The record books will show Start 5th, Finish 24th, but that will not tell any of the Fernando Alonso story. From the moment it was announced, the one day test, all of practice, qualifying in fifth, leading the race, all the media, the events, the 6am wake up call, post race, the list is endless, Alonso lived it, breathed it and the fan based soaked every minute of it in. We all now that Fred is a top quality driver, to see him come in blind to an oval, learn the tricks, listen to the guidance, develop his skills and oval race craft, and lead the Indianapolis 500 was a beautiful thing. It was also good to see his smile and personality shone though after some time in the doldrums back in F1.
Although @alo_oficial finished the #Indy500 P24, he couldn't resist drinking milk as he finished his final news conference #winnersdrinkmilk pic.twitter.com/caMFVnIBSG
— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) May 28, 2017
So that's that dealt with, onto the other 32...
It was a harsh introduction for Jack Harvey, mechanical failures during practice, not being able to get the speed out of the car and onto the race, running on the lead lap only to be caught out by a piece of debris from the Daly crash sending him spinning into the inside wall at the north end of the track, Jack is one of a large group of next generation drivers coming through the Mazda Road to Indy, along with Pigot, Veach, Jones to name but a few who we will hopefully get to see more of this season and in the future when the elder generation call it a day.
Speaking of Jones, Ed, a rookie in the series produced one of the best all round month of May's that I have seen in the past decade. On a team with small budgets, but talented crews, his performance throughout practice was noticeable, maybe unsurprising given how quick his team mate in Bourdais was up until lap three of his qualifying effort (side note, see you back in Sonoma Seb, right?). Composure, controlling his line, defending his line he ran as high as second during the later stages. He came to the US in 2015 with Carlin in Indy Lights, learnt his trade, and we are now seeing the fruits of those labours, and hopefully for more years to come. Rookie of the Year for Indianapolis, sure, co-rookie, that would be fair to both Ed and Fred.
Onto the winner, because it is only fair that he should get some of the attention. Taku has had a bit of a reputation in F1 and in Indycar of maybe costing his team a little too much in crash damage, one thing he can not be accused of is lacking speed and bravery, this was evident in 2012 when alast lap attempt on Dario Franchitti resulted in him crashing, sealing number three for the Scot. There was a pass in the closing stages that was very reminiscent of 2012 where his dived around two cars to put him right up the front in contention to win, that for me was his all in moment. His engineer Garrett Mothersead said later in an interview with Robin Miller 'no attack, no chance' is his motto. The crowd roared when he took the lead, they roared when he crossed the line, they roared when he chugged milk. Sato has been threatening to win this race for some time now, finally he did. This win will be huge for Indycar in the far east, he always has a band of travelling supporters and reporters no matter where the race is.
It was a harsh introduction for Jack Harvey, mechanical failures during practice, not being able to get the speed out of the car and onto the race, running on the lead lap only to be caught out by a piece of debris from the Daly crash sending him spinning into the inside wall at the north end of the track, Jack is one of a large group of next generation drivers coming through the Mazda Road to Indy, along with Pigot, Veach, Jones to name but a few who we will hopefully get to see more of this season and in the future when the elder generation call it a day.
Speaking of Jones, Ed, a rookie in the series produced one of the best all round month of May's that I have seen in the past decade. On a team with small budgets, but talented crews, his performance throughout practice was noticeable, maybe unsurprising given how quick his team mate in Bourdais was up until lap three of his qualifying effort (side note, see you back in Sonoma Seb, right?). Composure, controlling his line, defending his line he ran as high as second during the later stages. He came to the US in 2015 with Carlin in Indy Lights, learnt his trade, and we are now seeing the fruits of those labours, and hopefully for more years to come. Rookie of the Year for Indianapolis, sure, co-rookie, that would be fair to both Ed and Fred.
Onto the winner, because it is only fair that he should get some of the attention. Taku has had a bit of a reputation in F1 and in Indycar of maybe costing his team a little too much in crash damage, one thing he can not be accused of is lacking speed and bravery, this was evident in 2012 when alast lap attempt on Dario Franchitti resulted in him crashing, sealing number three for the Scot. There was a pass in the closing stages that was very reminiscent of 2012 where his dived around two cars to put him right up the front in contention to win, that for me was his all in moment. His engineer Garrett Mothersead said later in an interview with Robin Miller 'no attack, no chance' is his motto. The crowd roared when he took the lead, they roared when he crossed the line, they roared when he chugged milk. Sato has been threatening to win this race for some time now, finally he did. This win will be huge for Indycar in the far east, he always has a band of travelling supporters and reporters no matter where the race is.
A third time runner up for Helio too, that has to hurt, but to see someone still so positive after he race, he'll be back, and wouldn't be surprised to see him win it for a fourth time, one day, although time is running out. Honourable mention too for Max Chilton, British race fans for the probably the first time saw Max leading the 500 for 29 laps, showing great maturity when leading the race, holding a defensive line into turn one and three, pulling away, clearly working with Dario Franchitti has been a positive and now starting to show more reward than a tough first season.
It is hard to praise the safety in Indycar enough given some of the accidents we have seen this past week. It could be said we would have been two drivers down had these accidents. No one is forcing these drivers into their cars, they are there under their own volition, but it does not mean that the series can take a step back with safety, it'll never be 100% safe, but damn near as possible should be the target.
All is helped with the speed and efficiency in reaction by the Holmatro Safety Team, with Bourdais, 8 seconds passed from stopping to attending, with Dixon, 13 seconds (they had a little further to travel). Those who credit Andretti, Penske and Ganassi with being the top team, no these guys are, and are a credit to the Indycar series. The SAFER barrier too which IMS created with the University of Nebraska back in 2002 saved countless lives over the years, you can add two more to that list this month. Scott is cool about it, he'll be back next weekend... after that, wow.
Onto the coverage, from a UK perspective. A different production team were responsible for the coverage to the normal team that produces the coverage for the rest of the season, and recent years too. I don't know why the change or whatever reasoning so will not speculate on that. A studio format was adopted for the race and the coverage included a lot of what felt like mansplaining about the difference between F1 and Indycar, a huge focus on Alonso, which I get, but there are another 32 drivers in the race. The Indianapolis 500 is a race, but it is also an event, the largest single day sporting event in the world and the whole package is what makes it special, we did not see any of the usual pre race ceremonies, the anthem singing, the singing of 'Back Home Again in Indiana' by Jim Cornelison who gave a belting debut rendition of the song made famous by Jim Nabors on race day, I have dropped it in below for our benefit, hopefully a better version will be out there soon! the most famous words in all of motorsport were badly dropped in over the engines already running, the balloons, driver introductions, British interest, after all there were five British drivers in the race, do i need to go on? Oh yeah commercial free running during green flag laps, clearly they didn't read the memo.
By all means, yes I get it, you have more eyes than ever on the 500 than before, some extra explanation of differences would be needs, but it felt the whole 45 minutes build up was completed wasted on the opportunity to sell the race, the drivers, the series as a whole, which you, as a channel broadcast live.
All is helped with the speed and efficiency in reaction by the Holmatro Safety Team, with Bourdais, 8 seconds passed from stopping to attending, with Dixon, 13 seconds (they had a little further to travel). Those who credit Andretti, Penske and Ganassi with being the top team, no these guys are, and are a credit to the Indycar series. The SAFER barrier too which IMS created with the University of Nebraska back in 2002 saved countless lives over the years, you can add two more to that list this month. Scott is cool about it, he'll be back next weekend... after that, wow.
Onto the coverage, from a UK perspective. A different production team were responsible for the coverage to the normal team that produces the coverage for the rest of the season, and recent years too. I don't know why the change or whatever reasoning so will not speculate on that. A studio format was adopted for the race and the coverage included a lot of what felt like mansplaining about the difference between F1 and Indycar, a huge focus on Alonso, which I get, but there are another 32 drivers in the race. The Indianapolis 500 is a race, but it is also an event, the largest single day sporting event in the world and the whole package is what makes it special, we did not see any of the usual pre race ceremonies, the anthem singing, the singing of 'Back Home Again in Indiana' by Jim Cornelison who gave a belting debut rendition of the song made famous by Jim Nabors on race day, I have dropped it in below for our benefit, hopefully a better version will be out there soon! the most famous words in all of motorsport were badly dropped in over the engines already running, the balloons, driver introductions, British interest, after all there were five British drivers in the race, do i need to go on? Oh yeah commercial free running during green flag laps, clearly they didn't read the memo.
By all means, yes I get it, you have more eyes than ever on the 500 than before, some extra explanation of differences would be needs, but it felt the whole 45 minutes build up was completed wasted on the opportunity to sell the race, the drivers, the series as a whole, which you, as a channel broadcast live.
Normal service will be resumed next weekend for Detroit. Thankfully.
From the actual race itself, the addition of visor cam live on an oval in race conditions, that perspective is something to behold, one can only hope that Indycar uploads some highlights from these to their YouTube channel sooner rather than later.
One interesting aspect was to see the Alonso effect on viewership of the race, overnights reported that the race had a peak of 209k viewers (near the end of the race) and an average of 129k for the whole 3 1/2 hour show. Broadly speaking you were looking at 6 times the viewers than last years race, and about that on average 500's in recent years, even more for the normal series races throughout the year. Hopefully a few of those stick around for the rest of the season.
I asked last night for some comments from first time viewers what they thought of the race, here are some of the comments I received back.
"Great racing, loads of overtaking, good camera positions. It was really good despite Fernando's engine failure"
"Came on board with Alonso. Followed it all from rookie test till last bits tonight. Unfortunately no Alonso at finish. Am glad I watched Indy 500. It was for the first time and will definitely not be the last"
"First ever Indy 500, tuned in to see Alonso and really disappointed that he was let down again by Honda, he deserves better. Liked the excitement during the race"
"1st time viewers, we are big f1 fans and we tuned in to support Fernando, we actually really enjoyed it. The racing was ok I suppose, safety was a bit lacking compared to f1, trucks on the track when cars are racing, one driver not pitting when his front wing was hanging off but the design of the cars is clearly geared around safety after witnessing a couple of big crashes and seeing the driver pod still in tact so that's good. Might not be so great in a situation like Jules Bianchi's crash with big trucks on the track however. I would definitely watch again and would love to bring my Partner and son over to the USA to watch it live."
The comments to this tweet from WTF1 are also worth checking out
From the actual race itself, the addition of visor cam live on an oval in race conditions, that perspective is something to behold, one can only hope that Indycar uploads some highlights from these to their YouTube channel sooner rather than later.
One interesting aspect was to see the Alonso effect on viewership of the race, overnights reported that the race had a peak of 209k viewers (near the end of the race) and an average of 129k for the whole 3 1/2 hour show. Broadly speaking you were looking at 6 times the viewers than last years race, and about that on average 500's in recent years, even more for the normal series races throughout the year. Hopefully a few of those stick around for the rest of the season.
I asked last night for some comments from first time viewers what they thought of the race, here are some of the comments I received back.
"Great racing, loads of overtaking, good camera positions. It was really good despite Fernando's engine failure"
"Came on board with Alonso. Followed it all from rookie test till last bits tonight. Unfortunately no Alonso at finish. Am glad I watched Indy 500. It was for the first time and will definitely not be the last"
"First ever Indy 500, tuned in to see Alonso and really disappointed that he was let down again by Honda, he deserves better. Liked the excitement during the race"
"1st time viewers, we are big f1 fans and we tuned in to support Fernando, we actually really enjoyed it. The racing was ok I suppose, safety was a bit lacking compared to f1, trucks on the track when cars are racing, one driver not pitting when his front wing was hanging off but the design of the cars is clearly geared around safety after witnessing a couple of big crashes and seeing the driver pod still in tact so that's good. Might not be so great in a situation like Jules Bianchi's crash with big trucks on the track however. I would definitely watch again and would love to bring my Partner and son over to the USA to watch it live."
The comments to this tweet from WTF1 are also worth checking out
Who watched the #Indy500 for the first time and enjoyed it? Reply to this tweet □□
— WTF1 (@wtf1official) May 28, 2017
So on the whole, pretty resounding win for Indycar, time to capitalise on it.
On a final note, I'll take you back to to 2014, and Kurt Busch comments during the victory banquet, he spoke of how the Indiana natives make the race track what it is, and the race track makes the people in Indiana what they are. That is hopefully what Fernando found, I sure have.
On a final note, I'll take you back to to 2014, and Kurt Busch comments during the victory banquet, he spoke of how the Indiana natives make the race track what it is, and the race track makes the people in Indiana what they are. That is hopefully what Fernando found, I sure have.