Pruett’s Cooldown Lap: Texas

The team that tested at Texas Motor Speedway nine days before the start of practice went on to finish P1-2-4. Chip Ganassi Racing, the team that was supposed to test with Team Penske but opted not to come back for the poor-weather make-up outing, rallied to find results that were as good as to be expected considering the depth of knowledge they forfeited to their rivals as its drivers placed P3-5-6-7.

Eventual race winner Josef Newgarden felt so confident about his chances after the test, he and the No. 2 Chevy team cut their participation in Free Practice 1 short after turning just 16 laps.

“For us, it was a matter of trying to get in and out on this session,” he told RACER after climbing from the gorgeous PPG-liveried car. “We were obviously here last week, which the idea was to give us a little better head start, so hopefully that that ends up coming true for the rest of today and tomorrow.”

It not only came true -- it also showed how much testing right before the race was a smart and powerful choice that paid off when it mattered.

Penske’s hard launch into the new season is the major story to follow. Of six podium spots available across the two opening seasons, the team took taken four podiums and both wins. Scott McLaughlin, the only driver to stand on the St. Petersburg and Texas podiums, is the other big story of the early season as the New Zealander came within one corner of being the only winner in 2022.

Related to Penske’s rise, CGR has not looked like it was capable of matching Penske at any point over the opening rounds, nor has Andretti Autosport, with the possible exception of Colton Herta in the St. Pete race before his car was mistakenly short-filled, and CGR’s Alex Palou who chased McLaughlin hard in the closing laps of the street race but couldn’t out-run the Kiwi.

It’s been the downsized three-car Team Penske effort and a bunch of rivals who are missing what it takes to keep McLaughlin, Newgarden or Will Power behind them at the checkered flag. How will Penske’s strong start to the year play out in the coming races? If it’s anything like their output in February and March, CGR’s quest for a third consecutive title is in serious jeopardy.

THE RUN THROUGH

We covered plenty of topics in standalone stories after the race, so before we jump into more new topics, here’s the rest of the post-event content from Sunday to digest:

HEY MAN, NICE STATS

Scott McLaughlin led 49 of 100 laps on the way to victory in St. Pete, added 186 of 248 laps at Texas to his tally, which totals 235 of 348 combined laps and 68 percent of all that have been run so far.

And according to IndyCar, there were 461 total passes at Texas with 284 for position. Passes in the single XPEL 375 race more than doubled what last year’s twin Texas races generated with 453 total and 240 for position.

THE WAY-TOO-EARLY LOOK AT CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

We’ve already seen some interesting developments in the championship standings after two of 17 races. It’s too early to make a bunch of grand declarations, but it’s also hard to ignore these items of interest:

• Despite a comparatively quiet start, Alex Palou’s title defense has him holding third, two points behind Will Power. He’s started off both weekends well outside of where he wanted to be and has rallied on both occasions to make meaningful improvements by the checkered flag. That’s the kind of trait that got teammate Scott Dixon to six championships, Dario Franchitti to four, etc.

Marcus Ericsson, oval ace? The ex-F1 man was in the mix up front most of the day. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images

• Marcus Ericsson is P5 and sure looks like he’s a threat for an oval win this year. The Swede and his race engineer Brad Goldberg are becoming hard to ignore as one of the most effective combinations in the series. Look back to 2019 when Ericsson arrived from F1 with minimal fanfare and had an unremarkable rookie season with Arrow McLaren SP, and that guy is nowhere to be found today.

• Things got a bit messy for Rinus VeeKay with making it to the end of the race on three stops, but nonetheless, he persevered and held onto P10 which had him tied on points with Colton Herta for P7 in the standings.

• Speaking of ties, Jimmie Johnson is equal on points with Romain Grosjean. Who would have predicted that after two races?

• In a similar vein, is there anyone who bet on Pato O’Ward holding P13 entering Long Beach? And his Texas pole-winning AMSP teammate Felix Rosenqvist being down in P19? Oof.

• Respect is due to Takuma Sato and the Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing team for their better-than-expected debut. P14, two spots behind former RLL teammate Graham Rahal, is promising.

• Minus the part where he was collateral damage in Devlin DeFrancesco’s big mistake that also claimed Rahal, Helio Castroneves would be higher up than P18. Meyer Shank Racing teammate Simon Pagenaud is P9.

• With one run to P9 at Texas, Santino Ferrucci holds P20 in the championship ahead of Conor Daly who was dealt a pair of speeding penalties that weren’t of his making on Sunday.

• Kyle Kirkwood’s crash has made life difficult with P24 in the standings.

• Same for Jack Harvey who is P25 following the Texas DNS.

• I didn’t know it was possible for Alexander Rossi to experience a worse start than he had last year where he was P16 after two rounds. With the St. Pete strategy failure and the Texas electrical failure, Rossi’s P27, two points ahead of teammate DeFrancesco whose IndyCar debut has been unkind.

Rossi’s woes were just the start of a day to forget for Andretti Autosport. Motorsport Images

ABOUT THAT BRUTAL DAY FOR ANDRETTI

The cause of Rossi’s early exit is said to be the chafing and severing of the chassis loom wire that connects to the alternator on the No. 27 Honda, and with the alternator working in isolation from the rest of the electrical system, it was unable to charge the battery and keep the engine and the rest of the electronics up and running.

As for Grosjean’s exit which followed Rossi’s retirement, the No. 28’s engine did expire in a definitive manner. The root of the problem was up for debate, but there’s no question as to whether a fresh 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 mill will be going in the car for Long Beach.

CLOSE ONE FOR CALLUM

Juncos Hollinger Racing rookie Callum Ilott posted the latest evidence of why the debate on whether IndyCar should ditch the aeroscreen for a halo is a waste of time.

https://twitter.com/callum_ilott/status/1505569551370661889?s=20&t=4sw2NHhrEvQ0qtD9-q5mkQ

On a Texas-related note, I’m not sure the Briton did anything overly spectacular in the race, and that’s not a bad thing. Fellow rookies Kyle Kirkwood and Christian Lundgaard weren’t as fortunate as both tagged the wall. Jimmie Johnson was best among the IndyCar oval rookies in sixth and among the true rookies, David Malukas was tops in P11. Ilott, in his first oval race of any kind, used his smarts and skills to place P16, one spot behind Pato O’Ward.

Ilott and the JHR team also hold P16 in the championship, which is rather impressive.

SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR

Felix Rosenqvist was walking on air after earning pole for AMSP. O’Ward was a surprise to start down in P10, but both were in great positions in the race -- in the top five -- until their lap 103 pit stops were identical in error and consequence. The AMSP duo slid into their pit boxes and went long, with O’Ward hammering his mechanic and left-front tire changer Norm Hornitschek. Rosenqvist was pushed back into the box, but his right-rear wheel took two shots to tighten and with their combined time losses, it was game over.

Rosenqvist would retire 25 laps later with a mechanical malady while O’Ward circulated one lap down and claimed P15, sandwiched between JR Hildebrand and Ilott. Two races, four changes for a decent outcome from the Nos. 5 and 7 Chevys, and the best AMSP has produced is a P12 from O’Ward at St. Pete. Strange start for a team that I expected to be back in the front-running mix.

KIRKWOOD IS RIDICULOUS

Sure, his race ended prematurely with a crash, but after passes like these, nobody at A.J. Foyt Racing can be mad at the kid.

https://twitter.com/KKirkwoodRacing/status/1506077331445624833?s=20&t=yNTJ4py2pFF3TBAPPdm91g

NEXT TIME, LET’S GET SERIOUS

Assuming we go back to Texas, it would be nice to see all of the teams take part in an extended rubbering-in session. Of note, Andretti and Ganassi declined the invitation. With the benefit of the session being hailed by the race winner and others -- some of whom did nothing to help apply the second-lane rubber -- I can only hope those who watched from the sidelines during that 30-minute outing will join in and be part of a better solution if TMS remains on the calendar.

HONORING ELFORD

Two teams carried tribute stickers to the late, great driver Vic Elford. Although Elford raced everywhere but IndyCar, that didn’t stop Ricardo Juncos and Bobby Rahal from applying Elford tribute stickers to their cars at Texas. Many IMSA teams did the same at the 12 Hours of Sebring to celebrate the life of Quick Vic.

Salute to Quick Vic. Image by Marshall Pruett

THE CARTOON ANVIL

Struck Alexander Rossi and didn’t stop until all four Andretti cars were mollywhopped. Easily one of the worst cartoon anvil attacks I’ve seen.

MR. INVISIBLE

Just an epically bizarre weekend to see Ed Carpenter qualify P21, feature at no point during the race, go a lap down, and end up P13. Of all the drivers I thought might be at the race but not really in the race, Carpenter never came to mind.

THE GOLDEN BOWLING BALL GOES TO…

As I often say about the Golden Bowling Ball, they tend to hand themselves out to the winners, so for his steeeeeeeee-rike at Texas, come on down Devlin DeFrancesco.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Good on McLaughlin for anointing his new HANS device with another Robin Miller sticker. He applied one late last year but got a new HANS for 2022 and needed another sticker to carry with him for the rest of the season. Although Miller wasn’t along for the ride with McLaughlin when he won at St. Pete, there’s no doubt it will happen before we’re done in September. Without question, Miller would have been on the phone after the Texas race, raving about how quickly Scotty Mac has become a beast on ovals.

McLaughlin's salute to Robin Miller. Image by Marshall Pruett

• USF2000 race winner and New York film student Myles Rowe spent his first weekend working as a media intern for the CoForce PR firm, which services a number of teams and major entities in the paddock. Rowe shot some of CoForce’s clients and edited the work for some of the video content you might’ve seen come out of Texas.

Rowe at work. Image by Marshall Pruett

• When was the last time reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou was last among the four CGR drivers in a race that he finished? Never -- Texas was a first for the Spaniard who trailed Ericsson, Dixon, and Johnson at the checkered flag.

• Former Champ Car driver Charlie Nearburg was a guest of AMSP last weekend. The Texas oil man has become an avid vintage racer, putting his ex-Williams and McLaren F1 cars, and Porsche and AAR sports cars through the paces at some of the bigger historic events each year. He was all smiles atop the AMSP viewing stand.

• Josef Newgarden loves to call JR Hildebrand -- with his flowing hair and Keanu Reeves-esque beard -- "John Wick" in deference to the movie character, but my favorite nickname from Newgarden for Hildebrand is "Pit Lane Jesus."

https://twitter.com/marshallpruett/status/1504928272580329488?s=20&t=_RP7eA66zi7p_SKDeAaJzA