IndyCar Grand Prix on IMS road course – facts and figures

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Track: 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course in Indianapolis Motor Speedway, using infield roads and parts of the iconic oval.

Race distance: 85 laps / 207.315 miles

Push-to-pass parameters: 200 seconds of total time with a maximum single duration of 20 seconds.

Firestone tires per entry: Seven sets primary (eight for rookies, with the extra set to be used in FP1), four sets alternate, five sets of rain tires. Primary tires are of the same construction used in this race last year but a different compound. Alternate tires are the same construction and compound as ’18=

2018 race winner: Will Power (Team Penske-Chevrolet).
Power won this race in 2015, ’17 and ’18, all with Penske. Simon Pagenaud won in 2014 for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and in ’16 for Penske-Chevy.

2018 pole winner: Will Power (Team Penske-Chevrolet) 69.8182sec, 125.761mph.
Power won the pole here all three years that he won – ’15, ’17, ’18 – and Pagenaud also took pole the year he won (’16). The inaugural polesitter in 2014 was Sebastian Saavedra in a KV Racing-Chevrolet.

Qualifying lap record: Power (Team Penske-Chevrolet), 67.7044sec, 129.687mph, 2017

Notes:

• Helio Castroneves makes his return to the NTT IndyCar Series this weekend, driving the #3 Team Penske-Chevrolet in the IndyCar GP and the Indy 500 alongside Team Penske full-timers Power, Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden. Three-time Indy 500 winner Castroneves is the only driver to have finished in the Top 10 in all five races on the IMS road course.

• IndyCar rookie Colton Herta (Harding Steinbrenner Racing-Honda) won on the IMS road course in Indy Lights, while Patricio O’Ward (Carlin Racing-Chevrolet) won in Indy Pro 2000 (then called Pro Mazda). Jack Harvey (Meyer Shank Racing with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda) also won here in Indy Lights.

• Thanks to the Honda test here last week rookies Marcus Ericsson (Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda) and Santino Ferrucci (Dale Coyne Racing-Honda) now have experience of the IMS road course, as does Felix Rosenqvist (Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda) who also raced here during his part-time Indy Lights campaign in 2016.