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Nashville winners and losers: Six drivers have weekends of the year, nine fail to finish

Nathan Brown   | Indianapolis Star

NASHVILLE — In a weekend when nine cars didn't finish the race, and 33 caution laps from nine yellow flags (and two more red) dominated the conversation for IndyCar's first street race in the Music City, 'losers' from Sunday's Music City Grand Prix weren't hard to find.

Remarkably though, with that much carnage, six drivers threw down "race of the year" performances. The list is headlined by Marcus Ericsson, whose "launch and win" victory will now go alongside Danny Sullivan's spin and win 1985 Indy 500 triumph in terms of oddity, surprise and overcoming adversity.

Additionally, Ericsson now has the most points in the paddock since the start of the Detroit Grand Prix weekend as he tries to force his way into title contention.

WINNERS

Marcus Ericsson

The now two-time IndyCar race-winner’s drive Sunday is a testament to what is most special about the series: anything can happen. Ericsson qualified 18th while teammates Scott Dixon (second) and Palou (third-fastest time, relegated to start ninth due to an engine change penalty) turned in strong performances.

The nose of his car went 10-feet in the air, with his rear wheels off the ground for a split-second, after ramping over Sebastien Bourdais but only suffered severe damage to the front wing when it slammed back to earth. Ericsson admitted post-race the car was nowhere near perfect to close but he, along with his team, made every single decision right from there on, while having the speed to capitalize when others didn’t. The highlight tape will go down in history, but so should his drive.

Scott Dixon

The No. 9 car team had yet another very Dixon-esque weekend as the 41-year-old continues on his quest to defend a series title for the first time. You never felt Dixon had the best car all weekend, particularly with his multiple incidents during practices. But when tasked with running 50 laps on a set of Firestone blacks in order to hold onto the track position as much as possible, Dixon was more than up to the task.

In veteran fashion, Dixon kept himself near the front all afternoon -- and away from the mayhem -- to pick up his first podium since his win at Texas in early May. He jumped to second in the points standings, now 42 behind teammate Alex Palou. The Spaniard’s lead on second-place grew from 39 to 42, but Dixon’s made it clear Palou won’t be rid of him until Long Beach is complete.

Free-agent Andretti drivers

If you were an Andretti Autosport driver who’s uncertain if you’ll still be one two months from now, both luck and speed were on your side Sunday for a change. The team’s strongest drivers, Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta (both with deals that extend at least into 2022), had amassed only five top-5s entering Nashville, but their two full-time teammates, James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay could only muster one top-10 between them.

Our last memory of the two was Hinchcliffe getting into the back of Hunter-Reay’s bright-yellow DHL car the opening lap at Mid-Ohio. Sunday, they finished third and fourth, respectively, on a day when Herta could have won, but crashed trying, and Rossi fell victim to contact from Pato O’Ward mid-race that dropped him well out of the top-5. Much, much more of this may need to come by Sept. 26 for either’s jobs to be safe -- and it may not be enough anyway -- but it was good to see these fan favorites fighting at the front again.

More on the Music City Grand Prix:

Ed Jones

This is the type of drive Jones has in him, and had he not put himself in a major hole via qualifying (starting 26th), his drive making up 20 spots to sixth by the checkered flag Sunday could have been even more special. In recent weeks, reports have been made saying Jones’ future with the team will be all-but over following Long Beach, but more drives like this would certainly force the team to reconsider.

Jimmy Vasser admitted a month ago the team hadn’t been providing Jones the car and support on race weekends to produce results. Good on Jones to capitalize when it did – no less on a race weekend where he said he’s still not 100% after testing positive and battling a bout of COVID-19 during the midseason break.

Felix Rosenqvist

For a full weekend, the Arrow McLaren SP driver was front of mind for all the right reasons. For the first time in three months, Rosenqvist finished inside the top-15, and he did far more than that, starting fourth and taking a respectable eighth when the dust settled.

The fire is still very much there in the Swedish driver, with post-race comments including frustration after taking the final restart sixth and dropping two spots to drivers on red tires for the white flag lap. But this is a building block weekend for a driver who hadn’t been able to put it all together during his still short stint with AMSP. And on a public stage Sunday, team boss Zak Brown reiterated firmly that the team does not intend to drop him in the middle of a multi-year deal, even thought he's 23rd in points.

Helio Castroneves

It’s amazing that it took us 70 days to see the newest four-time Indy 500 champion back racing in an IndyCar after his historic victory. Although highly-anticipated, not much was truly expected from the 46-year-old’s debut on road and street courses with his new team. Team co-owner Mike Shank said the goal was a top-12, and given the demolition derby of a race, Castroneves could have easily finished outside that through no fault of his own (see: Bourdais, Sebastien).

Not only did the series’ newest full-time driver for 2022 keep the car clean, he showed far better than he did in a road course sub role a year ago for Oliver Askew with Arrow McLaren SP, where he finished 20th and 21st on a familiar IMS road course. Already firmly up to speed, Castroneves still has four road and street events before the end of 2021 to further get into rhythm for his return to full-time racing.

LOSERS

The DQ’d duo

Jimmie Johnson and Cody Ware left with reasons to be satisfied, but you never want to have race control pull your car from the grid. The rookie Ganassi driver was first, having gotten caught up in the 11-car traffic jam in Turn 11 on Lap 19, taking some damage to the rear of his car. During the ensuing red flag, Johnson was speaking to the TV broadcast when stewards ruled his team had worked on the car, which is against the rules. Johnson contended his team merely was trying to assess the damage, then followed with an admission that he didn’t understand the rules well. This all came after he finished a solid 23rd (for him) out of 27 cars during Practice 1 and was showing some competitive pace before a crash one minute into qualifying. He’d suffer serious damage again during Sunday’s warmup.

Ware was running as high as seventh midway through Sunday’s race in his first street race in any type of car after an attention-grabbing start to the race. But he spun on his own in Turn 3 just past the halfway point after taking minor damage from the race’s first red flag in Turn 11. And with 10 laps to go, for reasons that still aren’t quite clear, race control ruled he was running far below competitive speed and pulled his car. What could have been a reason to celebrate turned into a moment teed up for the same keyboard warriors always hyper-critical of Rick Ware Racing’s struggles in the NASCAR Cup series.

Andretti drivers with future contracts

On a day both looked as if they may have the car to win, a competitor’s error and overzealous pursuit took Rossi and Herta out of contention and ended their very real chances of earning Andretti Autosport’s second win of 2021. With 30 laps to go, Rossi had run top-5 nearly all day, but had nowhere to go when O’Ward locked his tires entering Turn 4 on the inside. Both slid into the tire barrier, and though Rossi managed to back up and keep moving, his momentum had been slashed. Having qualified third, he was far better than 17th on Sunday.

For Herta, the disappointment was far more painful, having taken a very real chance to overtake Ericsson into the final five laps before charging too hard into Turn 9. He was  unable to recover before hitting the wall head-on. Despite not letting go of the wheel before impact, Herta said post-race his wrists weren’t injured. Still, the driver who almost always displays a calm, cool exterior was visibly upset. Having paced each practice and captured his second pole of the year, Sunday was very much one that got away.

Josef Newgarden

Playing a drinking game off the phrase “hometown hero” might have left you worse off than going off IndyCar’s nine cautions Sunday. He was asked at least once on TV about the track “he designed,” when in reality he was one of several drivers merely willing to offer advice to track visionary Tony Cotman. Though not technically from Nashville-proper -- he grew up in the suburbs -- everyone around the race was hell-bent on keeping his championship-winning persona in the forefront all weekend.

And for that, a disappointing 10th-place finish won’t cut it. He was never really a factor after dropping more than five spots trying to avoid the Bourdais-Ericsson incident. His crash in Round 2 of qualifying kept him out of the Fast 6, too, on a weekend when Chevys seemed a step behind.

Those in Will Power’s wake

Oh to be a fly on the wall in the Team Penske post-race debrief. Power was responsible for diving inside on teammates Simon Pagenaud and Scott McLaughlin – the latter of which left the No. 3 spun and a sitting duck for Dalton Kellett to nail and further damage.

The first move on Lap 19 entering a restart was gutsy at best and forced Pagenaud into the tire barrier, where 10 more cars queued up behind him to force a red flag. It’s exactly the move Hinchcliffe said post-race should be looked at and possibly banished via a drivers’ agreement regarding unsafe passing spots on restarts. In all, nearly half the field had its day altered by the moves.

Santino Ferrucci

This is a mild one, and only partially to do with action on-track. In his fifth race with the team, Ferrucci finally failed to produce a top-10, settling for 11th, after he was forced to recover yet again from a poor qualifying effort in 17th. The young American has shown in a partial-season deal he’s deserving of a full-time ride.

The flipside to that, though, is the team announced Monday morning it plans  to run Formula 2 race-winner Christian Lundgaard on Saturday in the IMS road course race to test another possible option for the team’s hoped-for expansion. It was near-certain the team would give someone else a shot unless Ferrucci stayed too hot. He's cooled off just enough to allow some realistic competition into the picture.

A.J. Foyt’s pocketbook

You don’t race it if you can’t afford to wreck it, but boy is that repair bill hefty yet again for team president Larry Foyt and company. Dalton Kellett failed to turn a lap due to an electrical issue in Practice No. 1, but after he had one of his better qualifying sessions of the year to land 19th out of 27 cars, something stalled the car twice on the front straight on Lap 2 to bring out the first yellow. His day would end just past the halfway point when he failed to avoid a spun Scott McLaughlin in Turn 9 after multiple other competitors passed the No. 3 with no issue.

For his teammate, Bourdais, the day was shorter and even more aggravating. He was minding his own business when Ericsson crashed into him and shot into the air. It’s the third DNF of Bourdais’ still short stint with Foyt, all of them no fault of his own. A season that started with so much promise in Barber and St. Pete has sputtered, leaving the Frenchman publicly frustrated in his team’s performance as they work to iron out another contract.

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