How the 2016 Season Shaped up.
Via some friends of mine in the U.S. I thought I would share this as a look back to this past season and all it brought to us as fans media and much more.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise driver Simon Pagenaud (left) celebrates his win and the title as Verizon Team Penske driver Juan Montoya puts champagne down his back after the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway. (Photo: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports)
BEST TEAM: Team Penske, of course, for winning 10 of the 16 races and finishing 1-2-3 in the standings for the first time since 1994. Roger Penske’s group should again be strong in 2017, especially if it adds Josef Newgarden, as expected.
BEST DRIVER: If it wasn’t Simon Pagenaud, who won five races and seven poles, it was Will Power, who won four races despite being forced to sit out the season-opening race in St. Petersburg, Fla., with vertigo issues after winning the pole. Throw out the points from that race and the teammates went to the last event separated by a single point. Each had only one crash during the season.
BEST COMEBACK: One look at Josef Newgarden’s crash at Texas in June is enough to earn the award. The already-damaged car slid cockpit-first into the outside wall, with the roll hoop tearing through the SAFER barrier. Newgarden suffered a broken collarbone and wrist, but he was back on the track 12 days later at Road America. It was six weeks before he was able to resume his normal routine.
BEST COMEBACK II: Tony Kanaan. Improving one position in the standings (from eighth to seventh) might not seem like a big deal, but the Brazilian was far more competitive this year than last. Most of that improvement came on the non-ovals, where a few tips from old friend Dario Franchitti helped do the trick.
BEST ROOKIE: Alexander Rossi was the hands-down choice even beyond winning the Indianapolis 500 on Andretti Autosport’s brilliant fuel strategy. Remember, he didn’t join this series until late February and still had a stellar month of May at IMS. He seemed to get stronger with each event and would have finished eighth in the standings without running out of fuel on the last lap of the season finale in Sonoma, Calif. He was confirmed to return to MichaelAndretti’s team Monday.
BEST FIRST IMPRESSION: RC Enerson jumped out of Indy Lights to try IndyCar for three late-season races, and he had the third-quickest race lap at Mid-Ohio and finished ninth at Watkins Glen.
IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi crosses the finish line to win the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Sunday, May 29, 2016. (Photo: Jenna Watson/IndyStar)
BEST RACE: It’s always the Indianapolis 500, and this year’s 100th running was a spectacle the likes of which IMS has never seen before. There easily were 325,000 people on the grounds on race day, and the on-track show lived up to its hype.
BEST DECISION: IMS’ to make the 500 available to the local television audience. Sure, it took some of the starch out of the radio broadcast, but it was the right thing to do with all reserved seats sold 23 days out from the race.
BEST RECOVERY: IndyCar’s ability to replace the canceled Boston street race with a return to Watkins Glen, one of the most popular and historic U.S. racing venues. To cap it off, Watkins Glen signed to be on IndyCar’s schedule for the next two seasons.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: Juan Montoya. After winning the season’s first race, in St. Petersburg, he barely made a peep the rest of the season and added only three additional top-five finishes. He failed to lead a lap in 10 of the final 13 races.
BEST COLOMBIAN AT INDY: It wasn’t Montoya. For the third time in four years, Carlos Munoz went to the final lap with a chance to have his likeness on the BorgWarner Trophy. He finished second this time and was gutted when his teammate beat him by stretching his fuel to the finish.
BEST DUEL: Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal at Barber Motorsports Park. Rahal pushed the race leader into a mistake, but Pagenaud recovered from the sand trap excursion to hop on Rahal’s tail and force him into a mistake. Rahal ran into the back of Jack Hawksworth’s lapped car, allowing Pagenaud to scoot away to the race victory.
WORST COLLISION: Tony Kanaan and Sebastien Bourdais colliding ahead of the first turn of the road course race at IMS. They have too much experience for that kind of contact.
BIGGEST IMPACT: Either of the two in the crash of Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly at Texas. Both drivers were fortunate in that one.
STRANGEST INCIDENT: Alexander Rossi’s car going over the top of Helio Castroneves’ on pit road at Pocono. Rossi launched, following contact from Charlie Kimball’s car.
WORST LUCK: Scott Dixon’s throughout the season. Except for rare contact with Helio Castroneves at Mid-Ohio and a crash at Texas, he drove well enough to defend his series championship.
BEST ENDING TO A TRAGIC WEEK: Ryan Hunter-Reay’s at Sonoma Raceway. He signed a new four-year contract to remain with Andretti Autosport and finished fourth in the season’s final race just days after his father-in-law, Bob Gordon, was involved in what police say was a murder-suicide in Southern California.
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