Graham Rahal)
Scott Dixon (blocking)
Takuma Sato (going 4 wide with cars that were visibly 3 wide)
Juan Pablo Montoya (blocking)

I understand that drivers will be aggressive on track, and that IndyCar needs to take steps to protect drivers from themselves in the heat of the moment. However, at some point drivers must use their brains when they drive. It is hypocritical to demand that IndyCar make racing safer when there were countless instances of drivers blocking and drivers turning into or squeezing another car that was already alongside during the race.

A 'stern talking to' from race control before the race might have helped to reduce some of the poor driving in the race, but that didn't happen, which brings me to...

Non-Statistical Soapbox #3 - Race Control

IndyCar race control is a dumpster fire. Leaving your pit box with a fuel hose attached should be a minimum of a drive through penalty. Period. Had there been a car in the pit box in front of Rahal as he left, he would have been spewing fuel on a hot engine surrounded by several kneeling and immobile crew members.

Note that it isn't Rahal's fault he wasn't penalized. He even admitted he got away with one after the race. It's also not Rahal's fault that IndyCar chose to give his team a miniscule $5,000 fine.

Penalties for egregious safety violations (and let's be honest, it doesn't get much more egregious than pouring fuel all the way down pit road) need to be harsh enough that the offending team's chances of winning are dramatically reduced after the penalty is issued. Monetary fines aren't enough of a penalty. Rahal has no realistic chance of a championship this year, so a points fine wouldn't have meant anything, and as Aaron Foster noted on the 'Push To Pass Podcast,' the value of seeing sponsor Steak 'n Shake in victory lane far outweighs the $5,000 the team will have to pay.

Rahal's no-call wasn't the only head-scratcher from race control on Saturday. Ryan Briscoe received a drive through penalty after making contact with Helio Castroneves on the back straightaway. This is painfully confusing because it was Helio Castroneves who received no drive through-penalty and a measly 3 point penalty after taking out Scott Dixon at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.

The problem lies with IndyCar's rulebook, which merely gives IndyCar the option of penalizing drivers for infractions, and does not spell out specific punishments for infractions. I know that racing is inherently different from other sports, but penalties are one area where racing needs to follow the lead of traditional sports. If a referee calls traveling during a basketball game, (s)he doesn't have the option of awarding foul shots to the team that didn't travel. Umpires can't choose to call a player out after 2 strikes. Avoidable contact and blocking should be treated consistently from race to race, and the rulebook should be updated to reflect whatever penalty system race control decides to use on that particular week.

One thing that IndyCar did get right after the race was assessing a $25,000 fine to Will Power. After his race ending accident with Takuma Sato, Power used both hands to shove a safety worker (admittedly it wasn't especially forceful - the worker didn't appear to break stride). To his credit, Power quickly Tweeted an apology to the worker and said that he apologized to the worker in person.

Regardless, IndyCar sent a strong message that its staff and officials are physically off limits to drivers. This was the right decision. These men and women are always on call to save drivers' lives (and recently did with James Hinchcliffe). Drivers ought to respect them in all situations, regardless of how frustrated they are.

If you want to get in touch, feel free to leave a comment or send an email to spottersstand@gmail.com. Follow the blog on Twitter (@spotstandblog) for reminders about new posts.

The Spotters' Stand

About The Spotters' Stand

Thursday, July 9, 2015

I've moved

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

2015 Fontana Strategy Review

Blog Archive