IndyCar: Houston notebook

SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO?

Simon Pagenaud burst onto the IndyCar scene in 2011 as the go-to replacement driver for two different teams. Signed by Sam Schmidt to a full-time deal in 2012 with more than a little bit of urging from Honda, the Frenchman has helped transform Schmidt Peterson Motorsports into a top contender, placing fifth in the championship as a rookie and third last year in his sophomore season.

He's at it again in 2014, taking a win at the Grand Prix of Indy – this third IndyCar victory to date – and currently holds fourth in the standings. As RACER's Robin Miller revealed earlier in the week, Simon's steady presence in the top-5 has drawn attention from one of the sport's heavy hitters, Andretti Autosport, and as they continue to speak, it's possible the open-wheel ace, who led the time sheets on Friday, could be on Michael Andretti's shopping list.

I've confirmed that if a Pagenaud-to-Andretti situation comes to fruition, it would be as a fifth car, not at the expense of one of the current drivers. A potential lineup of Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti, Carlos Munoz and Pagenaud could move Andretti Autosport into a class of its own.

As they sit in the championship right now, RHR (third), Simon (fourth), Marco (fifth) and Munoz (sixth) are already offering a glimpse of what 2015 mike look like under Mikey's tent...

What do you think? Should Simon stay with the merry band of overachievers at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, or take his talents to Andretti Land? And if he does depart for Michael's team, who should Schmidt pursue to lead the team in Pagenaud's absence?

BEST METRIC OF THE YEAR

If you're a fan of the facts and figues surrounding the Verizon IndyCar Series, you might have been interested in items like Indy cars setting the fastest qualifying speeds at Indy in a decade and ratings being up for IndyCar broadcasts on NBCSN, but the one that impresses me the most involves an off-track initiative led by one of the stars of the sport.

"We've raised a large sum so far this year and think we'll go even higher before the year's over," said Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay, who organizes The Yellow Party charity benefits that aid Racing For Cancer. "It's been a really amazing success so far this year and we just had one [Thursday night] at I'm really excited about what's going on here in Houston with the MD Anderson Cancer Center and all the great work they're doing towards cancer research."

ONE YEAR LATER FOR CGR

Looking across the two red Target cars and the pair of entries for Charlie Kimball and Ryan Briscoe, managing life after 10.6.2013 has been about constant adjustments and adaptations. Franchitti's crash required the team to find a short-term replacement, and with his ensuing retirement due to crash-related injuries, a long-term fix was needed. A plan to add a fourth car for 2014 had been in the works for quite some time, and that also went through a number of changes before it was finalized.

The effects continue to grow smaller, but Franchitti's crash is still evident through the ongoing ripples it caused for the defending IndyCar Series champions The team itself – comprised mostly of loyal Ganassi veterans – isn't as loose and relaxed as they were before 10.6.2013.

Asked to reflect on how CGR has evolved – for better or worse – since Franchitti's crash set so many changes in motion, managing director Mike Hull shared a thoughtful reflection on the topic:

"I think more than anything happens, in this case in our racing life, anything happens in your life ends up demanding unforeseen change. It affects people in different ways within your family if it's a family thing or, in this case, within the racing organization, within the organization itself. I think we're a pretty strong group of people. We effectively made big changes for 2014, which some were of our choosing and some weren't. Adding a fourth car with Ryan Briscoe and a great sponsor in NTT Data, certainly. Adding a great driver with great historical lineage in Tony Kanaan and adding Chevrolet, for that matter. I think we've probably done three things that effectively changed the way we run racecars here. I think we're starting to realize a forward direction after all three of those things have happened to us.

"And then there's the most obvious answer to the question: the change that came with Dario. First of all about Dario, our expectation was that Dario was going to come back. If you think about it, we weren't planning on him not coming back after Houston. We knew he wouldn't race at Fontana and we chose a really, really good race driver to be in the 10 car at Fontana with Alex Tagliani. He got up to the front and ran really well at Fontana in the 10 car, but our long-term plan was for Dario to come back. The doctors had told us when he left Indianapolis that he would be able to drive a car most likely by the first race, which was St. Petersburg. All the planning we did, a lot of the personal things we did, the direction we took, the kind of test plan we entered into, some of the R&D projects that we worked on, a lot of things that we did relied upon the fact that we were going to have the addition of Ryan Briscoe, but we were also going to have the other three drivers returning to us, the same team we'd had for many years.

"That didn't happen. That happened pretty late in the game for us in terms of preparation. And we had already signed Tony, quite frankly, to drive what became the 8 car. Let's face it: We had set our path going down a certain direction and we kind of had to turn the ship in a different direction once Dario was told that he would not be able to physically drive a racecar any longer because of his concussion issues. There's a little bit more to it than just, 'Oh my God, you guys put Tony Kanaan and Ryan Briscoe in the team early on in the winter and you were ready to go.' Unfortunately, that wasn't actually the case at all. In fact, we did a test, I think it was in November or early December at Sebring and Tagliani drove the car for us, so even at that late of a stage, there was a big question mark without and answer for us. You know us well enough to understand we don't do many things that have big, unanswered questions hanging over them for very long...

"I think that we turned things around, we began to turn things around after the first of the year and change direction and reposition ourselves internally with some of the projects that we work on and a few of the people in relationship to the drivers that we had available to us starting in January. If we had to do it all over again and had a crystal ball, maybe we would've done things slightly differently in terms of preparation. But in terms of people and drivers, we are very satisfied with what we have since Houston unfolded the way it did for us."

THE ITALIAN JOB

Italy's Luca Filippi made quite an impression during a brief, four-race stint with Bryan Herta Autosport last season, and for those who know the 28-year-old's resume, his pace on Friday at Houston should come as anything but a surprise. P12 in the first practice session – three spots ahead of his teammate Graham Rahal – and an impressive P4 in the afternoon, Filippi showed why he was such a priority asset when Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing first signed an option on him in 2012.

Back with RLLR (ABOVE, LAT photo) after finding two sponsors, IMPCO and FightSMA.org, the 2011 GP2 runner-up has another four-race stint to try and convince more sponsors and teams to keep him in IndyCar.

Adding to the narrative, the last time Filippi drove a racecar was last December, making his go-go-go performance on Friday even more impressive.

LESSONS FROM THE GP of INDY

One of the major takeaways from the standing start fiasco at May's inaugural Grand Prix of Indy was the need for drivers to perform pre-race practice starts on the exact surface where it will count when the lights go out.

Drivers were given 15 minutes after today's final practice session to test the surface conditions, judge the available traction, clutch bite points, and gain experience on what to expect Saturday (Sunday's race is a rolling start), and according to the most recent winner of the Indy 500, the exercise was worth the extra time and effort.

LONE STAR LIVERIES

Two teams have come to race with revised or thematic liveries for this weekend's double-header, starting with Team Penske's Helio Castroneves. In deference to the primary sponsor of the Grand Prix of Houston, the Brazilian's fetching "Yellow Submarine" Pennzoil paint scheme from the Indy 500 is back. If it helps, we'd welcome seeing the No. 3 Chevy dressed in Pennzoil's colors on a more frequent basis.

Chip Ganassi Racing's Charlie Kimball has reached back to his rookie IndyCar season, bringing a revised shade of green from 2011 to celebrate the launch of his sponsor's newest product, the Levemir FlexTouch insulin delivery device.

"The Levemir green might be familiar to some who remember my first Indy car that incorporated it into the orange," said Kimball. "This is a new item, the FlexTouch instead of the FlexPen, so one of the thoughts was to integrate this product launch with the Race For Insulin campaign here in Houston."

Kimball also said the livery could appear at a few more events this season.

MISCELLANEOUS

• After having Team Penske technical director Ron Ruzewski serve as his race engineer through the first eight rounds, Juan Montoya is working directly with new full-time race engineer Brian Campe starting this weekend in Houston.
  
  
• INDYCAR has a prototype wrist brace it has been bringing around for drivers to evaluate. With heavy kick-back through the steering wheel over the curbing, the brace could be a smart device for use by drivers with wrist injuries.