Picking my first three drivers for the NTT IndyCar Series Fantasy Challenge Driven by Firestone was pretty easy this week. Coming into Mid-Ohio I was taking defending race winner Alexander Rossi no matter what. He won last year, he's been quick pretty much everywhere, he's second in the points and really wants the championship this year!
Toss in that Rossi qualified 2nd and he's an easy choice today. Picking my second driver wasn't quite the lock, but after seeing Will Power "blow away" the field in qualifying, how could you not take the guy. Power's qualifying lap had the largest spread between P1 and P2 in Firestone Fast 6 Qualifying at 0.3748 seconds. The smallest gap of 0.0194 was between Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Dixon at the Indy GP.
In fact, 6 of the 8 races had a gap from P1 to P2 of 0.1773 or less, making Power's 0.3748 second beat down all the more impressive. And since he's fifth in points, you can get Power at just $27, meaning there are four more expensive drivers starting behind him. How can you not take him?
My next pick is a home state choice, but its not a Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver - they were both too expensive. Instead, I'm taking Jack Harvey. He's run strong all weekend and qualified 9th. His last road race at Road America he was a disappointing 15th, but he was 3rd at the Indy GP and 13th at Barber - perhaps a roughly similar (ok, not really) circuit to this one. As a part timer, Harvey is cheap at $19.00.
That left me with $21.00, and a super difficult choice. I quickly narrowed it down to just two youngsters, Colton Herta and Spencer Pigot.
Herta's major plus is his qualifying position of 7th compared to Pigot's 13th. But Pigot was quick in every session except qualifying on the reds - so that's a concern for sure. Herta also didn't think they had the reds all the way figured out, but he was clearly much closer.
They both really need a good finish to back up the flashes of speed (more frequent for Herta) they have shown all season. Both have some momentum, because while Herta won at COTA, he also had a streak of 7 races with "not so good" finishes. He started turning that around at Road America with an 8th and Toronto with a 7th. He was 18th at Iowa.
Pigot hasn't been as quick for certain, but he was 5th at Iowa last week. That's an oval though, and he was 15th at Toronto and 14th at Road America. His best road/street finish was 5th at the Indy GP.
After looking at all that data, I threw it out and picked Spencer Pigot. Why? Because I think everyone else will pick Herta and I want to be a little contrarian today!
So, that's my team. Power, Rossi, Harvey and Pigot - who do you have?