2018 IndyCar season in review: The good, the bad and the ugly

Pocono Raceway

Yes, Pocono Raceway is a superspeedway that very well could have been discussed on the previous slide, as the racing produced in it was affected in a big way by the new UAK18 aero kit.

However, this year’s race at the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) triangle in Long Pond, Pennsylvania deserves its own slide(s), and for many reasons that fans would prefer not to discuss.

Formula 1 doesn’t race on ovals. But if it did, you’d get what happened at Pocono Raceway: minimal passing, manufactured hype via differing pit strategies, a result that is determined by if not before the race’s halfway mark and a small fraction of the field finishing on the lead lap.

That’s not even bringing up the reignited catch fence and head protection debates, which I will also discuss later in this article.

Alexander Rossi led 180 of the race’s 200 laps. The race featured 11 lead changes, but it featured just two on-track passes for the lead. One of them took place at the start of the race when Rossi passed race polesitter Will Power, and one of them took place after Power came out of the pits ahead of Rossi later in the race and led for a whopping three laps before the eventual race winner blew by him.

Of the 22 drivers who finished the race, which went caution-free for its final 189 laps, four were officially scored on the lead lap. There might as well have been two because two of the four finished literally right in front of Rossi — more than 41 seconds behind him.