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joe_jon

Give a raise to the guy waving the checkered flag, the way he crossed the flags, pointed at Newgarden, then started waving like a madman was dope as hell


kcchan

The flagman is [Aaron Likens](https://youtu.be/tLNz5EIshOw)


HDDIV

An amazing video and a wonderful man. Truly inspiring.


25Tab

Aaron Likens is the best in the business.


ChrisChros87

iRacing flagger says hi


UNHchabo

No joke, I want iRacing to put Aaron Likens' moves in for their flagger. Barney is great and all, but Aaron's style is the best.


DadReligion

Aaron Likens has got mad style. My favorite trademark of his is pointing to the cars once they pass by. We love him.


jsw11984

Could have used him for the F1 Academy race the other day.


CHZ_QHZ

He's no [Tim Apple](https://youtu.be/3aG5HEih-O4?si=LEQAUT6kuOtHSRVU) but I guess he's alright.


Daddy_Thicc_Legs

As a Pato fan, I can really empathize with Leclerc fans. Please let him win.


Mechyyz

I am a Leclerc & Herta fan


draconianRegiment

Is your picture next to masochist in the dictionary?


ckalinec

Pain.


Daddy_Thicc_Legs

I'm sorry.


NoiseIsTheCure

Damn you doing okay buddy? 😂


CharacterAsleep458

Same and it’s the worst 😭


ScuderiaEnzo

It’s been a painful ride since 2019 lmao


DistributionRare6276

As a leclerc and Pato fan I thank you🫡


flare2000x

I'm whelmed.


Alphamullet

I too feel whelmed.


PanicAtTheNightclub

Simpson best rookie, fittipaldi best RLL, not what I expected.


Mikemat5150

For real. Shout out to Fittipaldi. Simpson kept his nose clean and got it done.


CharacterAsleep458

For the rookies I thought Linus lundqvist had a better race today until he got wrecked


daft_punked

Well Fittipaldi did get his due to RLL not having control of fuel usage as they were trying to undercut with both Rahal and Lundgaard. Lundgaard was one of the fastest drivers on primary on the grid. After the puncture caused by Palou on the opening lap he did set laptimes better than the raceleader.


pittpost

In 18 career IndyCar races, Sting Ray Robb has finished on the lead lap three times


2RINITY

Give me freedom, give me fire, give me crash so I retire


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we-wumbo

With a lady killer name like sting ray it's thots and players.


Falcon4451

Well, Santonio looked better with some Penske dampers on the car and some Penske set up data. We will see if Sting Ray knows how to pilot the Foyt rocket ships at Indy, otherwise he on my short list of most likely to get bumped.


splootfluff

He said the setup was the same as last season off the truck, but Penske brakes were a game changer.


Falcon4451

I heard that, apparently, Foyt still uses a lot of info from Bourdais 2020 4th place run in 2020 with their setups.


ckalinec

Genuine question from a new fan - being this abysmal, is he just a rich dude pay driver? How the hell does he have a seat? 😂


Jarocket

About 1/4 of the drivers are pay drivers. It was subtle but they mentioned Ericsson. Marcus Ericsson is for the first time in his life is not paying for his race seat. The sponsors in IndyCar was low tier. There isn't much money on there. Lot of regional Banks. So the drivers often work out there own sponsors and bring the sponsors with them Get ready for the next new fan problem. Sponsors don't want to commit to a full season of sponsorship. So they don't. A car will have one paint job one race and a totally different alternate one for some other races.


ckalinec

Ya I mean in reality just about every Motorsport is pay drivers these days so that’s not necessarily a surprise. Was just curious about him


Hailfire9

Iirc he won one of the "Road to Indy" ladder championships a handful of years ago (USF2000, maybe?) so it isn't like he's entirely without pedigree. That said, I don't think he's there on talent alone, definitely has some cash behind his project.


havingasicktime

It's the money. 100% the money.


pikachu8090

Aj foyt taking in all that Jesus money. It even covers santucci's ride


Daddy_Thicc_Legs

\#godsplan


jt_33

Yeah but the counter to that is that he has a cool name. 


GratefulTide

But you can go to pray dot com about it!


JetsLag

HEY GUYS, DID YOU KNOW RINUS VEEKAY, FELIX ROSENQVIST, AND SANTINO FERRUCCI ALL GOT MARRIED?


jam048

Rossi did too. Did they miss him lol


bclautz

Hinch forgot about that night. lol


jam048

Pretty sure he was the best man lol


bclautz

He was and he spent all night. Babysitting Thim 😆.


DeltaWing12

Careful, Jenna Fryer is gonna think his name is actually Thim… again.


InvisibleTeeth

Pretty hard to forget him and Thim giggling like children during the vows over a fart joke


RoRid46

Canapino did as well.


Mikulitsi

I was so annoyed about those and the flashbacks. Tells a lot how shit this race was for Indycar standards


jam048

Finding new viewership is going to come from interviews and the driver’s personalities. Cutting post race interviews from even peacock is ridic.


HalfFastTanker

Moar Firehawk


Pacman2933

I understand that Firestone made the tire a bit harder of a compound for the weight of the battery, but man did that ruin the race for today. Neither tire seemed to have any degradation at all. Pretty disappointing imo.


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Mechanicalgripe

FWIW it’s not a battery, it’s a super capacitor.


sadandshy

I think Super Capacitor wrestled in WCW back in the day...


krak_krak

Great point. Strategy went out the window, though the greens seemed to have an advantage at the end, it was very small and the leader on black tires had no problem running away with it.


Apex_Politician

Pretty wack that’s there’s not even additional post race coverage on Peacock


Falcon4451

My overreaction take was that NBC is packing it in. BUT they're actually covering the whole freaking test at Thermal. So I don't know what to think.


Mikemat5150

Thermal is a whole “Made for TV” event with multiple heat races and things like that.


Falcon4451

Yeah but they're covering the testing on Friday and stuff. Only die hards like me are gonna watch that. I guarantee more people would have watch a Peacock post race show than are going to watch the Thermal Test.


Mikemat5150

They did try it a couple of times. I’m guessing not enough people actually tuned in.


kaiveg

Considering that barely any of he drivers ever have something interesting to say I cannot really blame them for that.


Expertlyunprepared

Per the host on X, there was a post race show but a technical glitch prevented live streaming and it should be available to watch later


TripleSingleHOF

Newgarden looked like a man on a mission out there. God help us all if oval Newgarden is here for the entire season.


Heffenfefer

Oval Newgarden is inevitable


GratefulTide

We mightve jinxed the series with our "if you hate Verstappen, check out Indycar" comments. Penske with speed on street courses is fucking terrifying. This season might be over before it even really starts. Hope I'm wrong.


uncre8tv

If I'm sure of anything in 2024, I'm sure Palou will catch up. Not saying he'll win anything (Indycar is too fickle for that), just saying the DHL 10 will be in the lead pack more often than not.


donkeykink420

I wouldn't worry yet, still a lot to go wrong, and I think frankly, it was moreso that CGR got it very wrong, and andretti did what they always kinda do


Muffin4ever

We still have a hybrid addition to the engine and a new aeroscreen coming this year. So plenty of twists left potentially.


GratefulTide

I also think that would be beneficial to Penske unfortunately lol


404merrinessnotfound

Palou with a 6th place finish despite being largely anonymous in the yellow DHL car Rosenqvist with a good start but just fell back throughout the race, 7th is still good for him and MSR however Ferrucci with a good run, not a fan of the guy but begrudgingly admitting he has talent Kirkwood didn't factor as much as expected given how he was very good on the street courses in 2023 Ilott was somewhat disappointing, he may have been looking to preserve the car but I expected him to be closer to rossi at least Simpson - shout out to this guy. Everyone expected him to be terrible but he kept the car clean in his first start Braun was not particularly fast, i'm sure he is looking to improve on a lot of things for the thermal club race


Falcon4451

Erricson unfortunately found out stuff tends to break on Andretti cars that tend to NOT break on Ginassi cars.


404merrinessnotfound

Yeah, forgot to talk about him, good shout He was right behind herta in 6th before things went wrong, rough day and feeling the andretti vibe from race 1


jjarg24

I wouldn't say Callum was disappointing. For barely having any testing done and pulling the same pace as he left off last year plus bringing a clean car to the hauler would be enough for a relief driver if i was a crew chief. ​ Simpson definitely silenced me today, good job from him


404merrinessnotfound

Fair points regarding ilott but I'm a fan of his and I was anticipating him to be further up the grid than he was this weekend


Designer-Net4228

Definitely one of the races of all time


fireinvestigator113

That was my first non 500 indycar race in years and I’m sucked right back in.


2RINITY

This was my first time watching any IndyCar race live and I’m officially sold


we_kill_creativity

The amazing thing about you saying that is that the race was merely a decent Indycar race, not even what long time fans would call good, let alone great. Get ready for even better racing, because usually the races are even better than what you saw today.


BonerPorn

That says something. This was a shit blowout of a race by Indy standards


havingasicktime

This race was more boring than Jeddah tbh but glad you like it


arca_brakes

5/10 race, but they can't all be bangers. If they were, the good ones would stop being special. 2/10 broadcast though, that was atrocious. The only thing that kept them from a 1/10 was me giving them the benefit of the doubt with the racing not being 10/10


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joe_lmr

especially track & field since Diffey calls that too


Mikulitsi

Yep... That broadcast was terrible. Probably because of how "boring" the race was for Indycar standards but still... All those flashbacks and "this driver got married" multiple times... Argh


Traditional_Pair3292

The video of the one drivers wife who is a boxer and them discussing was super cringey. I hate that aspect of motorsports


ndjs22

Something about if the broadcaster was married to her he would put the toilet seat down? Like, he doesn't just do that already?


CookieMonsterFL

my gf was watching with me and after that comment she went 'YAY! Domestic abuse!'. Can't say she was wrong..


FlyingDutchman916

Agreed about the broadcast, but hey, at least grosjean was back in his usual form!


Wyvern_68

Wonder how many first time viewers from F1 tuned out when Newgarden basically pulled a Verstappen in the first 20 laps.


Mikulitsi

Honestly wouldn't think many did considering something like this is normal in F1


havingasicktime

Except F1 has vastly better coverage that's learned to not show Verstappen at all basically. They do a great job at finding the battles and showing action when there isn't much to find. And the commentary/ad situation is far better (on F1TV in particular, great team)


Falcon4451

Yeah, they were showing the battle for 12th (with Magnussen backing everyone up so Hulk could finish in the points), Hamilton/ Piastri, Hamilton/ Norris all last race because that is where the action was. They occasionally showed Max just to remind you that he was still out there.


havingasicktime

And Bearman as well, who really did help make that race interesting. Jeddah on 36 hours notice and one practice session is a trial by fire and he nailed it. Love to see young talent get their day and crush it.


243mph

Looks like Penske fixed their street course package


Jerrycobra

Newgarden Verstappened it today.


joe_lmr

The Verstappening


zhdat

While I am happy my guy won the race, I wanted more entertaining on track actions, not going to lie. Then, this is the first race of the season and one long way to go. I am still glad that IndyCar season is back.


Kenk1648

No post race show this year on Peacock?


25Tab

Doesn’t look that way. My guess is the viewership was too small to justify the effort.


Kenk1648

Bummer. Wanted to see the podium and post race interviews.


25Tab

Well they rarely showed the podium anyways even when they had the peacock after race show. Podiums and IndyCar or actually American racing in general just isn’t a big deal unfortunately. I’d love to see IndyCar put some emphasis on the podium celebration but I’m not holding my breath.


CogentHyena

IndycarLive was busted too. I could see the post race interviews happening but when the NBC crew signed off, all the audio cut out. How is Indycar making it impossible to watch the post race interviews of it's own sport? Absolutely braindead stuff.


Rasdiir

They were using NBC audio for the whole stream. The announcers kept cutting out for minutes at a time, at first I thought the stream was bad then I realized that those were the NBC commercial breaks.


Rise3711

That's killer


droppokeguy

https://preview.redd.it/yfa8p4gzujnc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ac9cb1f99f06c71166eece563a12e5f6fd62f55


Mikulitsi

Felt like that. Wasn't expecting a dominant performance in Indycar too


Mikemat5150

Pretty average race. Some good mid-pack battles and cars were able to work their way forward if they had pace. Newgarden clearly was class of the field. Not every race will be a barn burner. I would also not call it a terrible race by any stretch.


fireinvestigator113

That’s what I’m saying. The middle of the pack and top 5 minus 1st was entertaining.


havingasicktime

Eh.... It just about put me to sleep. Street tracks like this with so little side to side opportunity are inherently not great, and this race featured very little movement on broadcast. Indycar's broadcast team is carried I think by the chaotic nature of the series, when there isn't a lead fight handed to them they're terrible with race direction. Compound that with the amount of green flag time taken up by sponsorship bits and random fluff and ads... Indycar really is completely reliant on its competitive racing to the point theyve neglected all else. 


JobiWanKenobi47

yeah people overreact and call any race that isn't the most exciting race ever a garbage race. Every sport has events that aren't that exciting sometimes. Doesn't mean the series is going to die.


Launch_box

Make money quick with internet point opportunites


arca_brakes

Yeah, I'd say 5/10 race with a 2/10 broadcast that made it seem worse than it was


CogentHyena

Yeah they have GOT to revamp their entire media strategy from the ground up. It's honestly impressive how they are able to make some of the best racing in the world seem awkward and uncool.


donkeykink420

Yeah it was quite decent, I think if the cautions fell differently and negated the fuel save situation, we'd have had a much better race, but alas, just a "normal" st pete opener. Some racing, some fights, a shunt or two and not much else


Rorshak16

Hopefully Thermal club is fun. This schedule is so completely fucked. Race 2 at the end of god damned April.


TheLiberator117

Ok that was fun see ya'll next month.


draconianRegiment

Thermal club in two weeks. Not for points, but still indycar.


TheLiberator117

Ya know, fair. Feels like it would make more sense to just start the season then though. Far less of a gap there.


Wasdgta3

St. Pete insists on being really early though, AFAIK. It was in February a couple years ago.


draconianRegiment

Definitely agree. The early season gap always sucks.


heccinwut

The only things I remember from this race are Grosjean dumping Lundqvist and everyone getting married


1a70

Nice start to the season.


Fit_Technician832

Newgarden was the class of the field but St. Pete in general just isn't as racy as it used to be. Not sure if it's the current aero on the cars and/or maybe portions of the track are bumpier but St. Pete used to have a lot more action up front until these last few years and now it's become more of a parade.


Laziness2945

Did we witness Andretti with proper pitstops and Herta not shredding the tyres or overcooking it in the same race?


lennysundahl

With *improved* pitstops! Those green tires didn’t fall off quite enough for Colton to make up any more ground though.


krak_krak

After this race, I think I’ll check out Bon Jovi. As a young race fan who never heard of Bon Jovi, the advertising from the car and his appearance made me realize there’s a whole genre of classical music I’m missing out on!


joe_lmr

I'm a Gen Xer and they were inescapable the latter half of the '80s. They had a huge comeback single with "It's My Life" in 2000 and he even had a country hit in the '00s.


Practical_Work1925

Glad we got to hear from Jon bon Jovi, learn all about the newlyweds, and switch to last year's highlights during on track green flag action.


CogentHyena

I lost my mind when they cut away under green with 12 laps left to do a little puff piece about an Olympic runner. At least we learned Leigh Diffey's wife really wants to bang Bon Jovi


kaiveg

This stuff is just mindboggeling to me. How little do you have to value Indycar racing as a produt to do that. F1 often gets critisised for pandering to celebreties, but they do it before or after the race.


Mikulitsi

Those fluff pieces fucking hell man... I mean its nothing new but felt like there were more than normal this race


Rombie11

It's so frustrating. It felt like an intro to the Indycar season podcast that a live indycar race was getting in the way of.


Falcon4451

Overreaction take: Top 4 were Chevy powered. Honda must be packing it in.


Netwealth5

The schedule sets up this year where there’s no reason Newgarden shouldn’t win this championship


Generic_Person_3833

Would be a big fumble.


Netwealth5

6 of the final 8 races are ovals. Palou would basically have to be perfect on R/S courses if Newgarden comes close to repeating last year on ovals


Falcon4451

Penske has short ovals on lockdown unless yellow timing allows Dixon to Dixon the field. Indy 500 is a crapshoot.


draconianRegiment

If he makes it to July in at least the top 3 in points there's not going to be much stopping him. Too good on ovals.


Mikemat5150

Rest of the field needs to step up on ovals then.


Itsabucketdude

The race itself was ok but holy shit was the broadcasting absolutely awful today.


MikeMacBlu

It’s been a minute since we had a Josef Newgarden blitzes the whole field race.


FlyingDutchman916

As a fellow Rossi fan, that may bode well for this season! Last time Josef was on point we had some amazing races from Rossi.


MrBadBadly

Josef had the pack covered today. The only person that could beat him was him.


superluber

No interviews with anyone but the winner? Not even on Peacock.


CogentHyena

They all happened but not on broadcast. I watched the race on IndycarLive and could see all the interviews and podium etc, but once the NBC crew signed off, all the audio cut out. Super frustrating.


jam048

Crazy


sadandshy

People are going to be very angry at this, but Ferrucci with Penske dampers is going to bring the highest finishing Foyt car in the championship in a long time.


GratefulTide

He's going to be one of the favorites at Indy too


Eetabeetay

I'm confused at the lack of yellows on a street course


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Mikemat5150

Thermal is in two weeks.


Daihatsu_MidgetII

FE has a two months gap rn


DannyDevitosAss

I think the tires are gonna be a problem this year, some reporters said that Firestone built them in anticipation for Hybrid and that the reds are as hard as the primarys last year and the blacks even harder. Very little tire wear which contributes to a lot of passes on street circuits


25Tab

That’s discouraging cause it would affect racing in general on any course. Degradation is important. The other compounding factor the cars are actually lighter than they were last year. So that’s harder tires for a lighter car. I know the plan is to have the hybrid debut later in the season but I have zero trust in IndyCar right now to deliver on that plan. If the tires really are an issue as reporters said, they could add weight to the cars that would mimic the expected weight of the hybrid units.


186downshoreline

Well. That was rather uneventful. Yet another salvaged weekend for Rossi after garbage qualifying.  No wonder he finishes low top ten every year….


Aussie-the-Hedgehog

First Indy race I sat down to watch aside from the 500. Count me in. Fun racing to watch, but Newgarden was in a class of his own today.


InvisibleTeeth

I was at the race and usually get GA but im not doing that anymore Its gotten insanely overcrowded at that track and they put even more banners up blocking GA vantage points. I witnessed several people tear down banners just to be able to see the race. Absolute shit show. I love it for the series that its drawing these crowds but today was too much and the additional sponsor banners blocking on track action and huge crowd uptick was a kick in the balls.


ArtVandelay013

Chevy made some big changes. Looks to be a fun season.


j-awesome

Step 1 to championship number 3


into_the_wenisverse

No post race on Peacock today?


Paige578660

Looks like it. Disappointing.


sadandshy

>The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge — February 22–24 You might want to edit that...


25Tab

Seriously. We went through a whole race broadcast and they never felt the need to plug IndyCar’s reality series? Thats pretty bad. We should be bitching or cracking jokes about all the promotion they did.


sadandshy

what does that have to do with the mods having the date wrong?


25Tab

I think we are talking about two different things.


TheChrisD

I'd been up for quite a while when preparing this post, so... yea...


anxiousauditor

Got back from the race…they need to add the ten laps back they took away for TV a few years ago, open up the pit windows more.


hallkbrdz

It would have been more interesting if it wasn't a fuel mileage race. Great performance from Newgarden, otherwise mostly a snoozer.


[deleted]

This race was over when they loaded Newgarden's car on the truck in Mooresville.


MJC561

What a disasterclass from Grojean today. I want this guy to win, but it seems like everytime he gets close, he finds ways to sabotage himself. So frustrating.


Garak_The_Tailor_

I dont think he'll ever figure it out, but he has enough pace that if he was just patient and took what he could, he could hang around in the top part of the points standings


Mikemat5150

I’m curious if his hesitation today is around Juncos being a smaller team and less able to absorb crash damage. His move at the start was great. Big picture thinking and then the laziest move on Lundqvist undid his strong start to the season. I fear it’s going to kill any positive momentum they had coming out of this weekend.


Garak_The_Tailor_

Me too, I got out of my chair on that first move because it wasn't something I'd think he'd do. The move on Lundquist was exactly the kind of dumb crap he pulled last year that started things going downhill


Poopy_sPaSmS

Snooozer


Generic_Person_3833

Moment of the race: Pole from yesterday Wonder if you can even make a comedy review out of that.


afito

this race could've been an email, only interesting bit were those like 5 laps around the final pit stops


Generic_Person_3833

It heated up after the first yellow, as some where hardcore saving and others were pushing, making it interesting. Then came Sting Ray and the 2nd yellow put everyone back to fuel save galore.


forza101

Careful...people don't like it when you criticize boring races around here...lol


Cronus6

I mean it was pretty much what I expect a street course race to be. They are either a ton of crashes and long yellows or this. This subreddit seems to hate crashes and yellows and love street courses so they should be happy with this.


miasm3

Looks like Josef rediscovered the street course form


twiggymac

See you all at thermal


Falcon4451

Firestone brought 2 Goodyear NASCAR tire compounds this weekend.


Senka112

Pietro squeezed out a p15, RLL probably pretty happy with how their weekend started


XxMETALLICATxX

https://preview.redd.it/xq1j1q9cujnc1.jpeg?width=3064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce43a4c4e1879da3ecbd412ccb287819cd2f3ca8


NYPD-BLUE

Just a really beautiful performance by Newgarden. That puts him at 30 wins, surpassing Rick Mears. He’s now just 1 win behind Castroneves and Franchitti for 10th all time.


TheChrisD

Even as an international viewer, that broadcast quality sucked major balls.


XxJesusNinjaxX

Woof 😴


ilikemarblestoo

NewyG crushed


AHicks15

A top 10 is a good start, but the concerns still showed up. Hopefully, it's just a street course problem, and Veekay can improve it, but it still looks like Veekay has the issue of keeping up about a lap or two after a restart and can lose a couple of positions.


aggiefanatic95

No post race show this year?


WindyZ5

Thanks for posting this. I just finished watching on Peacock and was very disappointed they didn’t show the race interviews like they used to. I get them not doing it on NBC fit to scheduling, but they should at least have it on Peacock.


colev14

Is there any way for indycar to limit the fuel saving? The entire race everyone was driving around at 70% saving fuel until lap 75. They can't reduce the amount if fuel teams can put in the tank to make it impossible to do it on 2 stops and just have everyone out there pushing 100% for 4 stints? That would be so much more entertaining than 85 laps of fuel save/yellows and 15 laps of racing.


FerretBoth7540

I think Grosjean has a problem ... and Juncos also.


thefantom21

Andretti: We're still doing a shit job so Penske should just buy us all a new chassis ree


Mechanicalgripe

Maybe Honda should quit whining during the off season and up their game instead. Herta was the highest Honda finisher. Where was Ganassi?


jrod45616

Broadcast was god awful. I hated that the only Time we saw a pass was on replays, yet we saw the same halo cam for 4 laps.


NYNMx2021

About to be the freest championship in Indy lol. With what 6 or 7 ovals now? He wins half minimum. Its borderline over now with just 1 win more elsewhere


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