I knew in advance that Detroit would be a difficult weekend, but in the end I am leaving with a podium under my arm. I can’t say that the overall balance is excellent because the first race was tough, but it wasn’t a bad experience either. Now Pato O’Ward leads the championship by a point advantage, but I am convinced that we will be able to carry the fight until the last race if we can polish a few things and repeat more performances like the one on Sunday.
Detroit was particularly difficult for a number of reasons, but mainly because last year it wasn’t on the schedule and we only had one free practice session before qualifying. Add to this that it is perhaps the most bumpy circuit on the calendar and you end up seeing a car that moves a lot in your hands at a time when what you need is to do kilometers and discover where the grip is.
On Saturday we were a bit lost with the balance of the car, but on Sunday luckily we found the right way. With the experience of 70 laps in the first race, we changed the settings quite a bit and the car improved a lot. I also improved some things on my part because I already had more confidence on the track, so that together we managed to take a step forward that surprised even me, because it is not unusual for things to change so much in such a short time.
Something that compromised us a lot was a six-place penalty for an engine change we had to do in Indianapolis. This change of engine will haunt us for the rest of the season, so we will have to manage the situation with head so that it affects us as little as possible.
Let me explain: in the 500 Miles we all received two new engines. We use one for free practice and qualifying, while the other is for Carb Day and the race. And then you drag the latter to the next rounds of the calendar.
My qualifying engine was perfect, but the race engine broke on Carb Day. So we had to change it and set up the qualifying one for the 500 Miles. We couldn’t install a new one because Honda didn’t have any more, so we went back to the old engine.
There is a silly article in the regulations that says if you have to change the engine in the 500 Mile race you get a penalty in the next race, so we basically raced in Indianapolis with an old engine and also got a penalty for Detroit.
This does not stop here, but it means that I now have one less engine for the entire season. I will have to use a new one sometime in the calendar and when I do I will receive another penalty so this will be a toothache.
Some people wonder if we would have won the 500 Miles if we had the new engine that was our turn. I think maybe nothing would have changed, but it is true that each engine has qualifying engine maps that we can use for a certain number of laps in the race. I did not have them for half the 500 Miles and in Detroit it was the same, so in that sense we are at an inferiority. There is nothing we can do about it. It’s just bad luck.
In the race on Sunday we made a very big change. We improved a lot and being able to start from the front made the race easier. We had a lot of pace and we were going fast, and we could even catch the cars in front. At times we didn’t have the pace of Newgarden and Herta, but we were the third fastest car on the track.
In the first highlight it seemed that we had a chance to fight for the victory, but then there was another yellow flag and in the second highlight we lost a lot of temperature in the tires. The last laps were fun and in the end we got a podium, which is always very good and has special merit when the weekend started with so many problems.
We still don’t know why Pato O’Ward was so fast on the second jump start, but we do know that it’s a tire temperature issue. We have already seen in other circuits with Pato and McLaren they can attack more than the rest when we come off a yellow flag, and that is because while we are on cold tires and we have to be careful they can attack with much more confidence. We know what it is, but we still don’t know how to replicate it. We will continue investigating it, because if we succeed we will be able to measure up.
This weekend there is Road America, which is a place that brings back good memories because it is where I got my first IndyCar podium. I really want to go there. It is a place that I know myself well, a permanent circuit, and on top of that we will have two free practice sessions and a warm-up, so that we can prepare everything well. That does not mean that it will be easy, but at least I know what to expect and we will try to go for the victory.
Now O’Ward and I are only separated by one point in the championship, so the fight is served. I think we can be in the gap until the end of the season. We need to do more races like Sunday’s, because if we’re like Saturday we won’t be able to do it. He made a podium in the first round and a victory in the second, so the only thing we can do is fight back.
Circuits like Road America or Mid-Ohio are our strengths for the remainder of the season. They are places where I have already competed and where I know I can be competitive. On the contrary, places like Long Beach or Portland will be quite a challenge because I have not raced there yet. But nothing happens: if we know that we will suffer there, what we have to do is comply in the places where we know that we will be competitive and where we have more options to win.
MY SPECIAL GUEST IN DETROIT
Of all the journalists who follow IndyCar, perhaps the most special is Asher. He is an eight-year-old boy who is starting out in karting and who does not miss details of what is happening in the category. Since last year he has been to all the telematic press conferences and it is always fun that he interviews me with the microphone when he comes to the circuits.
Before Detroit I asked him if he planned to go to that race, but he said no because they had already used up their quota for this season and that I would have to follow it from home. So I suggested that she ask her mother if she would give her permission to come, because they give me some guest passes at each race and I could bring them to the circuit.
Asher interviews everyone. He’s very small, but he’s not ashamed to stop by the paddock and ask us four questions. Sometimes he is very direct, because if you have been slow he tells you openly, but it is always fun to talk to him. When I was little I would have liked a pilot to give me tickets as his guest, so everyone is happy.
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