Round 5: GMR Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May 12 - 13.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 5: GMR Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May 12 - 13.

This weekend will be the 9th running of this event during the Month of May, though in 2020, the IndyCar Harvest Grand Prix double-header was held on October 2nd and 3rd because of race cancellations to the original calendar, due to the Covid pandemic. With the pandemic still affecting the 2021 calendar, an additional round, the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix was held on August 14th.

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History
On October 1, 2013, after a feasibility test previously held in September, it was announced that an IndyCar race for 2014 would be held on the GP Circuit, either as a "doubleheader" event in May prior to the Indy 500,
or as a stand-alone race in the autumn/fall. Up until the announcement IndyCar hadn't raced on the GP Circuit, though Indy Lights had four times.

The inaugural race was held on May 10, 2014 and was won by Simon Pagenaud, driving a Dallara DW12- Honda HI14RTT for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The race featured a standing start, something IndyCar had
tried out for a couple of races during the previous season. The standing start was not without incident, as Pole sitter Sebastián Saavedra stalled when the lights went out and his car was rear ended by Carlos Munoz's and Mikhail Aleshin's cars, showering the track with carbon-fibre and forcing a restart.

It was decided that from 2015 onwards, the race would have a conventional rolling start. Despite that, the start of each race has been barely without incident.

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Some Trivia: Driver with the most wins:
Simon Pagenaud, 2014, 2016, 2019
Will Power, 2015, 2017, 2018.

Team with the most wins:
Team Penske, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.

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Track layout
The layout is a modified version of the one previously used for the F1 United States Grand Prix, which was held from 2000 - 2007 and by MotoGP from 2008 to 2015. The race is run clockwise, the opposite direction to the Indianapolis 500.

F1 Course, 2000-2007


IndyCar Road Course


Length:
2.439 Miles (3.925 Km)

Turns: 14

Lap record:
Will Power, May 12, 2017. 1:07.704, 129.69 Mph (208.44 Km/h).
Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6.
Verizon IndyCar Series.

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Last Year's Race:
https://www.indycar.com/news/2022/05/05-14-gmrgp-race

Pole:
Will Power,
Team Penske,
Dallara IR18-Chevrolet Indy V6

Winner:
Colton Herta,
Andretti Autosport w/ Curb Agajanian,
Dallara IR18-Honda HI22TT Indy V6,

Laps: 85
Distance: 207.315 Miles / 333.641 Km
Race Time: 2:01:56.3273
Average Speed: 90.008 Mph (144.854 Km/h)
Fastest Lap: Colton Herta - Andretti Autosport w/ Curb Agajanian. Lap 31, 70.8767 sec. 122.389 Mph, (196.966 km/h)

Caution periods: 8
Laps: 6 - 8, 17 - 19, 21 - 23, 36 - 40, 42 - 44, 57 - 65, 67 - 69, 74 - 75.

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Practice and Qualifications:

Practice 1
Friday, May 12
9:30 AM - 10:45 AM ET

Practice 2
Friday, May 12
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 1
Friday, May 12
4:00 PM - 4:10 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 2
Friday, May 12
4:20 PM - 4:30 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 2
Friday, May 12
4:40 PM - 4:50 PM ET

Qualifications - Firestone Fast 6
Friday, May 12
5:00 PM - 5:15 PM ET

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Race broadcast:
NBC, 13 May, 3:30pm ET, 7:30pm UTC, 8:30pm BST
Sky Sports F1, 8:30pm BST

[mstets]

Thanks for the intro. Here are Group one and two results.

[Adam43]

Stingy in 11th. Good stuff. Misses out though.

As does Grosjean!

[mstets]

Fast 12 results.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Christian Lundgaard on getting Pole.

[mstets]

Great job by the whole RLL team.

[Adam43]

Good job.

And there are some quick drivers that aren’t so quick. Should be fun.

[joeb]

And McLaren puts 2 drivers in top 5 with Rossi down in 9th

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

The interesting thing about these times for me is that the entire field is much closer and more competitive than F1 or F2.
The spread of the fast 12 is 0.8552 from Lundgaard to Power.
If you were 0.8551 off pole at Miami GP, you would be 4th on the grid. Only Perez, Alonso and Sainz would be faster.
Similarly, the spread from front to back, to Pedersen in 27th, is only 1.2558 seconds to 27th place.
Well. being that much slower than pole in Miami would have earned you 13th on the grid if you hadn't made it out of Q2, a lap faster than Hamilton.
If you had made it to Q3 you would have been in P9, because Max and Bottas didn't set a time.
Similarly if we compared time differences with F2 the Power time difference would have placed you in 11th, meaning the front half of the field in F2 is similarly concentrated.
But the Pedersen gap would have placed you 14th in the field meaning the talent drops away a lot more quickly F2 than in Indy car because in F2 they all have the same chassis and power plant and tyres.

Its a very simplistic evaluation but it is reasonably consistent in most of the races tso far this season for all three categories so it can be taken as a general indicator of the relative closeness of the field.

When we think someone qualifying in Indycar in 18th or 22nd are doing badly, in actual fact they are still doing much better relative to the people closer to the front than people in F1 or F2 are relative to the pole sitter in the other 2 categories.
The Indy car field is much, much, more competitive and it is a much more difficult category to advance in because the field is much tighter than F1 or F2.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

Harvey qualified 6th in the 2020 Harvest GP at IMS, and 3rd at the GMR race in 2021. I think there may be another or two but I didn't check any farther.

There wasn't much comment about tires during the broadcasts. Drivers seemed to get quick times out of used reds in qualifying but I am wondering how long they will last. Sounds like rain could be in the mix as well.

[bjohnsonsmith]

First FCY, looks like Sting Ray and Malukas made contact.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

First FCY, looks like Sting Ray and Malukas made contact.

Grosjean did a Grosjean and braked so late that he baited Sting Ray into an accident.

[Adam43]

Sting Ray. Fastest rookie (who didn’t get through to the 2nd elimination road).

[Mogster]

Probably stating the obvious but Miami Gardens is a much longer track than Indy GP, so any gaps will be extended over additional lap time. Field spread always appears much less at the shorter F1 tracks like RBR also.

[bjohnsonsmith]

The start of this race is always a bit hairy but it was a clean one this time.

[broadrun96]

Well RLL strategy has bit them in the ass again it seems

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Alex Palou, that was a dominant performance and well deserved.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Well RLL strategy has bit them in the ass again it seems

Race left me wishing that RLL had put Lundgaard on the same tire strategy as Palou. Palou is so good at managing tires and fuel that he might have dominated anyway but tire choice seemed to put Lundgaard at a big disadvantage. I thought he should have stayed out much longer on the first stint to shorten the laps he had to do on the reds. Wonder if the team brought him in because he was catching potentially lapped traffic. Were the lap times falling off, or was it just a case of not being snagged by an untimely yellow?

I don't remember what tires the other two RLL cars started on but Graham evidently had a rear tire punctured by contact with Kirkwood's front wing and had to make a pit stop at the end of lap 1?. That put him on a fuel conserve strategy for the rest of the race which didn't work out as the race stayed green from there to the finish. Very late in the race Graham still had 185 seconds of push to pass remaining as an indication of fuel conservation. To make it back to a 10th place finish from near last after 2 laps is pretty impressive. With another yellow Graham might have had a chance at some more passes. Harvey smoked the front tires going into turn one on his first stint which dropped him back considerably, then spun on his own later which put him near the tail of the field.
This race had the potential to produce results for RLL equal to what Ganassi and SPAM ultimately achieved.

[broadrun96]

And McLaren getting rough on tires, 23 laps the end the race on reds is TOUGH. 2 cars stopped on pit lane makes then nervous for a yellow.

Pato new reds
Palou used blacks
Lundgaard new blacks

Should be fun

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

And McLaren getting rough on tires, 23 laps the end the race on reds is TOUGH. 2 cars stopped on pit lane makes then nervous for a yellow.

Pato new reds
Palou used blacks
Lundgaard new blacks

Should be fun

Sorry power out so I'm 23 behind

[bjohnsonsmith]

Race Result:

I thought that was an intriguing race, with the teams working out which was the best tyre strategy.

A great result for Alex Palou and Ganassi, which puts him top of the driver's table, followed by Pato O'ward, with what was an excellent team result for Arrow McLaren. Marcus Ericsson is now down in third place. Unfortunately for RLLR it didn't quite work out, which will be disappointing.

[Adam43]

Yes, a good race. Could have done with a couple of yellows to spice it up, but otherwise good

Team could have helped Lundgaard more - for instance Rahal could have helped more.

Palou looked the strongest.

[fieldodreams79]

I enjoyed it. Not great. Not terrible.

I know playing "in the danger zone" with yellows in hindsight is easy, but thought that first stint on hards, they should have just let Lundgaard go as long as possible. Pulled the trigger too early and they never recovered from it.

Also thought the penalty on Kirkwood was a little harsh. Thought it was Power's fault at first, forcing him off but they both went too deep and Kyle just got loose on the grass. Racing deal.

[broadrun96]

Yeah, the first yellow threw RRL for a loop and they couldn't get back on track. Especially used reds later vs new ones for the rest

And definitely agree on Power/Kirkwood, if anyone that was on Will pushing him out and it wasn't like Kirkwood was well off and spearing back over a corner there. But wasn't a great weekend for officials appointing blame to drivers