IndyCar review: Power misses out again

After its tumultuous winter of 2011, the IndyCar Series reinvented itself for this year amid a cacophony of bangs and whimpers double-tracked with the growl of turbochargers.

Such was the scale of change that the new engine formula - normally-aspirated V8s giving way to V6 turbos - went mostly unremarked. Competition from other new developments, such as the return of engine manufacturers, the introduction of a new chassis for the first time in a decade, and an organisational overhaul proved too strong in the fight for column inches.

The 2012 IndyCar season will be remembered for all of those, but above all else it will be the quality of the racing that ultimately defined the year. Perhaps the only point upon which the famously divided paddock would agree was that it was the most competitive season of US single-seater racing in recent memory but, more than that, it was probably the most competitive professional racing series on the planet this year.

The field was deep in talent and, with very few exceptions, the technical package delivered outstanding racing across road courses, street circuits and ovals.

Power was unbeatable some days, like here at Sonoma... © LAT

But while IndyCar is now unified as a series, political schisms remain, and these - culminating in the post-season departure of CEO Randy Bernard - were responsible for most of the wobbles that prevented its growing momentum from hitting full tilt.

HOW IT WAS WON

A better headline would be, 'How it was lost'. Just when it seemed that Team Penske, and in particular Will Power, had exhausted all possibilities for scuttling a championship bid, they managed to do it again.

Penske was the dominant team and Power the dominant driver all season and, going into the final round, a 17-point buffer over Ryan Hunter-Reay should have been enough. The team's effort to repair Power's car after he'd buried it in the wall at the Fontana finale provided one of the most dramatic episodes of the year.

How much consolation they were able to draw from that, in the midst of Hunter-Reay's post-race championship celebrations, is another matter.

STANDOUT PERFORMERS

Hunter-Reay answered a lot of doubters this year, not least with his mental resilience. Being torpedoed by Alex Tagliani at Sonoma should have dealt his title hopes a death blow; instead, he went into full-attack mode over the final two rounds and received the ultimate award.

Power, meanwhile, remains the most enigmatic figure on the grid: at his best he is untouchable, and he continues to improve year on year. Not all of the points squandered this season were his fault: he couldn't have done much to avoid being taken out by Mike Conway at Indy, and he seemed especially prone to being short-changed by safety cars.

...but just missed out on the title to Ryan Hunter-Reay at the death © LAT

But whether the accident that sealed his fate at Fontana was a poorly timed aberration or a sign that he's still not quite the complete package is a question that can't be answered before 2013.

And what of Chip Ganassi Racing? Scott Dixon was again one of the strongest runners in the field, and again failed to capitalise. Race director Beaux Barfield was quick to apologise for incorrectly penalising the Kiwi at Milwaukee, for example, but that didn't help to recover all those points.

The odd mechanical failure also played its part, and Dixon was quick to burn through his allocation of five engines for the season. He and Dario Franchitti said little publicly, but there were several members of the Ganassi camp who believe that some deeper digging from Honda will be needed during the off-season if they are to be contenders next year.

Reigning champion Franchitti admitted that his team needed a couple of rounds to learn how to make the DW12 happy but, while his 2012 season was not perfect, nor was it as poor as his final position of seventh may suggest. Indy was the obvious standout, but for all the other stirring drives (14th to second at Detroit) there were banana skins such as the engine blow-up on the warm-up lap at Iowa Speedway.

Elsewhere, IndyCar officials were quick to rule new arrival Rubens Barrichello out of contention for rookie of the year honours on the grounds that his 322 Formula 1 starts might represent an unfair advantage. They needn't have bothered - the Brazilian was rarely a threat to Simon Pagenaud, who was outstanding with the single-car Schmidt Hamilton squad.

Ganassi pair Franchitti and Dixon couldn't quite challenge for the title © LAT

SOMETHING TO REMEMBER

The racing. You'll often hear talk of '20 drivers within 1.5s' or 'any of the top 15 are capable of winning', and the 2012 IndyCar season had all of that. But what made the real difference was that the actual on-track product was superb.

Pretty much every race, except perhaps Mid-Ohio, was worth more than the price of admission, and the excitement was achieved without any of the contrivances that are sometimes rolled out elsewhere.

Lowering the downforce levels for Texas was a particular masterstroke, and turned the former pack-racing stronghold into one of the most demanding tests of car control that you'll see. Just find any in-car clip from that race, and look at how often the driver is turning right...

SOMETHING TO FORGET

The politics. On paper, IndyCar was unified three years ago, but the season-long drama surrounding Bernard's future demonstrated that not only do divisions still exist, but that the paddock is still yet to learn an elegant way to manage them.

Both sides were equally guilty - the Hulman & Co board's apparent indecision in the days leading up to Bernard's departure did little to inspire confidence, while Bernard shot himself in the foot when he Tweeted about attempts to have him fired just a couple of days after a thrilling Indy 500.

He insisted for weeks afterwards that it didn't detract attention from the race, but go back to the news stories from that point of the season and look at what everyone was talking about.

Bernard stood down as CEO following the end of the season © LAT

WHAT NEXT?

Bernard was fond of talking about 'momentum' and, even without him at the helm, that's what IndyCar needs to run with next year.

He has left some potentially exciting legacies to get things rolling, such as the Indianapolis/Pocono/Fontana Triple Crown. More importantly, the groundwork should also be in place for another season of high-quality racing, which will be reassuring for those who believe that if the product is right, everything else will follow.

But Bernard also left a couple of loose ends, such as the still-unresolved aero-kit issue. The direction in which that decision swings could have a huge impact upon the spectacle. Above all though, the new CEO and their regime need to establish themselves as a beacon of credibility across all of the sport's stakeholders, including the owners and fans, and give the series a genuine chance to tap into its genuine potential.

And if Penske can finally go out and win the title, a lot of people will probably experience an odd sense of release, regardless of whether they actually have anything to do with the team or not.