IndyCar Takeaways: No rain on Rossi’s parade at Watkins Glen

Pole position was where Alexander Rossi started Sunday’s IndyCar Grand Prix at The Glen and P1 was right where he finished, leading 32 of 60 laps en route to victory.

It wasn’t entirely wet, but it was still wild in Watkins Glen, N.Y., as rain threatened to disrupt the penultimate race of the 2017 season, forcing everyone to have one eye on the track and the other on the radar.

IndyCar declared it a wet race to start, requiring all drivers to begin on wet weather tires. Conditions proved to be too dry though and after the race went green, just about everyone dashed into the pits for a quick switch.

While things from there went shiny for Rossi, it was stormy for Josef Newgarden. His points lead nearly evaporated due to a late collision while exiting the pits, tightening up the chase for the championship heading into the finale in the process.

Here are five takeaways from the IndyCar GP:

So you’re saying there’s a chance

Rossi’s win throws his name back into the hat for the championship — as slim as it may seem — with just one race remaining at Sonoma in two weeks.

The 25-year-old American driver is in sixth place and 84 points back of Newgarden, but has a chance to claim the title technically.

Rossi had one hiccup early Sunday in the pits due to a fuel probe malfunction and needed to stop again ahead of schedule. Thanks to a lucky yellow — courtesy of Andretti teammate Takuma Sato spinning around on track — Rossi was able to get back on sequence (everyone else pitted under the caution period) and return to the front of the field on lap 29.

It was smooth sailing from there for Rossi, who picked up his second career victory following his win at the Indy 500 last season as a rookie.

“An amazing job by the whole team today,” Rossi said in an IndyCar media release. “We had an issue in the beginning with some fuel, the fuel [probe], but whatever. It doesn’t matter, the team recovered. We had the pace to do it, but it’s pretty amazing. It’s a huge team effort. I’ve talked so much about how much we’ve improved. I’m so happy we’re finally able to win.”

Rossi has evaded the sophomore slump in the second half of the season, turning things around with a runner-up finish at Toronto in mid-July. He also ended up on the podium at Pocono in third and earned a pair of sixth-place results at Mid-Ohio and Gateway.

It’s a promising end to the season for Rossi, who recently re-upped his contract with Andretti Herta Autosport. Teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay joined Rossi on the podium at Watkins Glen finishing third to produce more positive gains for Andretti.

Hinchcliffe out early

James Hinchcliffe’s disappointing weekend came to an abrupt and early end Sunday.

The 30-year-old Oakville, Ont., native struggled in practice and qualifying to start 16th on the grid and exited the race after only completing five laps due to gear problems.

Hinchcliffe, driving in the No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda, shifted up to fourth gear only to drop down to first and ended up parked on the track. The safety team towed him back to the pits where his team was unable to fix the issue.

“About Lap 2, I started having problems getting into fourth gear,” Hinchcliffe said in an IndyCar media release. “It would kind rev off the limiter. It would skip the gear sometimes. It would clunk in. I knew we had a little bit of a problem, and then coming out of Turn 8, shifted to third and everything messed up in the gearbox and went down to first gear, and I think did some pretty big damage to the gearbox. It’s really too bad.

“We didn’t have the best qualifying and wasn’t the best weekend for us, but we were confident we could pull something off in the race — good strategy, smart decisions. Tough day for the Arrow Electronics guys, but we’ll bounce back in Sonoma.”

Meanwhile, Hinchcliffe’s newest teammate, Jack Harvey, came in 14th. Harvey made his IndyCar debut earlier this season at the Indy 500 in a one-off entry for Andretti and joined SPM for the final two races of the season. Harvey drove for SPM the past two years in the Indy Lights series.

Karma for Newgarden?

Newgarden has shown he isn’t afraid to take risks and even race his own Penske teammates (see our Mid-Ohio and Gateway takeaways) although that strategy came back to bite him at Watkins Glen.

The 26-year-old from Nashville, Tenn., who started third, couldn’t quite beat Will Power to the pit-exit line and locked up his tires. Not only did Newgarden slap the left barrier and crunch his front wing, his car sustained rear damage when Sebastien Bourdais had nowhere to go and rammed him from behind. That forced Newgarden to limp around the track and head right back into the pits not once but twice for additional bodywork.

“No excuse for it,” Newgarden said in an IndyCar media release. “It was my fault. I saw Will leave right in front of us and I just locked it up and slid over into the wall. Then Sebastien got into the back of me. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing I can do about it. We’ll go to Sonoma in a couple of weeks and race for it.”

Newgarden maintains hold of the points lead despite finishing 18th at Watkins Glen, so his destiny is still in his hands heading into Sonoma.

Dixon denied fifth Watkins Glen win

Finishing less than a second behind Rossi to the finish line was Scott Dixon. The 37-year-old from New Zealand is a master of the track winning four times previously, including last season, but couldn’t quite find that extra burst to pass Rossi.

Dixon, who started right beside Rossi on the grid in second, finished runner-up for the second race in a row and fifth time this season. While he was denied a fifth career victory at Watkins Glen, he’s still in a prime position to score a fifth career title with history on his side.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver has won at Sonoma three times in the past, most recently in 2015 when he also won his fourth championship on a tiebreaker with Juan Pablo Montoya.

Six in the mix for the championship

Newgarden not only has to fend off Dixon, he also has to worry about his Penske teammates — Power, Helio Castroneves, and Simon Pagenaud — from wrestling the championship away from him. They’re all still in it to win it.

Castroneves, who finished fourth Sunday, has won the Indy 500 three times, but a series championship remains elusive. With his IndyCar future a question mark, the 42-year-old from Brazil is going to be gunning at Sonoma.

Power, who also holds three wins at Sonoma like Dixon and won the championship in 2014, finished sixth at Watkins Glen thanks to a pair of speedy pit stops that saw him gain a total of nine spots alone.

Pagenaud, who came in ninth, will be looking to repeat as the series champion.

Don’t count anyone out. As we saw Sunday with Newgarden, anything can go haywire at any moment. And, with double points on the line, it’ll be a showdown at Sonoma.

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