Written by Archie O’Reilly
After a hiatus since 2015, IndyCar has returned on-track for a race weekend at the iconic Milwaukee Mile oval for a doubleheader nine years in waiting.
The first day of track action for IndyCar started with two 15-minute half-field group sessions - intended to rubber in the low line - before the only 90 minutes of all-skate running ahead of qualifying for both races on Saturday afternoon. Teams will then turn their attention to the first race - run on Saturday evening - before a second race on Sunday afternoon.
A full-field test in June - the only complete recent experience for IndyCar at Milwaukee - was headed by a Team Penske one-two-three. Chip Ganassi Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing tested at a later date due to a Le Mans 24 Hours clash for their drivers.
Fast forward to this race weekend and Josef Newgarden led the field in Friday practice for Penske with a 158.762 mile per hour fastest average lap speed. Scott McLaughlin was fifth and Will Power, sitting second in the championship, was 11th - two places behind Ganassi’s points leader Alex Palou.
Palou’s teammate Scott Dixon was second and 0.682 mph behind Newgarden - both drivers with past experience at Milwaukee. Arrow McLaren had Pato O’Ward third after a tough Portland weekend, followed by Meyer Shank Racing (MSR)’s Felix Rosenqvist.
Kyffin Simpson, 26th in the order, was the only Ganassi car not in the top 10 as fellow oval rookies Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist sat sixth and seventh. Sandwiching Palou in ninth was David Malukas - a second MSR car in the top 10 - and the third-place driver in the championship, Andretti Global’s Colton Herta.
Jack Harvey produced the standout performance of the session in 12th for Dale Coyne Racing, standing up to some of the quickest cars after a tough year for the No.18 Honda.
Here are some of the key storylines to emerge from the start of the penultimate race weekend of the IndyCar season…
Restart line clarified after Gateway
A news item from the day was the issuance of a painted line to signify the end of the restart zone. This followed the perception that Newgarden caused the late crash at World Wide Technology Raceway with a particularly slow and late restart.
“[The rule] didn’t change - they’re just painting it,” Newgarden said. “There’s no difference. If you read the fine print, there’s no rule change. I loved when it was brought up. That’s a great point. Just to make it non-subjective.
“We get a greyed-out zone - it’s a little subjective of where it starts and where it finishes. It’s a pretty big zone. You put a line - there’s no subjectiveness.
“I don’t think the restart procedure needs to change. They’ve made some good changes this year, which were provoked by last year - the jumpiness that we’ve had for 24 months on restarts. This [painted line] probably should have been done in the beginning. I just think it’s a clarification more than anything, which is good for everybody.”
IndyCar’s “massive” Mexico miss
A hot topic within the paddock has been the fact that, despite Pato O’Ward’s loyal fanbase, IndyCar appears to have lost out on a race in Mexico to NASCAR this past week. But why is IndyCar not the premier American series venturing south?
“I think you should ask Penske Entertainment that question, not me,” Graham Rahal said in a media call on Tuesday. “I’m all about international expansion.”
When questioned about where he would like IndyCar to visit, Newgarden said on Friday he was “sad I missed that era when they were running” in Japan and that would be his ideal location. He also earmarked Spa-Francorchamps and Brands Hatch.
“Mexico,” was Dixon’s answer to the same question. “I think that’s a massive miss. I don’t know how that happens.”
Newgarden still feels “there’s some great stuff in the pipeline” and that the series has “a lot of momentum”. But there is a sense that an international race would be gladly accepted by drivers.
The pushing off-track penalty debate
Dixon was embroiled in a controversial moment last time out in Portland. He was pushed wide by Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood on Lap 1, meaning he lost momentum and was freight-trained heading onto the backstretch.
Dixon was eventually collected by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi, leading to a rare opening-lap retirement after heavy contact with the armco barrier. But after the incident, speaking to NBC Sports, Kirkwood caught the brunt of Dixon’s blame.
“We spoke today,” Dixon said. “I don’t know. It was definitely an F-you move. I explained that to him. That’s kind of amateur when you’re doing stuff like that.
“It’s also how the series allows you to race. So I don’t know what the answer is, to be honest. In my way of racing, the outside, the white line, there’s a wall there. But you just can’t run somebody completely off.
“We saw the chain effect of what happened there. Then with Pietro, Pietro really had nowhere to go. But it was because of the 27 [Kirkwood] and the issue we had. I said I wouldn’t race him like that. That was kind of the end of it.”
It has been documented that Kirkwood visited race control immediately after the race to complain that this sort of racing had been encouraged by the lack of willingness to penalise drivers for such offences. Dixon does not want to race that way but nor does Kirkwood; the sense is that the latter feels it may be necessary to keep up given it is allowed.
Dixon did not bother to voice any similar complaints to those making the decisions.
“I didn’t speak to race control,” he said. “I figured it would be on deaf ears.”
Newgarden and Dixon’s title fight role
Dixon’s incident in Portland likely put an end to any meaningful title fight, dropping him 101 points off teammate Palou’s lead. Newgarden is 131 points back from Palou. So with Palou leading the way and Power second, could their teammates help their cause?
“Look, what I told [Power], I said it’s too early now,” Newgarden said. “If it comes down to the finale... I’ve had great support from him in the past. Thinking about my first championship, 2017, he shadowed me the whole race.
“You’ve to be really careful, though. This is not me being cagey, it’s just the truth. If you start trying to orchestrate too much, you put yourself into a mess. I’m not going to do that. I don’t think as a team we’re going to try to do that.
“Logically, you come down to the finale, we’re in Nashville, we have a car that can seal the championship - I’m not in it - I'm going to have his back all the way, 100 percent. But we’re not in Nashville yet. If we try and get too clever about the way we run our team, I think you put yourself in a bad situation.
“We need to go out and do the job we always do. We’re going to race each other hard but we need to take care of each other… When it comes down to the very end, hopefully we’re in a position to seal the championship. I’ll make sure that we get the job done then.”
Dixon concurred with Newgarden’s explanation with the prospect of him helping Palou.
“I think when it makes sense, it makes sense, otherwise you’ve got to focus on your own thing,” Dixon said. “You always give your own teammates more room. You race them differently than you maybe do some other competitors in some situations.
“Does it emphasise when it’s for a championship? Yeah, a little bit.”
How Milwaukee compares to the past
Rahal theorised pre-event that experience at Milwaukee - something he possesses with a pair of podiums and front-row starts - will not count for much.
“Too much has changed,” he said, “And honestly the guys are just too good now. It’s not like it used to be. I was looking at the 2007 grid at Portland last week; 17 cars - we thought that was a lot. Last week there were 28.
“You just look at the depth of the field now versus the depth of the field then, it’s a whole different ballgame. So everybody will be on par quickly.”
Newgarden said the feeling is somewhat similar but also somewhat not after hitting the track for the first time for practice.
“It’s different compared to 2015 when we left,” he said. “We had a huge aero kit, big downforce. You were pretty much just flat. We’re [now] way heavier. From that standpoint, it’s completely different.
“But I think it’s still Milwaukee. The general traits of this track are very much there underneath the surface. It’s just a different car: alot less downforce, it’s heavier, requires a different setup, different finesse. You’ve got to look after things differently than you did 10 years ago.”
Rasmussen’s crash late in practice
Christian Rasmussen was impressively only one position behind more experienced teammate Rinus VeeKay in the speed charts in his second IndyCar oval event. He starred in the Indianapolis 500 in May but had not been scheduled to run any other ovals.
But this week, the reigning Indy NXT champion was chosen by team owner Ed Carpenter to step back into the No.20 Chevy for the three oval rounds to complete the season amid a Leaders’ Circle battle. Carpenter has suffered incidents in the three oval races since the Indy 500 without qualifying any higher than 21st.
Unfortunately for Rasmussen, his practice session ended with wall contact in Turn 2 after getting up high in the marbles. The Dane did at least run the majority of the session before the crash in the closing 10 minutes but the right-side damage on his car was significant.
“That’s a weird one,” Dixon said in reaction. “Almost like he went straight ahead. I don’t see how that happened.”
What could the races look like?
Heading into the weekend, Rahal suggested Milwaukee “was always conducive” to side-by-side racing. That was not the case for the July doubleheader at the largely single-groove Iowa Speedway, where there were “a lot of nerves between the series and Firestone” due to tyre problems in the pre-event test.
But the recent Gateway race delivered one of the best short oval races in recent memory as “confidence grew” for drivers to run two lanes across the race. The hope is that this will be replicated at the decidedly flat one-mile Milwaukee track.
“It’s hard to tell from these sessions,” Dixon said. “I think even from St. Louis, you didn’t really get a great idea. Then as soon as the start, when people used that second lane, it was strong for the whole night. I’d say in the low line run, it never really got any better. At least it didn’t for me.”
Newgarden said Dixon’s evaluation was correct in his mind. Adding to that, he suggested there is “a preferred line” and “an alternate line that’s not great but usable”; with “some [tyre] dropoff”, the expectation is that the racing could be good.
“Sometimes you sort of get an inkling on what you think is going to happen, then things just kind of shift as you get through the race,” Newgarden said. “I think Gateway was a very surprising result - I was super surprised the way it raced. Until we get through the first [race], it’s really tough to predict…
“I think you’ll have a big separation is one thing that I will say. I think you’ll have cars that are really not good - like really not good - and you’ll have some cars that are really good. That’s one thing I’d predict.”
Despite IndyCar trying to bring the lower line in and Rahal’s positivity, Dixon does feel drivers could yet “be stuck at the top” of the track.
“It definitely will be tough,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any moment you’re doing a lap here and it feels easy. You’re constantly correcting, trying to manage how much grip you’ve got, how much you think you’ve got.”
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