After the hangover from the Indianapolis 500, the Detroit Grand Prix is always a 180 degree turn for pilots, competitors and spectators. Sky-high speeds on an oval with a smooth surface like a pool table give way to a temporary track in a park, with a bumpy surface and a comparably low tolerance for error. To add even more sauce to the event, the race turned into a total strategic duelwith an orgy of overtaking at the start and some intense chases at the end as it all converged.
From 16th place on the grid, Will Power took the victory thanks to using a two-stop strategy better than anyone, resisting Alexander Rossi’s final attack and leaving Josef Newgarden looking like circumstances, whose precise execution of his race only served him to finish fourth. The same strategy that left Scott Dixon on the podium It also served Álex Palou to scratch a sixth place after a bad Saturday, which keeps him on the verge of the leaders of the general.
Below we offer you the most relevant statistics of this event, along with the extensive 30 minute summary of the test, an onboard with the last 15 minutes of Alexander Rossi’s careerand the different perspectives of the pilots during the first lap.
– Will Power took his 41st victory in IndyCar and he is only one victory away from the historic fourth place held by Michael Andretti. Ahead, the Australian has only AJ Foyt (67), Mario Andretti (52) and his rival Scott Dixon, also one win away from that second place (51). Even more relevant is the fact that it is his victory number 32 in a router (permanent or urban/temporary circuit), equaling the historical record held by Sébastien Bourdais. Other than Dixon’s 27, no other driver on the current grid has won more than 13 times on a road racer.
– The historical persistence of Power places him in some records of aúpa. Since he got his first win in the very short 2007 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Australian driver has won at least one race in every season. With this, they are 16 consecutive years, a number that only finds a rival in the 17 that a Dixon has chained that has not yet won in 2022; no other pilot linked more than 11 years with victory. At the senior level, his 16 winning seasons are tied with Mario Andretti and Hélio Castroneves, and are only surpassed by Dixon’s 18 and AJ Foyt’s 19.
– In 2014, Will Power took his first win at Belle Isle starting from 16th place. Eight years later, he has replicated the same comeback. With this, he has not only become the seventh driver in history to win at least two races coming out of the top 15 (Al Unser, Mike Mosley, Adrián Fernández, Al Unser Jr., Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon), but in the first to do it on the same path. In turn, no one had won any two races from the same starting position below 14th, nor at the same circuit below 7th.
– Regarding podiums, the statistic is relevant for its three occupants: Dixon climbed to the podium for the first time in 2022 and already accumulates 128 drawers, distributed exactly 50% between road racers and ovals, and continues to approach the 141 with which Mario Andretti leads the historical table. Power has three more in routers (historical record), but in total ‘only’ accumulates 88, enough to tie for eighth place two great ex-champions like Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal. Finally, the 26th podium of Alexander Rossi’s career comes after a dismal streak in which he had only achieved one podium in 23 races; Unfortunately, his 44-win drought continuesand will be three years old next weekend.
– After 29 races at the Belle Isle circuit, the 30th and final event at this national park was the first in its history in which there was no ‘caution’ period, something that decisively influenced the strategies. Since his debut in 1992, this track has accumulated an average of 4.03 cautions per race, with up to eight yellow cards on two occasions (1999 and 2015) and six events with more than five interruptions. Yes indeed, the average in the last 10 races hosted since 2016 had dropped quite a bit (2.5 cautions), including two occasions where the Pace Car only appeared once. With this, it was the fastest race in history on this track, completing the 70 laps in just one hour and 32 minutes.
– Not many times can you find a career where the top four finishers have deployed four different strategies. Will Power (1st), Scott Dixon (3rd) and Josef Newgarden (4th) completed two stops, but everyone rode the soft at different times: Newgarden started with them, Dixon riding them at his first stop and Power at his second. By means, Alexander Rossi (2nd) went three stops and in all of them he rode the hard, having used the soft only in his first four laps. Each one had pros and cons depending on the circumstances that arose, generating an entertaining strategic war.
– Power recovers the lead he lost in the Indianapolis 500, leading Marcus Ericsson by three points, with Pato O’Ward and Álex Palou less than 15 points behind. The extra score of the Indy 500 affects him notably, since under normal conditions the Australian would have a margin of 30 points with Palou, 41 with O’Ward and 44 with Ericsson. Curiously, Palou remains 14 points behind the leader, the exact same handicap as there was after the Indy GP and the 500 milesdespite not finishing either event in the top 5.
– Following poles from Scott McLaughlin, Felix Rosenqvist, Colton Herta, Rinus VeeKay, Will Power and Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden became the seventh different driver to achieve it in seven races. A fact that, in the last 60 years, It had only happened in 2018. The other cases date back to the post-war years, made up mostly of dirt ovals; it happened four times between 1952 and 1961, with those two years being the record-setting ones with nine different polemen in the first nine races.
Photos: IndyCar Media
