All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

Cut it thisclose in getting another quali run in Q2

 

Zach Veach out at Andretti. Hinchtown gets the ride for the rest of 2020.

 

I know less than zero about Indycar, so can someone help me and tell me why a guy like Hinch doesn’t have a fulltime ride? Does he not want one? I got the impression he was one of the top drivers in the series.

 

He got jobbed. When McLaren decided to go full-time IndyCar racing in 2020, they bought an existing team (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) and terminated the contract with Honda in favor of Chevrolet.

Since Hinch is a Honda guy, and even though he was instrumental in getting Arrow as the team sponsor, he wound up on the outside looking in as all the rest of the full-time rides had already been filled. He cobbled together a 500 ride and not much else, other than reporting for NBC.

 

Hinch has a great future in TV, he has done a great job as a pit guy - and in the booth one race when Bell was gone - this season

 

Forgot to post on Sunday, but it seems like the only person who can beat Hamilton is himself. What a boneheaded pair of penalties to take. There was some pretty good action in the midfield, but unfortunately Bottas and Max ran along pretty comfortably. I was kind of hoping for another safety car to bring them back to the pack and little and make things more interesting at the front.

A funny aside ... I follow F1 on Instagram and they posted to their story last week a video of Sainz and Mattia Binotto discussing whether Sainz would want to come to Ferrari. The exchange was something like this:
Sainz: Why would I want to go to Ferrari?
Binotto: Why wouldn't you? Don't you want to win?
S: I have just as good a chance to win at McLaren.
B: Why do you say that?
S: Because at Ferrari, the car is shit.
B: Fuck you.
S: Fuck you, too.

 

I was driving my Alfa through famed Emigration Canyon outside Salt Lake City this weekend and (a) wow, it's as pretty as advertised and (b) I was stuck behind a McClaren most of the way and the fucker drove about 20 mph. I mean, what on Earth is the point of that???
Fuck you, too, indeed!

 

I saw that somewhere had the likely IRL — IndyCar, sorry — schedule. I don't have the link in front of me, apologies.

I always liked the racing at Richmond, but that also was back in the days of Dr. Jack Miller and Greg Ray smashing into all the things. It would've been nice to see it back on the schedule.

I see that NASCAR/ISC is probably closing down Iowa. I never understood why they bought it to begin with ...
How was the open wheel racing there? Richmondesque? I recall there being some close finishes.

 

Eric Smith from Race Review Online has his best guess at the 2021 IndyCar season:

March 14 – St. Pete
April 18 – Long Beach
April 25 – Barber (or April 11)
May 1 – Texas
May 2 – Texas
May 15 – Indy GP
May 30 – Indy 500
June 5 – Belle Isle
June 6 – Belle Isle
June 20 – Road America (does this move up or back now?
July 4 – Mid-Ohio
July 23-Aug. 5 – Olympic Break
Aug 8 – Nashville
Aug 15 – Indianapolis (road course)
Aug. 21 – World Wide Technology Raceway
Sept. 12 – Portland
Sept. 19 – Laguna Seca

That’s 16 races not counting Iowa, COTA and Toronto, if they come back.

Richmond HAS a contract, but it's unclear why Penske wouldn't honor it.

 

NASCAR/ISC pulled the plug at Richmond and I’m glad. I was at one of the IndyCar events at RIR and it was like watching the underground train at the Atlanta airport, only with far less people watching. There still isn’t a title sponsor lined up, so no surprise that it disappeared.

Iowa is hemorrhaging cash. It will probably be closed sooner rather than later.

 

Nashville? On the proposed downtown road course?

 

Yeah, it's that layout around the stadium parking lot and across the bridge.