2015 Verizon IndyCar Series - GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma

Although there is a championship on the line to be fought for at Sonoma, all drivers will also be racing with heavy hearts remembering their good friend Justin Wilson, who lost his life late in the Pocono race last Sunday when his head struck part of the front wing that had come off Sage Karam's car when he crashed out of the lead. Although the drivers will be at Sonoma, their minds will be elsewhere, as their thoughts are still with the Wilson family. As a mark of respect and a tribute, all teams and drivers will carry this special logo tribute to Justin Wilson on their cars and helmets throughout the weekend:



In the meantime, the season finale will award double points to all drivers, so as a result, there are 6 drivers who are still eligible for the 2015 drivers title. That includes current championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya, Graham Rahal, Scott Dixon, Will Power, Helio Castroneves and Josef Newgarden.



In conclusion, while the drivers will be racing their hearts out this Sunday, they will also do so in dedication to Justin Wilson, who was a great guy on and off the track, and very much respect by everybody in the IndyCar paddock.

Somehow I hope Newgarden can win.

Some championship clinch scenarios for the six drivers in the title fight, if anyone's interested.

#2 Juan Pablo Montoya, 1st in points (Leader)
Clinches the the title with a 1st or 2nd place finish, or a 3rd place finish with at least one bonus point.

#15 Graham Rahal, 2nd in points (-34)
Must finish better than 9th to have a shot at the title.
Eliminated if Montoya finishes 2nd or better.

#9 Scott Dixon, 3rd in points (-47)
Must finish better than 6th to have a shot at the title.
Eliminated if Montoya finishes 5th or better.

#1 Will Power, 4th in points (-61)
Must finish better than 3rd to have a shot at the title.
Eliminated if Montoya finishes 9th or better.

#3 Helio Castroneves, 5th in points (-77)
Must win to have a shot at the title.
Eliminated if Montoya finishes 16th or better.

#67 Josef Newgarden, 6th in points (-87)
Must win to have a shot at the title.
Eliminated if Montoya finishes 21st or better.

Should there be a tie in the points, Rahal currently holds the tiebreaker over all other drivers, based off his number of 1st place finishes, followed by number of 2nd place finishes, and so on.

Tiebreaker after 15 of 16 races. (1sts-2nds-3rds)
#15 Rahal 2-2-2
#67 Newgarden 2-2-0
#2 Montoya 2-0-3
#9 Dixon 2-0-1
#1 Power 1-2-0
#3 Castroneves 0-3-2

Will be attending this.

Go Montoya.

I'm excited to see how such a close championship will be settled, regardless of how it plays out! (Go Rahal!) Hoping that all will be able to enjoy the race while still keeping the Wilson family in our thoughts.

Some media stuff from today, Drivers at the SF Giants game as well as a motorcade across the Golden Gate bridge.

Also, it has been confirmed that Oriol Servis will driver the #25 car this weekend.

That tribute was amazing.

I'm cutting onions, i'm not crying

Is there a way to watch without the adverts? I remember when Sky Sports used to do IndyCar coverage a few years back, during the US ad breaks they continued the feed without commentary. Was wondering if this is available anywhere still?

Interesting predicament in the pit lane... Could have been a miscommunication on Pagenaud's part, but I'm not completely sure.

MONTOYA GOT POWER OMG!!

If Dixon wins this championship, I will not be happy. ;[

PackerMan71 wrote:If Dixon wins this championship, I will not be happy. ;[

On the other hand, I am absolutely loving this situation.

Whatever little chance Newgarden had at winning the championship has been thrown out the window.

This gonna be good!

Holy crap! Bourdais just straight up punted Rahal, and this could possibly lead to Montoya taking the championship!!!

Tie right now, but Dixon will have it by wins...

DIXON WINS THE RACE AND THE TITLE!

MONTOYA GETS HIS TITLE KNOCKED OUT OF HIS HANDS IN THE LAST RACE!

What a race!!!!

It's ironic how JPM tied the points lead for a 2nd time in his open wheel career, except it's going to someone else this time.

Power kinda screwed JPM by cutting him off.

Congratulations, Will Power. You cost your teammate the title.

GC and GW to Dixon, regardless.

(sigh)

Kind of okay race, but disappointing finish. It figures that the one guy I don't like in IndyCar right now wins the championship on a tiebreaker. Good job, Will Power, you twat. Like Ben said, you cost JPM the title. Hope you're proud.

I'll give credit where it's due to Dixon on winning a fourth title, but I'd have rather seen someone else than him.

As for the race itself, it was kind of bland, to be honest. The title race was really the only thing that spiced it up, because the racing was kind of... meh.

The Indy GP of Sonoma gets a 5/10.

Overall average for the year: 6/10. I guarantee NASCAR won't have an average this high.

Power is such a twat.

Blames race control for the yellows, and not himself for cutting down on his teammate.

Can't blame Rahal for being mad. Got wrecked twice now in 2 weeks going for a title.

That's another title that got away by Penske. 6 in the last 7 years is too much. Will Power deserves bad teammate of the year for sure. I feel for JPM.

Anyways, Congrats Dixon on your 4th championship. That was an awesome race. A 7.5/10 for me.

Also shame on Montoya for this comment *Dixon had a shit season and had one good race.*

Yet he won 3 races, and you (Montoya) WON A DOUBLE POINTS EVENT AT INDY.

Penske drivers are something else.

Lucstar88 wrote:Penske drivers are something else.

I would put Ganassi drivers right next to them.

Lucstar88 wrote:Also shame on Montoya for this comment *Dixon had a shit season and had one good race.*

Yet he won 3 races, and you (Montoya) WON A DOUBLE POINTS EVENT AT INDY.

Penske drivers are something else.

Dixon's season: 3 wins, 7 top 5s, 12 top 10s, 2 poles, 2 fastest laps, led most laps 4 times
Montoya's season: 2 wins, 9 top 5s, 13 top 10s, 2 poles, 1 fastest lap, led most laps 2 times

Yeah, shit season alright.

PackerMan71 wrote:

Lucstar88 wrote:Penske drivers are something else.

I would put Ganassi drivers right next to them.

Hey, at least they don't whine when things don't go their way.

I was absolutely gutted when Newgarden had problems.

However despite me favoring Montoya for the championship, I'm not mad that Dixon got it.

Just got home. Fun as hell race and a ending to a wild season of Indycar racing.

I'm not a Dixon fan but am not mad then he won it. Cool stuff.

Newgarden's pit incident also killed me on the inside. I wanted him to win in that awesome paint job this weekend.

While I'm just neutral on Dixon, good for him on winning yet another championship. He truly is one of the best ever.

Hard to be mad at Scott Dixon, or just about anyone in IndyCar for that matter. While Rahal championship would have been hilarious, I'm glad Dixon got it.

Can't wait for 2016!

I'd said on my Facebook that if Graham Rahal won this championship, I'd remove three of my vertebrae, bend over backwards, and eat my own ass. That was how confident I was that it wouldn't happen, and lucky for me, it didn't.

Was kind of a mediocre race for a while there. I'll take a Dixon championship though. GW Dixon.

I apologize for the bump; I only recently got to watch the race.

This race turned out to be much more interesting than I was expecting! It certainly wasn't the best race of the season, and to be honest I still would rather see the finale at many other circuits before Sonoma, but it produced a fairly good race this year (which you especially hope to see in a finale)!

What a battle for the championship that it became! It was very exciting to watch the championship come down to the wire the way it did, and how after 16 races, the top two drivers scored the same amount of points! I was hoping that Rahal would take the title, but unfortunately he didn't have the race-winning car that he needed (even though it was still solidly a top 10 car), and his late-race spin practically ended his chances. It was a great conclusion to what has been a great season; IndyCar has really impressed me over the past few years in how it has regularly produced such entertaining racing.

Here's my subpar capture of the finish.