2015 Grand Prix of Indianapolis Strategy Review

The second running of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis is in the books.  It certainly wasn't the best race I've ever seen, but at least an impressive race from Graham Rahal (his 2nd in a row) kept winner Will Power honest.  Had Power made much of a mistake, Rahal would have been right on top of him.

In the same way that every basketball game can't come down to a last second shot, not every race can come down to a last lap pass.  I much prefer watching a few races like this year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis than have to endure gimmicks used to keep racing artificially close.  Thank you, IndyCar, for keeping the racing pure.

The race was relatively straightforward as far as strategy went.  A single caution on the first 2 laps doesn't give strategists much to work with.  If a driver wasn't fast, or lost track position, he wasn't given any freebies.  Fortunately, it looks like drivers have learned to treat the aero kits more gently, since there weren't any cautions for debris.

Caution Breakdown for Grand Prix of Indianapolis

Lap	2014	2015
1	Yellow 1	Yellow 1
2	Yellow 1	Yellow 1
3	Yellow 1
4	Yellow 1
5	Yellow 1
6	Yellow 1
7	Yellow 1
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	Yellow 2
43	Yellow 2
44	Yellow 2
45	Yellow 2
46	Yellow 2
47
48	Yellow 3
49	Yellow 3
50	Yellow 3
51
52	Yellow 4
53	Yellow 4
54	Yellow 4
55	Yellow 4
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82

Cautions per Year

	2014	2015
Total Cautions	4	1
Total Caution Laps	19	2
Average Caution Length (Laps)	4.8	2.0
First Caution Lap	1	1
Last Restart (Laps Remaining)	27	80

Lap Number of the Winner's Pit Stops*

Year	2014	2015
Winner	Pagenaud	Power
Stop 1	27	22
Stop 2	44	40
Stop 3	54	59

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

As predicted, a 3 stop strategy was used by race winner Will Power.  Power's longest stint this year was 23 laps, and he was saving fuel during that stint to reach the end of the race.  Contrast this mileage to last year, where drivers went 28 laps on a tank of fuel.  These results seem typical for 2015: drivers have not been able to go as far on a tank of fuel this year as they have in years past. 

I suspect that the increased downforce from the aero kits is allowing drivers to spend a larger portion of a lap under full throttle relative to last year.  Increases in horsepower delivered by both Chevrolet and Honda are probably also contributing to the shorter fuel runs.

Additional Thoughts

Helio Castroneves triggered the only caution of the race on lap 1 when he took out Scott Dixon.  Considering that similar incidents have resulted in penalties for other drivers, the stewards' decision to not penalize Castroneves gives ammunition to those who feel that race control gives Castroneves a much longer leash than they give to other drivers.  I'm not accusing IndyCar of favoritism, and I'm not saying they should officiate based on public opinion, but I'll certainly be paying attention when Castroneves gets aggressive with other drivers.  He's well known for taking 'creative' lines when others are trying to pass, and I wouldn't describe his start at Long Beach as 'sporting'.

Tony Kanaan was angry after the race because he felt that he had been unfairly passed by drivers who took evasive action to avoid the accidents on the first lap.  IndyCar allowed drivers who missed the first turn of the road course to take an alternate path to rejoin the track, instead of having to stop and turn around to rejoin the race.  The problem was that this 'alternate path' was shorter than the actual track.  Next year, IndyCar should mandate that drivers who miss the first turn come to a complete stop before rejoining the track via the alternate path.  There is a precedent for this from other series: Formula 1 (Turn 1 at Monza) and IMSA (the bus stop at Daytona International Speedway's road course) already allow drivers to simply 'stop and go' if they miss a chicane.

ABC did a nice job of broadcasting the season opener in St. Petersburg.  I wouldn't say the same about the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.  The commentating left something to be desired.  I found it insulting to heard that the 'cycle of [pit] stops [is] done' as ABC cut away to another commercial while clearly showing James Hinchcliffe and James Jakes on pit road.  The commentators also seemed surprised by the race start and restart.  Given the experience of Allen Bestwick, Eddie Cheever, and Scott Goodyear, all three should have been discussing the start and restart before they happened.

The production value was even worse than the commentating.  ABC nearly missed the start of the race because they were too busy showing the fan riding in the two-seater.  They also missed the race's only restart.  Commercials were shown during 28 of the race's 82 laps, or 35% of the race.  The table below shows when those commercials happened by highlighting them in red.  If any portion of a lap was missed because of a commercial, that lap is highlighted.

Lap	Commercials
1
2	Break 1
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10	Break 2
11	Break 2
12	Break 2
13
14
15
16
17
18
19	Break 3
20	Break 3
21
22
23
24
25
26
27	Break 4
28	Break 4
29	Break 4
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37	Break 5
38	Break 5
39	Break 5
40
41
42
43
44	Break 6
45	Break 6
46	Break 6
47
48
49
50	Break 7
51	Break 7
52	Break 7
53	Break 7
54
55
56
57
58
59
60	Break 8
61	Break 8
62	Break 8
63
64
65	Break 9
66	Break 9
67	Break 9
68
69	Break 10
70	Break 10
71	Break 10
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82

My interest in commercials was triggered by an especially painful stretch of the race from lap 60 to lap 71, when 9 of 12 laps were at least partially ruined by commercials.  To ABC's credit, it appears that they showed so many commercials here so they could show the last 11 laps of the race without interruption.  The last 11 laps of the race were the longest stretch of uninterrupted racing during the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and it makes sense that fans would care most about the last laps of the race.  I hope that commercials are more evenly distributed in the future.

I don't have data about commercials during IndyCar races, but cawsnjaws.com tracks commercials during NASCAR races.  I quickly gathered data for the last 5 Sprint Cup races on FOX, and found that FOX showed commercials during 23% of the races during those races.

Race	Minutes of Commercials	Total Minutes of Race	Percent of Race Lost to Commercials
Kansas	48	215	22%
Talladega	58	221	26%
Richmond	49	203	24%
Bristol	43	243	18%
Texas	53	232	23%
Average	50	223	23%

If ABC/ESPN can't be troubled to promote IndyCar during SportsCenter, other sporting events, or at all, the least they could do is avoid showing commercials during so much of an IndyCar race.  FOX can show commercials during 23% of a race instead of 35%, so I'm sure the 'Worldwide Leader in Sports' can do the same.

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.