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Post by chrisb on Sept 2, 2023 10:12:48 GMT
That really does look a spectacular track and I look forward to watching the highlights.
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Post by Carl on Sept 2, 2023 23:06:19 GMT
A very close field, everyone within 1.1 seconds of pole
1 Graham Rahal 58.3195 — 121.236 mph
2 Scott McLaughlin 58.3525 121.167
3 Colton Herta 58.4576 120.949
4 Scott Dixon 58.5803 120.696
5 Alex Palou 58.6492 120.554
6 Pato O’Ward 58.6737 120.504
7 Will Power 58.3779 — 121.114
8 Callum Ilott 58.4973 — 120.867
9 Alexander Rossi 58.5023 — 120.857
10 Marcus Ericsson 58.5479 — 120.763
11 Felix Rosenqvist 59.3053 — 119.220
12 Josef Newgarden No Time — —
13 Rinus VeeKay 58.3240 — 121.226
14 Marcus Armstrong 58.6652 — 120.521
15 Romain Grosjean 58.3522 — 121.168
16 Kyle Kirkwood 58.6835 — 120.484
17 Christian Lundgaard 58.3678 — 121.135
18 Juri Vips 58.7454 — 120.357
19 Ryan Hunter-Reay 58.6529 — 120.546
20 Agustin Canapino 58.7753 — 120.295
21 Devlin DeFrancesco 58.6748 — 120.501
22 Helio Castroneves 58.8006 — 120.244
23 Santino Ferrucci 59.0633 — 119.709
24 David Malukas 58.9016 — 120.037
25 Sting Ray Robb 59.2642 — 119.303
26 Benjamin Pedersen 59.2175 — 119.397
27 Tom Blomqvist 59.4364 — 118.957
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Post by René on Sept 3, 2023 9:56:18 GMT
Exciting qualifying and great to see Graham Rahal take his second pole this season. Good drivers don't forget how to drive fast, they only need a good car.
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Post by Carl on Sept 4, 2023 3:04:46 GMT
An excellent race with distinct winners and losers. I don't like Chip Ganassi, but he must be intelligent. With Roger Penske distracted by owning both the Indycar series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Team Ganassi stands alone at the top. After seventy-five laps in Portland, the top eleven included all four Team Ganassi drivers, three from Arrow McLaren (O'Ward, Rosenqvist and Rossi), Penske's downunder duo (Power and McLaughlin) and two wandering stragglers.
Graham Rahal was a deserving pole sitter and led the first stint convincingly, looking like a sure winner, but the team has no coherent race strategy and badly needs reorganization. Drivers aren't positioned to make strategic decisions even if, like Graham Rahal, more than smart enough to do so.
Scott Dixon had a chance (all he ever needs) near the end but had it taken away when Indycar couldn't decide whether to declare a full course caution when someone was stranded on the grass. Doing so would have closed the pits, but hesitating allowed a single car to refuel and replace tyres. That suddenly competitive car came out ahead of Dixon and prevented him from challenging the leader, Alex Palou. Had Indycar immediately declared caution and closed the pits, Dixon could have won both this race and the season championship at the Laguna Seca finale. He was furious, but had to tone it down as it was his teammate who benefited.
Alex Palou is an awesome talent with a great future if he can clear a web of legal complications he brought upon himself.
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Post by René on Sept 4, 2023 17:43:17 GMT
It was a good race, I agree. On a short track like this, good strategy is essential to make sure your driver doesn’t get stuck in slow traffic after his pit stop. This happened to Rahal and nothing he could do about it.
The indecisiveness of the race stewards was a bit strange. That car on the grass clearly wasn’t going anywhere so a caution was the only sensible decision. This ruined Dixon’s chances indeed.
But yeah, Alex Palou is an immense talent and a very deserved champion. Two titles already for the young man from Spain. Is anyone in F1 paying attention? Oh yes, of course, Zak was…
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Post by René on Sept 6, 2023 17:19:23 GMT
Grand Prix of Monterey - Laguna Seca The final race of the 2023 IndyCar season. Alex Palou secured the title in Portland and a deserved champion he is. It was another exciting season with a number of different winners. Established names Palou, Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden battled for the title and won the most, but we also saw new winners with Kyle Kirkwood and Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal showed that he hasn't forgotten how to win.  The race on the fantastic Laguna Seca Raceway is always a feast for the racing enthusiast and all drivers and teams naturally want to finish the season well.
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Post by chrisb on Sept 6, 2023 18:08:25 GMT
Laguna Seca is without doubt one of the greatest circuits of all time I adore it and so miss MotoGP racing there I do look forward to seeing indycars racing there
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Post by René on Sept 9, 2023 19:21:52 GMT
An interesting top 3 in FP2: Christian Lundgaard fastest, Rinus Veekay second and champion Alex Palou third.  Qualy later tonight. |
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Post by Carl on Sept 10, 2023 1:12:20 GMT
No consistency even for the normally dominant Team Ganassi. The dice were rolling wild at Laguna Seca! 1 6 Rosenqvist, Felix Arrow McLaren Chevrolet 01:06.6416 120.897 2 3 McLaughlin, Scott Team Penske Chevrolet 01:06.6513 120.880 3 45 Lundgaard, Christian Team Rahal Honda 01:06.7478 120.705 4 2 Newgarden, Josef Team Penske Chevrolet 01:06.7937 120.622 5 9 Dixon, Scott Team Ganassi Honda 01:07.0171 120.220 6 10 Palou, Alex Team Ganassi Honda 01:07.2846 119.742 7 30 Vips, Juri (R) Team Rahal Honda 01:06.8300 120.557 8 21 VeeKay, Rinus Carpenter Racing Chevrolet 01:06.9172 120.400 9 12 Power, Will Team Penske Chevrolet 01:06.9282 120.380 10 28 Grosjean, Romain Andretti Autosport Honda 01:07.1292 120.019 11 14 Ferrucci, Santino AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet 01:07.4479 119.452 12 5 O'Ward, Pato Arrow McLaren Chevrolet 01:07.9392 118.588 Penalty assessed / fastest lap disallowed 13 78 Canapino, Agustin (R) Juncos Racing Chevrolet 01:07.4009 119.535 14 15 Rahal, Graham Team Rahal Honda 01:07.2323 119.835 15 26 Herta, Colton Andretti Autosport Honda 01:07.4666 119.419 16 11 Armstrong, Marcus (R) Team Ganassi Honda 01:07.3726 119.586 17 7 Rossi, Alexander Arrow McLaren Chevrolet 01:07.5425 119.285 18 27 Kirkwood, Kyle Andretti Autosport Honda 01:07.4029 119.532 19 8 Ericsson, Marcus Team Ganassi Honda 01:07.6149 119.157 20 77 Ilott, Callum Juncos Racing Chevrolet 01:07.5183 119.328 21 60 Blomqvist, Tom (R) Meyer Shank Racing Honda 01:07.7419 118.934 22 18 Malukas, David Dale Coyne Racing Honda 01:07.7816 118.864 23 55 Pedersen, Benjamin (R) AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet 01:07.7583 118.905 24 51 Robb, Sting Ray (R) Dale Coyne Racing Honda 01:07.8639 118.720 25 20 Hunter-Reay, Ryan Carpenter Racing Chevrolet 01:11.0620 113.377 Penalty assessed / fastest laps disallowed 26 29 DeFrancesco, Devlin Andretti Autosport Honda 01:07.9083 118.642 27 06 Castroneves, Helio Meyer Shank Racing Honda No Time No Speed
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Post by Carl on Sept 11, 2023 6:30:29 GMT
I began to wonder if the constant slowing down behind the pace car was a test of a future environmental initiative, but it was instead to protect the drivers, many of whom had too much to drink at the hotel breakfast buffet. Helio Castroneves had to be lifted into his car on the grid and later tripped and fractured his nose climbing out during a routine pit stop. After drilling a respectable distance into the tyre barrier, Josef Newgarden was escorted to the medical center for evaluation for insisting on walking the track perimeter white line to prove his sobriety. Scott Dixon and his race strategist Mike Hull can pull a race win out of an empty hat!
Laguna Seca is a great track, but was once even better. Originally, turns 1 though 3 were wide-open sweepers, joining Turn 4 for the fast uphill section leading to the corkscrew. The track was too short at 1.9 miles for acceptance by the international motorcycle sanctioning body, so they eliminated the fast sweeping corners and added the painfully tight infield section leading laboriously to the original Turn 4 (now Turn 6), making the track one third mile longer and half as thilling for all concerned.
Bob Jenkins and David Hobbs excelled when networks wanted well-presented information rather than hyperbolic idiocy.
The oldest son was closest to his father in talent and success  1966
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Post by René on Sept 11, 2023 9:42:09 GMT
I had the same thought! Did they hang out at the local Siebkens for too long or did someone put something in their coffee in the morning! What a chaos and weird repetition of the same mistakes. Definitely a race where only one man could win in the end: Scott Dixon!  And his first at Laguna Seca I understand. Amazing he never won here before.  Alex Palou IndyCar champion for the second time!  The old track was better, I agree Carl. It's still a wonderful track but the old configuration was better. A bit like Silverstone and the new section. It isn't bad but the old layout was better. |
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Post by mikael on Sept 11, 2023 21:08:51 GMT
This is very interesting ... as I understand it, this is still the lap record (Marc Gene, 2012) ... (The background music stops during the actual record lap - very nice :-) )
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Post by Carl on Sept 11, 2023 23:27:45 GMT
An extremely well driven and damned fast lap by Mark Gene, eleven years ago and still the record, but assuming the Ferrari he drove was of recent vintage (2010 or 2011), he might have been expected to break the record by a greater margin considering Formula One's advanced tyre technology and greater horsepower in a  two hundred pounds lighter. The balance of performance will always vary depending on the allowable sophistication in design and engine power, but Formula One has always been faster than Indycar on a road course while the competition is closer and the racing arguably better in Indycar. Most Danish motorsport enthusiasts agree that Christian Lundgaard's lap this past weekend may be more impressive.  www.ksbw.com/article/track-record-broken-at-laguna-seca-during-firestone-grand-prix-of-monterey/45070620 |
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Post by René on Sept 12, 2023 8:53:59 GMT
That looks more like the F2003-GA to me, the Barrichello car. Interesting to see they used Pirelli slicks instead of the grooved Bridgestones that were originally on that car. The early 2000s cars were really fast and the lap records from that time stood for many, many years. The slicks will no doubt have made it faster still and had Rubens, let alone Michael sat behind the wheel, the lap record would certainly been smashed even more.  |
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Post by Carl on Sept 12, 2023 16:51:22 GMT
It's interesting how similar modern single-seaters can appear to someone less well versed (ahem!) across a decade or more. What I do remember is the great speed of the early 2000 era, with some ultimate lap records still from that time. On the subject of resemblance, was the bald guy giving orders at Laguna Seca once connected with the Wagner Group?
...a friend of a friend?  |
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And his first at Laguna Seca I understand. Amazing he never won here before.
two hundred pounds lighter. The balance of performance will always vary depending on the allowable sophistication in design and engine power, but Formula One has always been faster than Indycar on a road course while the competition is closer and the racing arguably better in Indycar.
