Five things to see at the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR

There’s a new championship leader and new challenges as the NTT INDYCAR SERIES kicks off the second half of this competitive season.

Pato O’Ward’s win in the second race of the Chevrolet Dual last weekend in Detroit gave the Arrow McLaren SP driver the lead in the series ahead of the AMR-presented REV Group Grand Prix on Sunday June 20 at Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake. Wisconsin. O’Ward is one point ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou with eight races remaining. Practice begins Friday at 5 p.m. ET (live on Peacock).

However, the focus of the Road America weekend is initially on two injured drivers and their replacements.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay will not be medically cleared for this event following Tuesday’s surgery to repair a broken left collarbone that was injured in a bicycle accident on Monday. VeeKay, fifth in the season standings, will be replaced in the Direct Supply No. 21 Chevrolet by 2019 Indy Lights champion Oliver Askew, who replaced Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP in race two in Detroit after the Swede was involved in an accident in Race 1 Hospitalized with Rosenqvist still unwilling to return to the number 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet, he will be replaced by Kevin Magnussen, a seven-season Formula One veteran who won the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship last weekend won at Belle Isle Racetrack in Detroit.

VeeKay is the second ECR driver in six years to suffer such an injury. In 2016, Josef Newgarden broke his collarbone in an accident with Conor Daly at Texas Motor Speedway. Newgarden returned to the car 12 days later at the next INDYCAR event – ironically, it was on Road America. If VeeKay follows a similar recovery period and can manage the pain, he could be back at the Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (July 2-4).

VeeKay is one of seven INDYCAR drivers who have won a race this season. He took his first series win at the GMR Grand Prix on May 15 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

Magnussen, 28, competed in 119 F1 races for teams McLaren, Renault and Haas from 2014 to 20. His best result was in his first race – second place in the Australian Grand Prix for McLaren. He spent four years as a Haas F1 teammate to INDYCAR rookie Romain Grosjean, who now drives the Dale Coyne Racing No. 51 Nurtec ODT Honda with RWR.

The field this weekend remains at 25 car-driver combinations as the NASCAR Cup Series and sports car driver Cody Ware makes his series debut in the No. 52 Nurtec ODT Honda of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR. Ware completed his first INDYCAR laps on a test at Sebring International Raceway earlier this year and recently took part in a rookie test day on Road America.

In addition to the INDYCAR SERIES, the REV Group Grand Prix weekend includes all three levels of the Road to Indy program.

Sunday’s 55-lap INDYCAR race begins televising at noon (ET) on NBC Sports Network. The INDYCAR Radio Network will have the whole action on INDYCAR.com, the INDYCAR Mobile App powered by NTT DATA and SiriusXM 205.

Here are five things to see this weekend:

O’Ward full of confidence

O’Ward became the first INDYCAR driver to win multiple races that season, ending a streak of seven different winners earlier in the year. The way O’Ward overtook four other preeminent competitors in the final seven laps of Sunday’s race shows the strength that his No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet should have in the second half of the season. He also finished third in the first race of the weekend, one of six top four finishes in eight races this season.

A return to Road America should take O’Ward’s confidence to another level. He won his first NTT P1 Award for the second race of last year on the scenic 14-corner, 4,014-mile circuit and then finished second to Rosenqvist – he was racing for Chip Ganassi Racing at the time. That was effectively O’Ward’s breakout moment at INDYCAR, and he’s made seven top-three finishes since then. He has two sticks this season and has won two of the last five races.

O’Ward wasn’t surprised to learn he’d taken the lead in the series when asked about it shortly after leaving the field late in the Detroit race on Sunday.

“Yes, I can (believe it),” he said firmly. “The (crew) did a great job. They deserve it. There is still so much to do; we just have to stay tuned and keep pushing. “

Palou (# 10 NTT DATA Honda) is like O’Ward in his second full INDYCAR season and is in the championship fight for the first time. Palou won the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at the season opener at Barber Motorsports Park on April 18 and has remained in the top 3 of the overall standings ever since. At the races in Detroit, he finished 15th and third. His first career podium was last year in Race 1 at Road America.

Trail of Champions

Road America stands out as a track where INDYCAR champions reign.

The circuit in Central Wisconsin, which opened in 1955, has hosted 31 races for the top division of US open-wheel racing, and the winner was then or soon champion 25 times. That included a streak of 13 consecutive years from 1986 to 1998.

The championship drivers who have won there include the three-time winners Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Michael Andretti, the double winners Jacques Villeneuve, Paul Tracy and Scott Dixon and the individual winners Danny Sullivan, Alex Zanardi, Dario Franchitti, Cristiano da Matta and Sebastien Bourdais , Will Power and Josef Newgarden.

The variety show

This season there were seven different winners in eight races of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. Palou (Hairdresser Motorsport Park), Colton Herta (Streets of St. Petersburg), Dixon (Texas Motor Speedway-1), O’Ward (Texas Motor Speedway-2, Belle Isle Park Raceway-2), VeeKay (Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course-1), Helio Castroneves (Indianapolis 500) and Marcus Ericsson (Raceway at Belle Isle Park-1) all won in 2021.

The modern times record (1946-2021) for the most diverse winners in one season is 11 in the years 2000, 2001 and 2014.

There are a handful of noticeable absenteeism on the 2021 winners list, all of whom could battle for victory at Road America on Sunday. The Team Penske trio of the past season winners – Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power – are always looking for their first victories. The same goes for the Indy 500 winning duo from Andretti Autosport – Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing duo of Graham Rahal and the two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato also want to enter Victory Lane for the first time this season.

An impressive array of winners is a trend that began at the end of the 2020 season. Since last year there have been nine different winners in the last 10 races of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, plus Power (Harvest GP-2) and Newgarden (St. Petersburg) from last October.

The schedule for this weekend

INDYCAR is returning to its regular three-round knockout qualifying session, which will be broadcast live on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET. NBCSN will televise the replay at midnight.

Unlike Detroit, there will be two 45-minute workouts, on Friday at 5 p.m. (ET) and on Saturday at 11:10 a.m. (ET). A final 30-minute practice, which serves as a warm-up for the race, will take place after the qualifying Saturday at 5.30 p.m. (ET). All training sessions can be viewed on Peacock.

Indy Lights, Indy Pro 2000 and USF2000 will each have two races, the first on Saturday and the second on Sunday.

The rest of the season

Eight races have been completed and eight scheduled races remain to settle the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship.

O’Ward and Palou are separated by a single point, with Dixon, a six-time serial champion, 36 points behind in third place. Newgarden is fourth overall, 51 points behind O’Ward. VeeKay and Pagenaud (No. 22 Menard’s Team Penske Chevrolet) are both five points behind Newgarden.

Sunday’s Road America race is the first of five permanent road races to end the season. There are still two temporary road races with a short oval left. The schedule:

Sunday: REV Group Grand Prix at Road America (street course)

Sunday 4th July: Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (street course)

Sunday, August 8th: Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee (Tram)

Saturday, August 14th: Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (street course)

Saturday, August 21: Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on the World Wide Technology Raceway (oval)

Sunday, September 12th: Portland Grand Prix at Portland International Raceway (Street Course)

Sunday, September 19th: Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (street circuit)

Sunday, September 26th: Acura Long Beach Grand Prix (Street Circuit)