Your handy guide to the 2011 open-wheel season

Both major open-wheel series kick off Sunday when the Izod IndyCar Series races at St. Petersburg and Formula 1 races at Melbourne, Australia.

The Melbourne race was supposed to be the second F1 race of the season, but protests in Bahrain made the decision to postpone (and possibly cancel) the original season opener that was scheduled for March 13 a no-brainer.

St. Pete marks the return of Danica Patrick to the IndyCar Series and it could also be her final trip to the Florida city on the Gulf of Mexico if she makes the transition to NASCAR in 2012.

Other things to watch in 2011:

-- Narain Karthikeyan moved to Formula 1 from the Camping World Truck Series and that seems like quite a leap, doesn't it? The Fastest Indian in the World's Hispania team didn't do any preseason testing and it showed Saturday in qualifying where Karthikeyan was the slowest of the 24 cars that made qualifying attempts. In fact, he was so slow that he missed the race.

-- Karthikeyan missed the race because F1 reintroduced the 107% rule, which states that the entire field must be within 107% of the pole-winning speed in order to be able to race. Of course, with it being F1, it ultimately comes down to the final discretion of officials (and you thought NASCAR played favorites) but Karthikeyan was over 11 seconds slower than defending world champion Sebastian Vettel. Hispania's exemption request of "exceptional circumstances" to allow Karthikeyan and teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi to race was denied.

-- Graham Rahal has a full-time ride in the IndyCar Series thanks to a pairing between legendary drag racer Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Chip Ganassi. The Ganassi satellite team for Rahal and teammate Charlie Kimball is housed in Prudhomme's shop. Rahal won the St. Petersburg race in 2008.

-- Will a non-Ganassi or non-Penske car win a race this year in IndyCar? Only two cars not from either stable won a race in 2010, and those were the Andretti Autosport cars of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Kanaan. At one point, AA was on the same level with Penske and Target Chip Ganassi. Now they're a clear-cut No. 3. To say that the series needs Andretti Autosport or another team to be a serious contender is a massive understatement.

-- Speaking of Kanaan, he's with KV Racing after parting ways with Andretti Autosport rather unceremoniously. Marco Andretti was rather blunt in talking about Kanaan, and Kanaan's relationship with Patrick wasn't warm and fuzzy either. The 2004 IndyCar champion originally got a ride with de Ferran Dragon Racing for 2011 but didn't have enough funding for the full season and was able to score a late deal with KV.

-- Dan Wheldon, the 2005 champion and Paul Tracy don't have full-time rides. Tracy has funding for the Canadian races and the Indianapolis 500 with Dreyer and Reinbold Racing and Wheldon announced a deal with Bryan Herta to run the 500.

-- Will anyone dethrone Red Bull Renault in F1? Vettel was three-quarters of a second faster than Lewis Hamilton in Saturday's qualifying. If Vettel is dethroned by someone who isn't Mark Webber, his teammate, it will come from series stalwarts McLaren Mercedes (Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button) and Ferrari (Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa).

-- Farewell, current IndyCar chassis. The series goes to their version of the COT next year, which should mean that there are a plethora of good chassis available for drivers to take the $5 million challenge in the season's final race at Las Vegas. But will scheduling allow anyone competitive to take it?

Related: Danica Patrick

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Is Carey Price the NHL's most valuable player this season?

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Programming note: Season Previews?

Not sure if you've noticed, the whole thing kind of took me by surprise, but the NBA season has started. And yet, we're still publishing season previews. Huh?

Well, not sure if you've noticed, the whole thing kind of took me by surprise, but we lost our editor right before the season preview-season started. So, as opposed to last season, when four different writers all contributed to season previews that made it out just before the 2009-10 run tipped off, this season's previews were dependent on two guys that, right up to the point where the previews were to have started, didn't know that they'd have to be constructing previews to this degree.

On top of that one of the guys -- the guy that's writing this, who looks a lot like the guy pictured on the right -- already contributed 56,000 words to the Yahoo! Sports NBA preview mag, which is currently on sale.

So he has to parse his words and find a way to say something new and informative without making all that work (and it was a lot of work) redundant. Then posting it on this site so you can read it for free. Think of the first 10 things you'd write about a team to preview their season, and then dump that 10 and move onto things 11-through-15, because you've already written that 10, you don't want any magazine editors getting angry at you, and because you kind of want to keep the magazine gig because it paid for your wedding last summer.

Then there's that other guy, our man Dan Devine, that is working and writing up at 5 a.m. before he heads off to his 9-to-5 job, and then again on his lunch break, and then again over the weekend to provide content for the previews. So we can post them, for free. No magazine to buy, no Insider pay wall.

So, we can stop now. Judging by all the complaints, this is apparently what you'd prefer. Or, if there is some unheard faction out there that would like to see the previews continue apace, we could keep going. It's a threadbare operation here, for the time being, but your new BDL editor is currently working 16-hour days (between posting and scouting games) for this site, and he wouldn't mind calling it quits on the previews if the commenters continue to complain.

But I wouldn't mind sticking with them, as well as the five remaining pieces on my A-through-Z countdown. That's up to you. I'd like to keep writing, but I also wouldn't mind having time for more than two meals per day.

Your call. Let me hear it.

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With season on the line, Phillies missed plenty of opportunities

With all the criticism hurled at Carlos Beltran(notes) for taking a called third strike to end the 2006 NLCS for the New York Mets, isn't Ryan Howard(notes) equally at fault for watching the Philadelphia Phillies' 2010 season go right by him and into Buster Posey's(notes) glove?

Howard didn't lift his bat as Brian Wilson's(notes) slider caught the lower outside corner of the zone for strike three, sending the San Francisco Giants to the World Series.

On replay, Wilson's pitch looked a bit low and pitch trackers had it at the very edge of the strike zone. But with the Phillies' season on the line, and two runners on base waiting to be driven in, it was simply too close a pitch to take. Just like Beltran in 2006, Howard had to put the ball in play, but instead froze in place.

It was one of several missed opportunities that the Phillies will dwell on as they pack up for the winter and the Giants head back to AT&T Park to host the Texas Rangers for Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday night.

Get comfortable before you begin reading further, because rehashing all of these blown chances creates enough material to write a novel that wouldn't sell very well in Philly.

• First inning: The Phillies scored two runs off of a wild Jonathan Sanchez(notes) to take an early lead. But with two outs in the inning, Philadelphia still had two runners on base. Raul Ibanez(notes) popped up a high fastball to second base, however, letting Sanchez somewhat off the hook and stranding the first two of 11 runners on the night for the Phillies.

• Third inning: After the Giants tied the game at 2-2 in the top half of the inning, Sanchez put the first two Phillies' hitters on base, walking Placido Polanco(notes) and hitting Chase Utley(notes) in the back. Sanchez and Utley then started jawing at each other, which provoked both teams out of the dugout.

But Sanchez's inability to control his pitches and emotions may have actually worked out in the Giants' favor. Manager Bruce Bochy was already thinking of pulling Sanchez from the game, and the delay caused by the benches clearing gave Jeremy Affeldt(notes) enough time to warm up and retire the heart of the Phillies' order

• Fifth inning: With Jimmy Rollins(notes) on first and two out, Howard crushed a double to deep left-center field. A player with Rollins' speed may well have scored or at least made a close play at home plate. But third base coach Sam Perlozzo put up the stop sign and held Rollins at third.  Madison Bumgarner(notes) then intentionally walked Werth to face Victorino, who was batting .181 to that point in the series. The strategy paid off as Victorino hit a ground ball back to the pitcher.

• Sixth inning: Philadelphia had a runner on third with just one out, after an Ibanez double and Carlos Ruiz(notes) sacrifice bunt. But pinch-hitter Ben Francisco(notes) struck out looking (though Bumgarner's curveball looked high and outside) and Rollins flew out to center to squander yet another threat.

• Eighth inning: After the Giants took the lead on a solo Juan Uribe(notes) homer, Bochy looked to put the Phillies away by bringing Tim Lincecum(notes) in as a reliever. But the decision appeared to backfire when Lincecum gave up back-to-back singles to Victorino and Ibanez.

With just a one-run lead, Bochy didn't wait to see if Lincecum could work out of his jam. He brought in his closer. And befitting his job description, Wilson got Ruiz to hit a ball right at Aubrey Huff(notes), who then doubled Victorino off at second.

• Ninth inning: The defending National League champs had one more shot to tie the game, but that just gave them a final opportunity to squander. Walks to Rollins and Utley gave Philadelphia two baserunners with two outs in the inning.

But with one last chance to drive in his first run of the postseason, Howard stood there like a house by the side of the road, as Ernie Harwell would say, and Wilson and Posey jumped into each other's arms to celebrate.

After the game, all Phillies manager Charlie Manuel could do was state the obvious.

From MLB.com:

"We had chances, we just couldn't cash in on them, we couldn't get the big hit."

Manuel then went on to say that he knows his players can hit better than that and score more runs. It's something he wants his team to improve on next season.

They'll have five long months to figure out ways to work on those issues — not to mention five long months to think about all the opportunities they let pass them by on Saturday night.

Follow Big League Stew all through the postseason on Twitter and on Facebook.

Related: Chase Utley, Jeremy Affeldt, Plácido Polanco, Brian Wilson, Ryan Howard, Raúl Ibañez, Juan Uribe, Aubrey Huff, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Beltrán, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sánchez, Ben Francisco, Carlos Ruiz, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, 2010 Postseason, 2010 NLCS on The Stew

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