IndyCar GP Prediction Review

Simon Pagenaud's drive to victory in wet conditions at the IndyCar GP was spectacularly thrilling - and put paid to all my carefully crafted predictions! Time to review them:

1) Josef Newgarden will once again finish in the top five

Nope. Newgarden qualified poorly, but ran a contra-strategy to move himself up the field. All looked to be in place for a strong finish, even accounting for the late race rain moving in, but a dropped wheel during the final pit stops led to him being sent to the back of the field.

Poor qualifying by the driver, a mistake by the pit crew, and a bit of bad luck - Newgarden still holds the championship lead by a narrow margin, but can't afford any more bad results.

2) A Swede (that'll be either Felix Rosenqvist or Marcus Ericsson) will be on the podium

What might have been. Rosenqvist started on pole, but fell away even before the rain really started to make its presence felt. A win is there for the Ganassi driver, but he'll have to put together a perfect weekend.

3) Another race without a full course yellow?

The Swede's conspired against me, with Ericsson throwing it in the wall and bringing out the caution. Brazilian Helio Castroneves bought out the yellows again later when he decided to see if wet tyres worked on wet grass and gravel. They didn't, he got beached.

4) Boom or bust for an aggressive Alexander Rossi

I'm calling this one as correct! Certainly no boom, but plenty of bust for Rossi. After a poor qualifying, he got caught up in a mid-pack incident with Pato O'Ward, and broke a suspension component before even crossing the start line. Although the Andretti mechanics got his car back out, he was several laps down.

5) Carlin to get a top 10 finish

No. Although O'Ward, after a terrible time through practice and quali, and despite being ordered in for a drive-through penalty after nerfing Rossi, was actually running strongly before Castroneves' dirt tracking foray shuffled the pack one last time. Nearly, but not quite.