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IndyCar Grand Prix: 3 takeaways from IndyCar at Indianapolis

By Brittany Frederick

May 13, 2017; Speedway, IN, USA; Verizon Indycar Series driver Will Power (12) reacts to winning the Indycar Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
May 13, 2017; Speedway, IN, USA; Verizon Indycar Series driver Will Power (12) reacts to winning the Indycar Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /
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Is Will Power an IndyCar championship contender? Does it benefit a team to start from the back? Here’s what we learned from the IndyCar Grand Prix.

The Verizon IndyCar Series arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, giving Team Penske’s Will Power his first win of the season in the IndyCar Grand Prix — and it was certainly well deserved after everything the No. 12 car has been through in 2017.

But that wasn’t the only story from the IMS road course race. We watched absolutely no one crash, unless you count how Josef Newgarden’s day crashed and burned after getting a penalty on top of a penalty. Meanwhile, Graham Rahal caught a break of his own and Juan Pablo Montoya made his return to IndyCar with a pretty decent comeback tour.

While many eyes were already looking ahead to the 101st Indianapolis 500, the IndyCar Grand Prix showed that it wasn’t to be overlooked, because when you’re in Indianapolis almost anything can happen.

Here’s what we learned from the IndyCar Grand Prix:

1) Will Power has driven himself back into contention

Power took a huge weight off his shoulders by winning the IndyCar Grand Prix, but he did a lot more than that. He also established himself as a threat for the 2017 title. Power currently sits just sixth in the Verizon IndyCar Series standings, but he’s also got a whopping three pole positions and now one race win. He continues to field fast cars consistently.

If he can now avoid the various unpredictable woes that bothered him in the first four rounds, there’s no reason why he can’t win another race and put himself right near the top of the league. Especially since the next race is one that offers double points.

2) Josef Newgarden must have broken a mirror somewhere

That’s the only explanation for his terrible predicaments in recent weeks. Newgarden made a disastrous pit stop at Phoenix that dropped him from a possible podium to a Top 10. Then it came out during Saturday’s TV broadcast that he got food poisoning on Thursday and was driving in the IndyCar Grand Prix ill.

And then he got busted for speeding on pit lane, earning himself a drive-through penalty. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Newgarden was also rung up for speeding during the drive-through, so he had to go down pit lane again. Asked about it on the TV broadcast afterward, he had no idea what had happened except a potential “glitch.” Maybe the motorsports gods, having finished toying with NASCAR‘s Kyle Larson awhile back, have found a new target.

3) Is qualifying not as important as it used to be?

The IndyCar Grand Prix gave us yet another case of someone driving from the rear of the field to the front. This time it was Graham Rahal, who qualified a dismal 20th and yet kept pushing all day and wound up sixth. He follows Simon Pagenaud and Sebastien Bourdais as drivers who’ve been able to take terrible qualifying results and turn them into outstanding race results.

So is qualifying losing some of its luster? A good starting position will always be important — just look at Will Power, who took his Verizon P1 Award and used it to lead almost the entire race on Saturday — but it’s not something that can make or break a weekend anymore, at least not so far this year. Teams are finding ways to make up incredible amounts of ground. And that makes it all the better for the fans, because it means that anyone really can win.

Next: Complete IndyCar Grand Prix results

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