Motorsports

Lapping the field

Penske and Ganassi rarely felt much of a challenge last season.

By BRANT JAMES
Published March 24, 2007

HOMESTEAD - The cars were the same, but decidedly unequal.

Toyota's defection and Honda's emergence as the lone engine provider for the Indy Racing League last year was supposed to create a level field on which each team would be able to compete using intellect and driver skill. The problem was Team Penske and Ganassi Racing, which had struggled with Toyota's increasingly inferior product the previous two years (winning just six times collectively), had the financial resources and engineering wits to blanket that new field.

The skill of Penske's Sam Hornish and Helio Castroneves and Ganassi's Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon, collectively winners of five championships and four Indianapolis 500s, almost made it unfair. Seemingly tethered together on the racetrack and atop the standings for the entirety of the 2006 Indy Racing League season, the group left the rest of the league consoling itself with leftovers.

Castroneves winces when he thinks about that dynamic playing out again. In once sense he's anticipating another strong season beginning tonight at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But then he considers those three points that denied him his first championship and gave Hornish his third.

"I think it's going to be the same battle," he said.

Consider: Castroneves and Hornish (four wins each) and Dixon and Wheldon (two) combined to win 12 of 14 races. Only Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti, of once-dominant Andretti Green Racing, were able to avert a total whitewash.

Ganassi and Penske's drivers swept the top four spots in three races, the top three in one and three of four in two more. They failed to put a driver in the top three just once, and in that race at Sonoma, Calif., Dixon was fourth.

Hornish and Wheldon tied with 475 points, but Hornish claimed his series-record third championship with more victories. Castroneves was third overall, two points back, Dixon 15 points back in fourth. Panther Racing's Vitor Meira was fifth, 64 points back. A win is worth 50 points.

Wheldon, a St. Petersburg resident who left Andretti Green after winning the 2005 championship and Indy 500, said the fact there have been few changes to affect performance or handling means Penske and Ganassi only have "marginal gains" left to find with their considerable resources. That doesn't mean much will change, he said.

"The others can make bigger steps quicker because they haven't obviously figured out what Penske and Ganassi have got," he said. "I think it will be a little closer, but on a consistent level, I think Penske and Ganassi will be the most dominant."

AGR, which won 19 of 33 races and titles with Kanaan and Wheldon in 2004 and '05 as a virtual Honda factory team, was overwhelmed by the aerodynamic advances Toyota helped Penske and Ganassi make as they toiled against Honda's superior power. "They reaped the benefits of that and when they came to Honda, they had everything Honda's been doing for us," Andretti said. "So they not only knew what we were doing, they also had what they had. It really hurt us bad."

Kanaan finished sixth in points last season, with Andretti seventh as a rookie and Dario Franchitti eighth. Andretti said his team has spent research money for this season, but won't express hope until he sees his cars in a race.

Castroneves predicted AGR is "coming back." It may not be as dominant as it used to be, he said, "but I think at least one of their cars is going to be in the final battle."

Maybe the equality will be shared a little more equally.

[Last modified March 23, 2007, 23:09:36]