The Indianapolis 500 is one of the biggest events on the global racing calendar. Drivers from all around the world want victory at the Indy 500 on their resumes, but only a handful of racers have earned the title. The 2020 Indy 500 was an eventful one, with Honda being the undisputed winner of the entire race.

Smiles For Miles

Takuma Sato was victorious at the 2020 Indianapolis 500 thanks to his Honda-powered car. The Japanese racer wasn’t the only Honda-powered driver to do well, with eight of the top 10 drivers sitting on a Honda engine. In fact, it’s fair to say that Honda was the one true winner at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in August.

Japanese Dominance

There were 200 laps at the Indy 500, and a Honda-powered car led for 180 of them. That’s a huge portion of the race where Honda proved to be the superior drive this year. The manufacturer had three drivers on the podium, with Scott Dixon and Graham Rahal completing the set.

Dixon led the race for a total of 111 laps, with Sato the next best on 27 laps at the front. Of course, Sato led the race when it mattered the most, at the finish line, to take his second Indy 500 title.

Putting Chevrolet In Its Place

This sweep of the podium by Honda leaves its biggest competitor with a lot of work to do. Chevrolet was soundly beaten at the 2020 Indy 500, but the manufacturer will look back to 2015 to know that it’s not all doom and gloom. Just five years ago, it was Chevrolet who had dominated the Indy 500 by sweeping the podium.

Sato’s victory in 2020 was the first time Honda had won the event since the Japanese driver claimed victory in 2017. It seems Sato and Honda are a match made in heaven at this iconic race.

Alpine’s Formula 1 team has decided to run the season without an official team principal. Instead, the team has decided to split the responsibilities across two senior managers. This comes as a consequence of the rebranding of the company from Renault to Alpine, which culminated in a management overhaul last winter. At that time, former team boss Cyril Abiteboul also left the French car manufacturer and left an open spot for his position.

Marcin Budkowski and Davide Brivio Will Manage The Formula 1 Team

Laurent Rossi, Alpine’s road car CEO has decided to use a structure with no direct replacement for Abiteboul. Instead, the former responsibilities of the team principal will be split between the new racing director, Davide Brivio, and executive director Marcin Budkowski. Rossi also said that both of the managers would have clear areas of responsibility, and there was no need to make any additional changes after the previous season.

Laurent Rossi Explained the Roles of the Two Senior Managers

Rossi said that Marcin will be in charge of the development of the powertrain and chassis and coordinating the entire development of the car, while Davide will be the racing director. According to him, that would allow the managers of the Formula 1 team to work in tandem and get the best out of the car that was designed to put Alpine in the best position. He added that the rest of the team would simply keep their existing line structures.

Budkowski commented as well and said that there were other teams who had decided to not have a single boss running them, and he believed the situation could work well. He also pointed out that although the structure was slightly different, the roles and responsibilities of everyone were perfectly clear. He also joked, saying that because they were a French Formula 1 team, they had to put a bit of a French touch in the organizational structure as well!

Budkowski explained that managing a team while going to every race was very difficult, but with Davide on board, he could now rely on a person with a lot of trackside experience and many different soft skills.