Indeed. And Bourdais is still set to miss Milwaukee, as he got a ride in some LMP team for Le Mans.
At the end of the day an Andretti entry remains pretty much competitive if put in the right hands. It doesn't make much sence to ruin all championship hopes with driver swaps. Bourdais would have done great, for sure, but I think Hinch won't disappoint. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up around the top 5 overall at the end of the year. He'll probably scrap with Pagenaud for the best of the non-Penske/Ganassi honours.
And also, would you really see Bourdais in a Go Daddy commercial? Not really the kind of personality they are looking for, don't you think so?
I would rather see Pagenaud for that. What he is doing with one car team is really astonished. I wouldn't be surprise to see him win a race this year. Unfortunately he has no experience of oval racing but I'm pretty sure he will be one the star of Indycars in next few years like Bourdais WAS in champ car. Btw we need to admit that Bourdais is a top driver but he is in a part of his career where he has lot of experience (probably more than his engineer) and only a tight improvment possibilty. In general those kind of drivers interest more teams that wants to grow up and improve using the driver skills than top teams that try to build the champion of tomorrow. Byw that doesn't be he can't be competitive but he has probably more to bring to a team than what a team can bring to him.
Thats essentially want I Ment before the season started, Dragon racing has been used by Roger as kind of like a Torro Rosso for Penske, with Chevy engines he should be able challenge up the front.
Im not really a Bourdais fan, i just want the top drivers in the best seats so we can have good championship battles, its a bit fustrating seeing good drivers like Bourdais, Servia and Pagenaud(even though with Honda engines he can compete) in lowish teams.
True. Pagenaud has been excellent so far. I think too he will will win a race this year.
I'm not worrying too much about his lack of oval experience. There are only 5 ovals out of 16 races this season, and their future in general is slightly uncertain, since they don't drow crowd anymore. Also, 2 of the ovals are either flat(Milwaukee) or have little banking(Indy) so they tend to magnifiy road racing skills. But anyway, most of the Indycar rookies of the last few years had very little or no oval experience, and did OK.
Having a very experienced team-mate at Indy, in the person of Townsend Bell, will be a nice help for Pagenaud too.
Indeed. You can add Wilson in that category too. Maybe even Tagliani.
lololol lotus need to just take a year out to make a proper engine and sorts its money out. seriously we got enough lols anyway with chevy being all bitchy about hondas turbo
I wouldn't be surprised if Lotus is done after Indy. Dragon's accusations are pretty bad. Their reputation is ruined right now, how can they attract any team for 2013? Conquest and Shank prefer not to run at all rather than running with Lotus power, says it all isn't it?
Miller made me chuckle as usual. Highlights of the article:
And I must say that I agree. At the VERY least bump day raised awarness and interest in the race and raised attendance. Hopefully attendance at the 500 doesn't drop like it has for the Brickyard 400. Last year's Brickyard 400 there only drew 138,000 fans (for 250,000 seats remember) while in 2008 it drew 240,000 for the same event.
IndyCar doesn't exactly releace their attendance numbers like NASCAR does, and last year it was nearly full, but remember: The Super Bowl took place in Indy this year too. NASCAR's got the Nationwide Series racing there along with the Rolex Sports Car Series on the road course and of course the Brickyard 400 all on the last weekend in July.
I must say the economy has hurt attendance to every sporting event that I've seen this year other than the Super Bowl and a few NFL playoff games. Race fans usually are from the middle class, and Indy's going to be heavily event saturated this year. On top of it all Indy lost Danica. I know that lost 10,000 to 20,000 sales at least and possibly more.
I just hope that attendance beats a number of 200,000. It would be very sad if it didn't for such a great event. The Coke 600 on the same day is nearly sold out already .
St. Petersberg: 125,000 (4-day weekend attendance)
Birmingham: 52,879 (race day), 81,378 (weekend)
Long Beach: 170,000 (3-day weekend attendance)
Sao Paulo: 31,000 grandstand seats sold out
That are the numbers the promotors published, but you're right, IndyCar releases sometimes lack these numbers. IndyCar seems to focus more on the TV ratings in their releases.
I don't think anyone would disagree with the "Indy needs bumping" line.
Now let's face it: 2012 is a very special year. New cars, new engines. That incertitude does not really favour additional entries. For example, Ed Carpenter Racing was ready to line-up a 2nd car, but decided to focus on a primary entry in last minute.
And then there's that damn engine shortage - which was even enhanced by the recent Lotus debacle. Conquest and Shank were basically told to go home from day 1. A team like DRR had no other option than going from 4 cars to 1 in a year. And who knows, there might have been a few more potential entries we don't know of, that would've materialised if there were more engines.
Also, perhaps people took as granted last year's 40 cars, while this number was boosted artificially thanks to the 100th anniversary hype, plus the fact that this was the last year with the IR03.
We're basically in a very odd situation where full time entries have rarely been as high as now, and, only due to special circumstances, one-off Indy entries never been so low. The worrying fact about that is, mainstream media will look at this and say "no bumping at Indy, IndyCar must be dying", while the things are very different if you analyse and look long time picture. I'm pretty sure things will be very different in 2013.
That negativity is sad especially considering that the race has not been as open and uncertain for a long while, with the new cars, engines, a lot of very strong entries, and a partially new set of drivers. You have something like 20+ legitimate contenders right now, the race should be mighty good among the top half.
I respect Alex Lloyd a lot as a great driver who shouldn't be standing on the sidelines right now, and as someone who is not affraid to speak his mind. That said, there is definitely an agenda behind this article. Had managed to get the budget for the 2012 race, I don't think he would be so much negative about the current situation.
One thing that really shocked me is the fact that the budgets required are, according to him, much higher than before. But on a second thought, it isn't so much surprising, as the lack of second hand chassis make the costs higher.
Hate that "3/4 days attendance" thing. Just a way to boost numbers by counting some people several times. Makes in unfair to ovals in particular, which usually are 1 day shows.
But it doesn't count all the people watching from the outside and not paying. For example St.Pete (I've been so only place I know for sure) they have tall business buildings, hotels, and apartments all around the place. You can easily see most of the track from those and you can see 100's (if not thousands) of people packed on to the balconies to watch the race. So the numbers should actually be higher than they are (unless they roughly add them in estimation).
For the left bracket, I see Vasser beating Pruett and Dixon for a place on the semi-finals, against Montoya - if IndyCar fans have any common sense, they'll remember how crap Wheldon was when with CGR. Montoya has a much larger fanbase do to NASCAR, and is a way better driver, so I think he makes it to the finals against Zanardi, wjo obviously will beat Rahal, McMurray and Franchitti on the other side of the bracket.
Regarding the 500, Alesi seems to be slowly getting the hang of the car. During Practice 1 he was 'only' 11 mph slower than Newgarden, and ahead of Simona, who played the *crappy Lotus engine of the day* card today. Both Rubens and Michel Jourdain Jr. were faster than many veterans, with Rubens staying only 0.0007 seconds behind last year polesitter, Tagliani.
Vasser beats Pruett and Dixon. Andretti beats Wheldon (despite Wheldon getting a lot of support though, he's both more recent and more in the public's memory and Mikey's remembered for his Newman/Haas days) and JPM beats Arie, JPM advances, as does Mikey, JPM to final
Right bracket?
Dario beats Diaz, Marlin beats Rojas (consider this, Sterling was a consistent 2002 Cup contender till his injury), Jamie Mac beats Kimball, Zanardi obliterates Rahal, Zanardi advances past Jamie Mac to semis and final beating out Marlin
Not really the kind of personality they are looking for, don't you think so?
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