#who are your people dale coyne????!!!!!

[molliemoo3]

The closer we get to race day the more I'm convinced Dale Coyne are just rocking up to practice 1 with some guys and not telling us who

[theindycarblog-blog]

IndyCar Detroit Race #1 Preview

Here are the major talking points as the Verizon IndyCar Series heads to Detroit for the only double-header weekend on the 2017 calendar.

1: Major shuffle of the points standings. If you entered the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 inside the top 5 in points, then you had a bad result in the race; unless your name happens to be Helio Castroneves. The 500 is one of two races this season that awards double points, the other race being the season finale at Sonoma. So if a driver had a bad day at Indianapolis this past Sunday, then it hurts them twice as much in the points. As a result of the double points, Will Power and Josef Newgarden fell outside the top 5 in points, Simon Pagenaud lost the points lead to Helio, and Scott Dixon falls into a 3-way tie for second in points when he could’ve easily left Indiana with the points lead. Those drivers lost out in Indianapolis, but here are the drivers who made massive gains in the points at The Greatest Spectacle in Racing: Takuma Sato jumps into that 3-way tie for second in points only eleven points behind Helio for the championship lead, Alexander Rossi jumps to fifth in points, Tony Kanaan jumps to sixth in points just two points behind Rossi and Ed Jones cracks the top-10 in points after having a very solid and underrated Month of May. How will this major shuffling change the tone of the rest of the season? The IndyCar series has already seen six different winners in the first six races. And we still have yet to see victories from Helio, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Alexander Rossi and Graham Rahal. So far, the fans have been treated to a wonderful mix of winners this season with no clear championship favorite. 

2: Honda’s reliability. Unofficially, by my count, we had approximately 10 Honda engine failures during the Month of May (Indy GP included.) We know that Honda was really pushing hard to have more power than Chevy, and they may have succeeded, but Honda has lost a lot of reliability as a result. I maybe wrong, but I can’t recall a single Chevrolet engine failing the whole month; or the whole season thus far for that matter. And if we think back to the Long Beach race, all four Andretti Autosport teams retired from the race with mechanical issues or engine failures, most notably Rossi while running a net P3 and Hunter-Reay while running P2. That means that these reliability issues aren’t necessarily an “Indy-only” problem. It’s going to be interesting to see if Honda dials back the power a little bit to ensure that their cars make it to the finish of both races this weekend. We’ve seen in the past how a bad weekend in Detroit can be the beginning of a downward spiral as far as the championship goes; just look at RHR’s weekend at Detroit in 2014 after winning Indy the week before. Talk about a reality check!

3: Esteban Gutierrez. With Sebastien Bourdais out for awhile due to injuries he sustained in a qualifying accident at Indy, people wondered who was going to replace him until he recovered. James Davison got the nod for the 500 and had a solid drive going before he crashed with less than 20 laps to go. But considering that Dale Coyne Racing lost Bourdais’ car in qualifying, Bourdais’ engine during the Indy GP and then Davison crashed late in the race, it’s safe to assume that the Coyne team, being one of the smallest teams in IndyCar, would need someone to bring sponsorship if they wanted to drive the #18 car for the rest of the season. That’s when former Formula One driver and current Formula-e driver, Esteban Gutierrez, took the opportunity to drive in the IndyCar series. It will be very interesting to see how Gutierrez does in his first weekend in IndyCar, especially since he’s making his series debut at a very bumpy street circuit on a double header weekend. Granted, he has three full seasons of Formula 1 experience, two with the Sauber team and one with the American Haas-F1 team. He also has Formula-e experience, and he’s won races in both GP3 and GP2, but those European circuits are all very smooth. Even the Monaco circuit, which uses city streets, fits into this category. It will be interesting to see how Esteban fares not only in the competitive IndyCar series, but also on the bumpy streets of Detroit. If he impresses the team, could we see Gutierrez run the rest of the season for Dale Coyne? And then could he be heading for a full time IndyCar ride in 2018? This weekend will be the first chance for Esteban to catch the attention of these IndyCar team owners.

There are plenty of things to talk about as the focus for these teams now shifts from the Indianapolis 500 to the season championship. Once the checkered flag flies after the second race in Detroit this weekend, the season will be about at the halfway point. Teams will become desperate to earn good results in attempt to make a Scott-Dixon-like last second lunge towards the championship. The clock is ticking and time is running short for teams outside the top-10 in the points.