For the second weekend in a row, the Cup drivers are venturing to the road course discipline, but this time it’s at a track they’ve been to many times before, sort of. Something had to be done to spice up the Brickyard weekend after years of stale racing and lack of passing and after last year’s amazing Xfinity race on the Indianapolis Road Course, it’s the top series’ turn to take on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile layout.
Now, we should be used to seeing the Cup cars go around road layouts, especially this year with this being the sixth such race in the 23 races run so far this year, however, this one is still different. The Indy Road Course is much, much flatter than the others with right turns in the design and so this will be a more technical, brake zone, road race than say Watkins Glen or Daytona Road Course were. In terms of length though, it’s pretty similar to the track they raced on last week, though there are fewer laps this weekend.
Dan and I took to calling it the #Inhaler on the podcast because of the shape of the track, which you can see to the right as they race on the first half of the oval, though in reverse fashion. The most interesting turns on the track will likely be Turns 1, 2, and 7 as they are tight and come after the biggest straight sections of track on the course. A few interesting things to point out here is that they will be pitting backward, just like they did at Road America, and that may lead to slower pit stops and a bit of chaos on pit road. There won’t be a comp caution early in stage one either because of the practice session on Saturday and qualifying on Sunday morning.
Strategy Notes:
Much like other road courses, laps led won’t be a major factor in the totals put up by drivers this week as there are just 82 laps for the scheduled distance. The stages are 15 laps, 20 laps, and 47 laps in length which will also help shake up the grid order as multiple pit strategies take shape over the race. Let’s keep in mind that we know who are typically good at road courses but with the practice session and live qualifying happening, we could get a few drivers that show up well unexpectedly, like Tyler Reddick landing on the pole at COTA. Like I mentioned on the podcast, this is likely a better week for GPPs rather than Cash builds because of the chaos that could ensue from being in race conditions for the first time. They will be racing the 750-horsepower package this week and the lower downforce combined with decently hot temps in Indianapolis could make the track a bit slicker than it ordinarily would be.
Facts To Know:
- Chase Elliott is the only driver with four or more top-fives in the five prior road races this season.
- There are five drivers with at least three top-fives in the five road races this year.
- Three of the top-10 DFS scoring spots this year on road courses have all started P27 or further back in the grid.
- Five of the top-10 scoring spots in DFS on both sites have started between P12 and P20 in these races this year.
- Only once this year has a driver topped 50 laps led in a road race.
- Every driver priced at $10,000 or above on DK all have Driver Ratings over 100 at this year’s road races.
- Only Kyle Larson has spent more than 85-percent of the time in the top-15 in these races this year. That is mainly due to Chase Elliott starting in the back so often.
- In four of the last five road races, the average green flag stretch is 11 laps or less.
- Ford has one win in the last 14 road races which was Blaney in 2018 at the Roval.
The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five Road Course races with Race 1 being the most recent.
| Race | Race | Race | Race | Race | ||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | AVG | |
| Positive Place Differential | 23 | 16 | 18 | 23 | 18 | 19.6 |
| Six+ Place Differential Spots | 6 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 17 | 11.2 |
| Double-Digit Place Differential | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 7.4 |
| Double-Digit Fast Laps | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1.8 |
| 20+ Laps Led | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 50+ Laps Led | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.2 |
| 100+ Laps Led | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
For the tables below:
* The Category Rankings table: The numbers in the tables for each column represent that driver's rank amongst the other in the field for that particular stat. They are ranked with 1 being the best in each column.
* The DFS Scoring Table: Race 1 is the most recent race in the sample size with Race 5 being the earliest. We are using the Last 5 Road Course races for the data.