Mid-Ohio? Always Has Been

In lieu of our typical strategy podcast here is everything you need to know to set your lineup for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio airing Sunday at 1:00PM ET on FOX.

This is the first track that IndyCar is returning to for a second race with the hybrid system.

Mid-Ohio is a very different road course from Road America, much more tight and technical with several linked corners and not much straighaway. The technical nature of Mid-Ohio lends itself to clean, precise driving styles and punishes drivers that tend to push beyond the limit of grip. This should favor the usual suspects; Palou, Dixon, Kirkwood, Herta, Rossi and could bite more aggressive drivers like Power, Ferrucci, Rasmussen, VeeKay.

The race distance has been increased to the traditional 90 laps which we last saw in 2019. The aim of this is to tighten or close the window for a 2 stop strategy and encourage more action with the majority of the field pushing hard on a 3 stopper.

There is a slim chance that the 2 stop strategy may still be viable, snap oversteer has been a problem in practice with multiple cars venturing off track. Nowhere is this more apparent than the newly modified turn 4. Safety improvements were made in the offseason by flattening the surface and raising the runoff area closer to the level of the track. The hope is to prevent violent accidents like Michael Andretti’s ‘98 crash or Simon Pagenaud’s career ender in ‘23. Long term this may limit the ability to pass on the outside with less banking to help you through the corner but in the short term the repaved surface has lacked grip and the slight bump at the leading edge of the new surface has been enough to upset the balance of multiple cars, sending them wide through the turn or spinning them out completely. Its important to note that the race starts on the back straight so the first turn of the race will be turn 4. There will be ample opportunity for chaos and enough laps under yellow could bring the 2 stop back into play.

Its worth noting that Felix Rosenqvist was the top finisher last year on the 3 stop strategy but only 9 cars opted for the 3 stopper. Rosenqvist has also been snakebit by electrical issues which have limited his time on track. His poor qualifying result of 16th is disappointing but he had shown good pace before running into slower traffic. His car adorned with the Prince of Darkness; Fro is my darkhorse pick to put up a solid result on Sunday.

Local product Graham Rahal is the sentimental favorite but there are quite a few years between his win in 2015 and now. There’s reason for hope, RLL has turned a corner with their road course package this year but be warned, in most cases their gains have been in qualifying and they’ve continued to move backwards on race day. Where better to turn that around than at your home track? There is huge value to be had with Louis Foster who qualified 6th. With an Improvement Index of 19 he can slide back a bit and still bring in a nice haul of improvement points for just $9.8M. If you’re really feeling it you can even double down on Foster as a high-risk high-reward Talent Driver pick.

Dale Coyne Racing are primed for a breakout race. Last year Toby Sowery had a monster drive in the revolving door that was the 51 car, wheeling it from 24th to 13th so theres evidence that they’re capable of a competitive result. That performance would have scored 124 points on GridRival if it had been live last year. Don’t expect that result to come from the 51 car this year but Rinus Veekay in the 18 has shown flashes of brilliance in his new ride and now has three races under his belt with top-tier race engineer Michael Cannon. Even though he isn’t a podium threat starting all the way back in 26th he looks like an overtake point darling.

Alex Palou may ‘only’ have one win but he has never finished off of the podium. Most fresh lineups start with the question “Can I afford to run Palou?” This week I don’t think you can afford not to.

Scott Dixon has won an impressive 6 times here at Mid-Ohio but the last time he topped the podium was 2019. That said, the Iceman drives with the kind of patience and precision this weekend demands. Its been a quiet year from Scott but not a bad one, if you remove the Indy 500 he has had an average finish of 7.6 which is nothing to sneeze at. Unsurprisingly, Dixon’s superpower is his consistency.

Pato O’Ward won last year’s race by a narrow margin over Palou and everyone has been quick to point out that Palou had a miscue in the pits that caused him to blend out behind Pato. What everyone seems to forget is that Pato had a similar delay on his first stop when he was held up to let David Malukas pit in front of him. Arrow McLaren had the best car that day and theres reason to believe they do this week as well. Last year McLaren were set up to work best on the red alternate tires while Chip Ganassi Racing were best on blacks. The obvious play is to back Lundgaard who starts in 2nd and qualifies for Talent Driver points but the more interesting gamble is on Pato who is mired back in 15th but has an extra set of reds to burn. Nolan Siegel scored his highest ever starting position of 4th but feels like a trap. 90 laps means 1170 turns he has to get right and I don’t trust the super-rookie to do that just yet.

Here is my pick for a $100M fresh start lineup.

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