After all was said and done Sunday afternoon, Dario Franchitti was the only winner. The Scotsman won his fourth IndyCar Series Championship over runner up, Will Power. Franchitti won four races over the entire season, two on road courses and two on oval tracks. Power actually had six wins but was never able to finish in the Top 5 consistently.
The rest of the IndyCar Season was way more exciting than Dario getting another championship. There were eight different winners on the 17-race schedule (originally 18 but the Vegas race was cancelled after the wreck) including first time winners Mike Conway and Ed Carpenter. Marco Andretti got the second win of his career and Hunter-Reay got his third. Dan Wheldon won the Indy 500. The rest of the wins were split between Franchitti, Power, and Scott Dixon.
There were plenty of great races in the 2011 season. I can think of about five that really stick out to me as having great finishes. My favorite though was the Kentucky race a few weeks ago. For the entire duration of the race cars were racing side-by-side and the drivers never giving an inch to anybody.
With 10 laps to go, Ed Carpenter pulled alongside Dario Franchitti where the two would remain, side by side, for the rest of the race. It was incredible watching the two go all out while remaining just feet away from each other. Soon there were just five laps to go, then two, and then the white flag was out. The two continued to race next to each other as they came off of Turn 4. Then Carpenter, on the high side, somehow pulled ahead of Franchitti by just mere inches and crossed the finish line first. The win by Carpenter was the first of his career and the first for his team owner, Sarah Fisher. Needless to say, it was a very emotional winner’s circle, and a win that everybody in IndyCar could be happy for.
For all those great finishes, there were some really low lows. IndyCar chief steward, Brian Barnhart may have one of the toughest jobs in all of racing. He’s basically the head umpire. He’s the one that has the final say on all rules and punishments, and he’s the guy fans and drivers blame if you have a problem with a rule or punishment.
There are several different rules that have several different punishments for “aggressive driving”. Several of these rules require a judgment call that forces Barnhart to make a decision almost immediately. Unfortunately, some of his decisions were questionable. Just looking at the schedule, I can think of at least one of these instances occurring in almost all the races.
The worst of all these calls came at New Hampshire. It’s a situation that would take way too long to explain, but basically Barnhart gave the thumbs up for a restart while the race track was slick from a light rain. When the restart came, cars went sliding everywhere and the race was red-flagged and ended. For a week after, drivers Oriol Servia and Ryan Hunter-Reay argued about how each deserved the victory. Eventually Hunter-Reay was declared the winner, but many fans considered this incident to be the last straw for Barnhart.
The worst of all these calls came at New Hampshire. It’s a situation that would take way too long to explain, but basically Barnhart gave the thumbs up for a restart while the race track was slick from a light rain. When the restart came, cars went sliding everywhere and the race was red-flagged and ended. For a week after, drivers Oriol Servia and Ryan Hunter-Reay argued about how each deserved the victory. Eventually Hunter-Reay was declared the winner, but many fans considered this incident to be the last straw for Barnhart.
Final Standings for the 2011 Izod IndyCar Series Championship
2) Will Power
3) Scott Dixon
4) Oriol Servia
5) Tony Kanaan
6) Ryan Briscoe
7) Ryan Hunter-Reay
8) Marco Andretti
9) Graham Rahal
10) Danica Patrick
11) Helio Castroneves
12) James Hinchcliffe
13) Takumo Sato
14) JR Hildebrand
15) Alex Tagliani
16) Vitor Meira
17) Mike Conway
18) E.J. Viso
19) Charlie Kimball
20) Simona de Silvestro
21) Ana Beatriz
22) James Jakes
23) Sebastien Bourdais
24) Justin Wilson
25) Sebastian Saavedra
26) Ed Carpenter
27) Alex Lloyd
How about Oriol Servia finishing 4th? Where did this guy come from? I had never even heard of him before this season, but apparently this was his third season in the series. Hopefully he can build on 2011 and win some races in 2012.
Rookies Charlie Kimball and JR Hildebrand really appear to be the future of the sport. The two finished 12th and 14th respectively, and floated around the Top 10 in every race.
If IndyCar really wants to become popular, it needs its American drivers to start competing for the Championship. The best finishing Yankee was Ryan Hunter-Reay in 6th. Finishing behind him in 7th and 8th was Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal.
Helio Castroneves finishing 11th? He can do better than that. He never seemed competitive in any race this season. He even struggled in the Indy 500, which is his favorite race and has won three times.
There are so many questions heading into the 2012 season; a lot of questions that nobody will know the answer to until the first race of the season in March.
Here are some of the questions heading the off-season.
How will the teams adjust to using the new 2012 car? There will be three new engines in those cars too that are made by Honda, Lotus, or Chevrolet. Testing will continue through the winter but nobody will know how they cars will react in race conditions until the first lap in St. Petersburg.
Will Penske Racing remain intact? Rumors have been circulating all season about Penske cutting down to two drivers, or replacing one. Everybody knows that Will Power will stay, but who could be released? Ryan Briscoe or Helio Castroneves? There aren’t many adequate replacements for either of those drivers.
Who will fill Danica’s spot? This is a literal and figurative question. Danica Patrick is leaving IndyCar to pursue her interest in NASCAR. Dan Wheldon was supposed to take over her spot, but now that won’t happen. In a figurative sense, will an American or women driver step and become the face of IndyCar?
How many oval races will there be? The number of oval races has already declined to around six because tracks don’t make money from hosting IndyCar. This leaves 11 road courses and six ovals. Will Whledon’s accident decrease the number of ovals further though?
Will changes be made after the Wheldon crash? IndyCar has to do something to prevent what happened at Vegas to ever happen again. The biggest, and easiest change, is to limit how many cars can race on 1.5 mile tracks like Vegas. If you limit the car count to 26 or 27, you can get rid of drivers that aren’t as skilled and are more prone to crash.
It will be a very exciting and busy off season for everybody involved in IndyCar. Drivers and teams will have an all new car to test and learn how it will perform at each track. Teams will be swapping and picking up new drivers so they will have to get accustomed to their new homes as well as the new cars. As soon as any of these questions are answered, or new questions arise, I will let you know!
- I apologize for the second half or so of this post being sloppy. I had a hard time getting what I wrote in Microsoft Word to fit into where you post a story at on this blog. If that sounds complicated, it's because it is. All those indented sentences are supposed to have bullet points next to them and the final standings are supposed to be two columns. Obviously, that isn't how it came out.
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