We are now ten races into the IndyCar season with just six races left to run. There have been seven different winners with three drivers winning two races each. Chevy engines have powered eight of the winners with Honda drivers claiming two victories. The two races that were won by Honda powered cars were rain shortened affairs that were red flagged at the finish. With the exception of the first leg of the Motor City Grand Prix, Chevy engines have dominated the podium finishes. As the last six races are run, it is reasonable to expect the Chevy engines to continue to dominate the remainder of the series. The Honda engine can’t match the power of the Chevys.
As the 2015 season has unfolded, one of the stories has been Team Penske’s failure to dominate as predicted before the 2015 series began. The Captain had four of the top Indy Car drivers in his stable. Helio Castroneves, Will Power, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Simon Pagenard were all wearing team Penske colors. They seemed to have figured out the new aero kits and the Penske eye for detail always made sure that nothing was left to chance. In truth, the Penske cars have dominated practice session and qualifying. However, the team only has three victories, with Montoya taking two and Power grabbing one. Pagenard and the usually reliable Castroneves are winless — so far. This is not to say that the year has been a disaster for Captain Roger and his crew — far from it. Montoya leads the current series in championship points accrued and his Indy 500 winner with teammate Will Power in second place certainly is nothing to sneeze at, but the fact is that Team Penske has not dominated as expected. Will Power, in particular, has been a question mark. This was supposed to be Power’s year and in fairness it must be said that he has had the quickest car during the year and has as often as not been the best qualifier. He has four pole starts so far this year and two second place starts. However, when the green flag has dropped, he has found himself being out-driven by other drivers and suffering from a string of bad luck that is almost unheard of for a Penske driver. His collision with teammate Castroneves in the second Detroit race is proof of that. Power is number two in points right now. A Penske car has started from the pole in every race thus far this year.
Scott Dixon is on the march for Team Ganassi. He has two wins this season and he always seems to wait for the second half of the season to find his mojo. Dixon kicked butt at Texas but his late race fade at Indianapolis was puzzling. He wants a second Indy 500 win badly, so in winning the Indy pole this year 2015 he seemed to be in a position to claim a second victory. For most of the race he was in hot contention but at the end, tire wear concerns and fuel consumption issues forced him to drop back and he held on to a fourth place finish. Dixon is clearly Penske’s top challenger and will be in the thick of the series. Dixon’s Texas win was his 37th Indycar win, which ranks him fifth on the all time Indycar wins list with just two wins behind Al Unser Sr. It’s conceivable that he could catch Big Al sometime this season and move into fourth place.
The new kid on the block as far as racing success in the series is Team CFH Racing, born of a merger between Ed Carpenter Racing and Fisher-Hartman Racing. The team’s lead driver is 24-year-old Tennessean Josef Newgarden. Boss Ed Carpenter drives the ovals, and Italian driver Luca Flippi drives the road course events. After winning the Indy Lights championship with Sam Schmidt Racing in 2011, Newgarden has been with Fisher Hartman from the 2012 season on and has shown promise but always seems to fall short. The big difference this year is his Chevrolet engine, which has given him the power boost to win his first two Indy car events and has put him in the rising star position. Flippi finished second at Toronto and could have possibly won but he elected to have his teammate’s back and give CFH a dream finish. Since there are no more road course events this year, he is done but CFH will remember his loyalty and he will have a ride next year. Newgarden has not fared as well on ovals as he has on the road course with fourths at the 2013 Pocono and 2014 Milwaukee races as his best oval finishes.
As for Honda, this been a black year for the Honda teams. The Lead Honda team, Andretti Autosports, has had one win — the rain-shortened first leg of the Motor City Grand Prix at Belle Isle won by Carlos Munoz. Marco Andretti is the only driver to have completed every lap of competition this year and is currently in seventh place in the championship standings with a second behind teammate Munoz as his best finish. Marco’s last win was at the 2011 Iowa 300. Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2014 Indy 500 champion, has had a disastrous season. With a fifth at the Alabama Grand Prix as his best showing of the season, he simply hasn’t been in contention for any race this season.
Graham Rahal, driving for his Dad Bobby and Rahal-Letterman Racing, has been the most consistent Honda driver in 2015. He has three podium finishes and a fifth at Indy. Graham won the second Indy Car race of his career at St. Petersburg in 2008 but has been unable to win a race since then. He might be able to change that, but probably not this year.
Rookie Gabby Chavez, who drove for Team Weekly View at Indy, is currently the highest-ranking rookie driver in the points race at 15th position with 197 championship points. A ninth in the second Motor City Grand Prix is his best finish.
A word about the Chevrolet engines. The engines are really manufactured by Ilmor racing engines. Ilmor has been producing engines for Indy Cars, Formula One, motorcycles and the rest of competitive automotive sports since 1983 as well as for military and defense. Ilmor’s main plant is in North Hamptonshire, England but they have an American factory in Redford, Michigan. Roger Penske is a partner in the American division. Chevrolet supplies the company with the basic engine block but the rest is manufactured by Ilmor Engineering. So the engine is a “Chevy” but a truly hybrid one. Ilmor has built engines for Honda and Mercedes Benz in the past.
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