IndyCar Qualifying: Barber Motorsports Park

So how about those Penskes?  Chevrolet continued it's domination of IndyCar today, not just putting a Chevrolet powered car on the pole, but shutting out the top seven.  I feel like a broken record saying this, but with every race where Chevrolet puts its cars out front is more proof that Honda's weak start to the season isn't just a fluke, but a sign that the Honda aero kit cannot perform at the same level as the Chevrolet aero kit.  If I'm Andretti Autosport, or any of the other Honda teams, I'm going to be praying for a lot of wet races, and that the speedway aero kit is more competitive.

Racecar Interior Walkthroughs.

Have you ever seen an in car camera shot of a Formula 1 car, IndyCar, or sportscar and wondered, what the heck do all those buttons do?  Well Oliver Gavin from the Pratt and Miller C7R team tries to answer some of those questions.

But wait you say, that's just the cockpit for the C7.R.  What about all those other really fancy steering wheels, like on the DW12 for example.  Glad you asked, because here's Alex Tagliani explaining the function of an IndyCar steering wheel.

But if you want to talk about the series that has really embraced button overload, you need to talk about Formula 1.  Each team builds their own wheels, and as the video below shows, even builds slightly different wheels for different drivers (or at least Mercedes does). 

3

 

Did you notice something interesting about all of these wheels?  Despite looking very different they all have very similar functionality.  Obviously the F1 wheels don't have controls for a weight jacker, and the C7R wheel doesn't have ERS functionality, but many of the features and functionality are similar. 

IndyCar Grand Prix of Louisiana: Race Analysis

James Hinchcliffe won today's Grand Prix of Louisiana in one of the stranger IndyCar races I've seen in a while.  He was able to drive to victory after an excellent strategy call on the part of his team managed to hold off Hinchcliffe's fiercest on track rival.  The pace car.

The race at New Orleans Motorsports Park started out with a ton of potential.  Rain had plagued the track all weekend, but teams only had limited time to practice, and develop set ups, in the wet.  To make matters even more complicated, teams knew that track conditions were going to change over the course of the race.  Morning showers meant the track started damp, requiring teams to start on rain tires.  However, clear skies at the start of the race meant that the track was expected to dry out as the race progressed.  Until the predicted afternoon showers came that is.  The race was looking like it was going to be a race engineer's nightmare.  In truth the race engineer's were likely bored to tears as the race was basically one giant caution period.

Due to qualifying being cancelled on a-count of thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon, drivers lined up according entrant's points, which meant they lined up according to the finishing order from St. Petersburg.  As expected, teams started out on a damp track and rain tires.  By lap 13 however, a dry racing line had started to form, and Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe came in to switch from rain tires to slicks, which in turn caused the other teams to begin to filter into the pits to change to slicks.  Little did anyone at the time know but this round of pit stops was the last serious green flag action of the race, and would determine the winner.

On lap 15, rookie Gaby Chavez spun and stalled his car on the racing surface, brining out the race's first full course yellow.  It wouldn't be the last.  Between laps 15 and lap 47 (the final lap of the race), there were five restarts, but less then seven green flag laps, and no more then two back-to-back green flag laps between cautions.  During what was essentially one giant caution period, James Hinchcliffe cycled through to the lead while other teams made additional pit stops anticipating a final green flag stint.  A green flag stint that never came, and Hinch, who pitted once during a one hour and fourty-five minute race, cruised to victory behind the pace car.

The reason for the constant cautions was due drivers having a hard time dealing with the drying track conditions.  By lap 15, a dry racing line had developed, and slick tires provided a definite competitive advantage.  However, standing water was still present on the track's low area's and off of the racing line and resulted in aqua planning as drivers went over these damp areas on slick tires, particularly as drivers jockeyed for position on restarts.  Of the five attempts at restarts over the last 32 laps, three of them didn't make it to the first corner.  Although experienced drivers struggled in these conditions (Tony Kanaan spun on lap 14, but didn't bring out a caution, while the last caution of the race was caused by a crash between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud who collected Sebastian Bourdais in their wake), the rookie drivers seemed to struggle with the conditions more then the veterans did.  Rookies drivers were responsible for five of the six cautions.  While young, hot-shoe, drivers get a lot of attention in the racing press, the race at NOLA highlights the difference in ability between more and less experienced drivers.

As for James Hinchcliffe, it is easy to write off his win as a stroke of amazing luck, and there was no small amount of luck that went into Hinch's win, but it was also an incredibly gutsy strategy call on his team's part.  Hinchcliffe drove 34 laps on one tank of fuel.  Hinchcliffe cut his fuel window so close that he ran out of fuel on his way into the pits after the final lap.  If there had been only one or two more green flag laps, Hinchcliffe would have been forced to pit for fuel.  His team assessed the race conditions, took a gamble on fuel, and were rewarded with a win.

The lack of green flag racing means that we gain no new insight regarding the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the Chevrolet versus Honda aero kits.  We'll need to wait until Long Beach to see if the Honda teams can pick up their game compared to their performance in St. Petersburg.  If nothing else, the race at NOLA has earned itself a place in the history books as the race that refused to go green.

Weekend Racing Predictions

This is one of those great racing weekends where no matter what your preferred form of competitive driving in circles is, there is something for you to watch (provided you have the right extended cable package).  MotoGP is racing at Circuit of the Americas, Formula 1 is in China, NASCAR is at Texas Motor Speedway, and the WEC makes it's season debut at Silverstone.  There's a lot of different story lines that are going to be going on this weekend, but here are three that I am going to be looking at.

WEC: Whose Got the Speed?

Nissan has without a doubt stolen the headlines in this year's WEC preseason.  First, everyone marveled at the car's incredible specifications and convention defying design, and then everyone watched the train wreck as Nissan encountered one problem after another.  Unfortunately Nissan won't be racing their monstrosity...I mean innovative...LMP1 car at Silverstone this weekend.  Audi, Porsche and Toyota however have quietly been toiling away over the winter to make their cars faster.  Silverstone is going to be our first chance to really see where the manufacturers stack up against each other.  A couple weeks ago I predicted that, on paper, Porsche looks like they have the fastest car.  While Porsche did show good speed in Friday practice, Audi (who I thought would have this years slowest car not named Nissan), topped the lap charts.  It's going to be really interesting seeing who has the fastest car over the course of a six hour race, and by association, the early favorite for Le Mans.

And for the first time in the United States, will get to see this battle live on TV.  Provided you have Fox Sports 1.

IndyCar: Those Aero Kits Really Do Fly (Off the Cars that Is)

The story at the IndyCar debut in St. Petersburg was all about the new aero kits.  Specifically how Chevrolet seemed to put together a much stronger package then Honda, as well as the fact that all those winglets, flicks, flaps and fuzzy dice want to fly off the car if you so much as look at them harsh.  While it sounds like I'm making light of the fragile nature of this year's cars, the debris really is a serious issue since a fan was injured at St. Petersburg when she was hit by a flying piece of a car.  IndyCar has already demanded an increase in strength from the aero kits, and the drivers will begin to adapt to cars that don't allow for any contact, so I expect the flying winglets to become less of a story as time goes on.  The thing to look for is whether or not  Chevrolet can continue their on track dominance.  We still haven't seen the speedway aero kits (we'll need to wait for Indianapolis for that), but the road course/street course/short oval track is the kit we'll be seeing the most of this year.  If the Chevrolet aero kit continues to show superior performance at New Orleans Motorsports Park, it may turn into a very long year for the Honda teams.

Speaking of New Orleans Motorsports Parks, this will be the first time the IndyCars will race at NOLA, so if your looking for something completely new this weekend, IndyCar is the race for you.

Formula 1: Was Ferrari's Malaysia Win a Formula One Trick Pony?

Since the first preseason test session, everyone and their mother has been looking at Ferrari's lap times and say "yeah their fast...but..."  Preseason testing lap times and early race results suggest that Ferrari is best positioned to challenge Mercedes, as Williams looks on saying "wasn't that supposed to be us?" and McLaren and Red Bull wonder why their cars won't work this week.

After Ferrari won in Malaysia, a lot of people in the racing press were saying that while Ferrari should be congratulated for winning, they wouldn't be able to back it up in China.  To that I say, so what?  I don't want to see Ferrari replace Mercedes as the dominate team, I want to see Ferrari race Mercedes.  Still, Ferrari is in a bit of a tough situation this weekend.  On the merits, they have the slower car, but after Malaysia they have a ton of pressure on them to out perform Mercedes.  If they don't have a strong showing this weekend, their Malaysia win will be written off as Mercedes losing, not Ferrari winning, which really isn't fair to Ferrari.  Like I wrote earlier though, I would really like to see a good Mercedes Ferrari battle this year, so even if Ferrari doesn't win, I'd like to see them put on a strong show.

Mickey Andretti?

I've been watching a lot of old IndyCar/Champ Car races on Youtube lately.  Then I remembered that the Indy Racing League's first ever race, the first race in the famous IRL/CART "split" took place at Disney World.  No, the IRL didn't have a street race through the Magic Kingdom (although that would have been pretty cool), but instead they raced on Disney's brand new (as of 1996) "Walt Disney World Speedway," dubbed the "The Mickyard." 

I had never watched the inaugural IRL event at The Mickyard, and it didn't take a lot of searching on Youtube to find the event.  So, in honor or this weekends inaugural 2015 IndyCar race at St. Petersburg, I present the first ever race of the series that would one day become the modern incarnation of IndyCar.

Walt Disney World Speedway will never be more then a foot note in professional racing history, but it is an interesting foot note.  After the Indy Cars left in 2000, the track spent most of it's life as a home for the Richard Petty Driving Experience.  It is also rather fitting to watch this race as IndyCar kicks off it's 2015 season, because in June of 2015, The Mickyard, home of the first ever Indy Racing League event, will be permanently closed.

So, grab some pop corn, put on your mouse ears, and enjoy this little oddity of American open wheel racing.

IndyCar 2018: Racing Nerd Edition

If you're a regular reader of The Racing Nerd, you'll probably know a couple things.  First, we're not big believers in proof reading and grammar around here.  Second, I'm a big fan of IndyCar, and like most IndyCar fans, I'm not real happy with the state of the sport.  While I love the on track action, no one doubts that American open-wheel racing has been on the skids for some time now.  I've mentioned before that RACER has been publishing a series of articles titled IndyCar 2018.  Some of the ideas are good, while some of the ideas aren't (will anyone who believes Indy cars should return to a front engine format please report for their trip to the reeducation camp).  While I highly recommend you read through the RACER series, I figured that I have an internet forum that literally reaches...people, so why don't I take a stab at trying to fix IndyCar.  After all, how hard can it be

If it ain't broke...

Let's start with the things IndyCar is actually doing right.  Say what you want about the DW12, but IndyCar has the on-track racing dialed in.  In 2014, Ryan Hunter Ray finished 0.06 second ahead of Helio Castroneves at the Indianapolis 500 with a  dramatic last lap pass.  That is good racing.  IndyCar's immediate problem might be getting butts in the seats, but once people do tune in, they need to stay tuned in.  That only happens by giving them something good to watch.  That means close, wheel to wheel racing at 220 MPH, which is what we have.

The IndyCar racing purists claim the cars aren't going fast enough, and that IndyCar shouldn't be a spec series.  I say hog wash.  Moving IndyCar from a spec series to an open development series would take money.  I don't think the teams have the money to support that kind of racing, and the manufacturers aren't interested in engaging in an engineer arms race at the moment.  We can't afford to drive teams out of IndyCar like we're seeing in Formula 1 right now (by the way, will the last Formula 1 team to go bankrupt please remember to turn off the lights).  Furthermore, the pole time at Indianapolis last year was 231.067 MPH. The all time qualifying record time at Indianapolis was 236.986 MPH.  It's not like the modern cars are crawling around the track.  By all reasonable standards, the cars are going fast, and they're going fast enough to look exciting to the fans.  I don't see how adding more speed brings in more interest.  Lets focus on securing the future of the sport, and then we can look at breaking track records.

The one thing I might want to change on the track is make the cars louder.  I was talking to one of my coworkers once who had a friend who used to go to the CART race at Michigan every year, and would always say how the cars sounded like a pack of angry hornets from hell.  Modern IndyCar's don't have that kind of awesome sound.  Let the engines rev a little higher, make them sound angry.  I think it's a small change that will add some more drama to the race.

You take how much time off?

I don't think adding more races in and of itself is going to make IndyCar racing popular with the masses, but it will never be popular with its current schedule.  IndyCar flat out disappears for six months a year.  That's six months where people aren't seeing IndyCar on TV, or reading about IndyCar on the racing sites.  IndyCar needs to add more tracks and more race weekends.  I like the idea of double header weekends because they give fans good value for their money, but they aren't the solution.  IndyCar needs to run a schedule the extends from February to November, like every other major racing series in the known world.

No, Circuit of the America's won't make everything better.

One of my favorite hobbies around here is antagonizing the COTA fan boys.  While I wouldn't be opposed to an IndyCar race at COTA on principal, I think the people who are really screaming for an IndyCar race at COTA are pushing IndyCar in a direction that will make things worse.

One of RACER's IndyCar 2018 articles suggested that IndyCar should get rid of ovals (except for the 500) and only race on road and street courses.  Will the people who think that's a good idea please line up next to the crowd lobbying for front engine IndyCars.  There already is an open wheel racing series where they only race on road and street courses, it's called Formula 1.  American open wheel racing has always raced on ovals.  Get rid of the ovals and I'm not sure what you have, but it's no longer American open wheel racing.  This is the problem I have with the voices screaming the loudest for an IndyCar race at COTA.  They want IndyCar to be like Formula 1, which is just a bad idea.  IndyCar won't out Formula 1, Formula 1.

IndyCar needs to structure its series such that its unquestionably different then Formula 1, and racing open wheel cars on speedways is one of the things that differentiates American open wheel racing from European open wheel racing.  If IndyCar was forced to choose between ovals and road courses (and that's a horrible choice no matter how you cut it), IndyCar should choose to get rid of the road courses, and just race ovals.  At least no one would confuse IndyCar for F1 then.

Big money...big prizes.

IndyCar's format of road courses, street courses, short ovals and super speedways does a good job of separating the structure of the series from Formula 1 (you definitely won't see F1 at Iowa Speedway), but that only solves half the problem of making sure IndyCar isn't just dumbed down F1.  In some circles, IndyCar is viewed as a Formula 1 reject retirement home.  We need to change that perception.  The perception shouldn't be that IndyCar is where you go when you can't cut it in Formula 1, it should be that Formula 1 is where you go when you can't cut it in IndyCar.  The way you do that is by raising the quality of the driving talent, and specifically developing highly skilled drivers (preferably American, because everybody loves a hometown hero) who view IndyCar as the big show, not just a step on the way to NASCAR, or a step down from F1.

Of course, finding these mythical world class IndyCar drivers is easier said then done.  I'm going to say something that a lot of people view as controversial.  I think there are at least a few drivers currently in NASCAR who could have been Formula 1 drivers had they chosen to go down that road.  In todays racing world, America's best up and coming drivers gravitate towards NASCAR, because that's currently the most popular American racing series, and therefore the best long term career choice.  I'm convinced that if they were racing in the 60's and 70's, guys like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson would have been open wheel stars and potential F1 drivers.  It's not that these guys don't have the skill to race F1, they just focused on a different set of racing skills for career reasons.  Now let's pivot back to IndyCar for a second.  IndyCar's job is making sure that the next Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart choose to be open wheel heroes as opposed to NASCAR stars.

At first, I was stumped on how IndyCar should do this, but then I remembered something a professor of mine once said.  Some problems are solved by just throwing money at them.  So, I propose introducing a number of large cash prizes to IndyCar for accomplishing certain feats in a given season.  For example:

• Four million dollar prize for winning one of each type of race (street circuit, road course, short oval, super speedway) in one season.
• Six million dollars for completing the 500 mile hat trick (i.e., win Indianapolis, Pocono and Fontana in one year).
• Eight million dollars for winning at all street circuits (Long Beach, St. Petersburg, Detroit and Toronto) in one year.
• Ten million dollars for winning the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 in one year (I'll explain my thoughts on this one in more detail in a second). 

I get by with a little help from my (NASCAR) friends.

How, do you ask, is someone going to win Indianapolis and Daytona in one year without doing the Indy/Charlotte double?  Simple, IndyCar should try and coordinate with NASCAR to move the Coca Cola 600 to Saturday.  Don't ask me how IndyCar convinces NASCAR to do this, I'm just the idea man.  The beauty of this idea though is that all the NASCAR drivers are now able to race at Indianapolis should they choose.  Or at least, it becomes a lot easier for NASCAR racers to race at the Indianapolis 500.  First, I think IndyCar could "borrow" some of NASCAR's popularity.  Although I think there's already some cross over between people who watch the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca Cola 600, I think it would bring in interest from people who know names like Dale Earnhart Jr. or Jeff Gordon, but don't know who Ryan Hunter Ray or Helio Castroneves is.  Second, IndyCar basically builds their entire year around the month of may.  This arrangement elevates Indianapolis to a race above all others.  By having the NASCAR stars compete against the open wheel full timers, it makes it so all roads lead to Speedway Indiana on Memorial Day weekend.  Plus, the idea of someone like Dale Earnhart Jr. dueling with Helio Castroneves is just fun.  It's something that you could only see at Indianapolis, and would be a real feather in IndyCar's cap.

Every day is a party in IndyCar

So, we have the best drivers in the world, driving the wheels off their cars week in and week out, but is anyone watching?  The last piece of the puzzle is that IndyCar needs to embed themselves in the public's imagination.  For example, what if someone could make a really good IndyCar movie.  Top Gun made an entire generation of teenagers want to be F-14 pilots.  A River Run's Through It got countless people interested in fly fishing.  A well done movie (ie, not Driven) that shows the excitement, the speed and the danger of IndyCar could embed car racing in the public's imagination, and make them want to watch the real thing.  I mean it worked for fly fishing...

But why stop with a movie.  Look at what Red Bull does at Grand Prix weekends.  They bring out their old cars and start doing doughnuts in the middle of town.  They let people get close and see how crazy these cars can actually be.  Take the IndyCar circuis to major cities and throw a party.  Have teams have drag races in the middle of town.  Red Bull once drove one of their F1 cars through the Lincoln Tunnel in New York.

My point is that IndyCar needs to do stuff like this.  I have plenty of friends who have zero interest in racing, but love a good party, and would without a doubt show up if IndyCar showed up in their town offering shenanigans like Red Bull does.  I'm not saying that everyone who shows up to an IndyCar party would suddenly be a race fan, but you would have people tweeting about IndyCar, posting Instagram pictures of IndyCars, and talking about IndyCar's on their Facebook page.  The more IndyCar is out their in the public imagination, the more IndyCar fan's we have, and that's a good thing.

Closing thoughts

Let me say that I don't claim this is a step by step road map to bringing American open wheel racing back to its glory days where Nigel Mansell defected from Formula 1 to drive Champ Cars, but I think these are at least a couple ideas that would help move IndyCar in the right direction.

I Sure Hope they Studied...

...Because teams are testing.  I was browsing my usual sources for auto racing news today, and I realized that F1, WEC and IndyCar are all in their preseason testing cycles, which means we have stuff to talk about that isn't me telling stories from the Rolex 24.

Let's start with WEC.  I know that just the other day I was complaining that open car development isn't everything, but I love WEC because that's where the weird cars live.  So far, the news stories I'm seeing have to do with the the big four in LMP1, Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Nissan.  Nissan is testing at Circuit of the Americas, but I haven't heard any news, other then they are testing.  Audi just finished a test at Motorland Aragon in Spain, while Toyota has tested at Motorland Aragon as well as France's Paul Ricard circuit.  Both Toyota and Audi are staying pretty tight lipped about their test results, but both claim to be happy with their cars.  About the biggest news to come from Toyota is that they are sticking with their current super capacitor hybrid system as opposed to a battery system (more on hybrid systems in a while).  I'll be honest, I don't really know what any of that electrical engineering stuff means.  Porsche also recently finished testing their latest 919 in Bahrain.  Their team principle claims that the 2015 Porsche driver squad reports that the car is more drivable then last years.  Which I guess is better then the alternative.  So, to recap the testing results for the four big WEC teams, things are coming along well, but what else would you expect the teams to say?

Here's where things get interesting with regards to WEC in my opinion.  Megajoules.  Nissan is rumored to be chasing the 8MJ hybrid class, as is Toyota (which is currently in the 6MJ class).  Audi is looking to move up from 2MJ to 4MJ, and Porsche says they are currently evaluating which megajoule class they want to enter (currently, the 919 is a 6MJ car).  I was reading the dead tree edition of Racecar Engineering a while back, and they were saying that one of the major advantages Toyota had over Audi in 2014, at least in terms of pace, is that Toyota had a megajoule advantage.  Specifically, Toyota's decision to use a 6MJ design gave them a pace advantage over Audi 2MJ.   It looks like everyone this year is trying to up their megajoule game, so if either Toyota, Nissan or Porsche can hit 8MJ, that could give them a significant advantage over the competition.  I also speculate that as soon as a team hits the currently elusive 8MJ mark, it will start a hybrid arms race, as the other teams try and catch up, or be relegated to the dust bin of hybrid history.  Despite the two preceding paragraphs of stuff, any serious discussion of this year's Le Man's competitors is premature until the hybrid systems are finalized and we have some comparative lap times.

[NOTE FROM THE RACING NERD: If you're reading my discussion on hybrid classes screaming that I'm an idiot, I agree.  Also, I feel WEC hybrid subclasses deserves it's own discussion.  A full article discussing Audi 4MJ car versus Toyota, Nissan and Porsches 6MJ and/or 8MJ cars is coming].

Which brings us to Formula 1, where we actually do have comparative lap times.  F1 finished their first preseason test in Jerez Spain about two weeks ago, and shockingly, Ferrari power topped the lap times.  It's hard to judge the truth of preseason lap times since you don't know the cars fuel load or what the team was trying to accomplish with their testing, but I'm having a hard time believing that Ferrari was the only team hammering out laps while everyone else was just cruising.  Is Ferrari Mercedes fast now?  Probably not, but it is definitely looking good for the red cars with the prancing horses on the side.

And speaking of Mercedes, the Silver Arrows cars were working on reliability.  Despite being dominate last year, Mercedes had a few technical glitches to iron out, like when Louis Hamilton's car burst into flames in Hungary.  Mercedes turned an insane amount of laps more then everyone else in Jerez, and if I was the other teams, this would make me nervous for two very specific reasons.  First, Mercedes wasn't working on race pace.  Even though Ferrari topped the lap times, Mercedes was still quick, and they had the fastest strait line speed by 7kph.  The speed trap numbers obviously don't tell the whole story since Max Verstappen's Torro Rosso and Marcus Ericsson's Sauber-Ferrari were both faster then Kimi Raikonnen through the trap.  (Hands up, who things Max Verstappen is going to be faster then Kimi Raikonnen when the F1 season starts proper in Australia?  No one?  Didn't think so.)  So, while strait line speed doesn't necessarily equal quick lap times, it does prove they have plenty of horsepower, and with that the potential to be plenty quick.  Lap time just wasn't the focus at Jerez.  Therefore, if Mercedes can be competitive when they aren't focusing on lap time, how quick will they be when they actually put in some effort?  Second, like I said, Mercedes turned a lot of laps.  I haven't seen a break down of number of laps per stint for Mercedes, but I have to assume the answer is a lot, I just can't imagine them getting the mileage they did by turning a lot of short, low fuel runs.  So, if the car was loaded down with a lot of fuel, it makes sense that they were weren't number one on the lap time charts.  If a Mercedes full of fuel can run lap times competitive to cars on lighter fuel loads (assuming the others cars where on lighter fuel loads), I'm going to nervous about the speed of my car compared to the Mercedes under similar fuel loads, like you get during race conditions.  Just because Mercedes wasn't the quickest at Jerez, I still think they're going to have the fastest car on race day.

Which brings us to McLaren.  I can't help but wonder if Fernando Alonso is regretting his career choices right now.  His old ride at Ferrari looks like it could be a contender this year, and his new ride at McLaren looks like it might struggle to get out of the pit lane without embarrassing itself.  If you didn't hear, Honda had serious reliability problems at Jerez, and Alonso was a full 30kph slower through the speed trap then Mercedes.  That's not good.  Will Honda get the biggest of their problems figured out before the first race?  More then likely.  Will that engine be competitive with Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault?  Now that is a much better question.  I keep reading internet commentators claiming that Honda had a design advantage.  Honda got to build an engine from scratch with a year's worth of data on the current V6 turbo formula.  Where would Honda get this data?  Did they call up Mercedes and ask "can we have all your test data and design files?"  Of course not.  The other three engine supplies have a year worth of data, Honda has squat, and they're trying to play catch up, and as a result McLaren is currently stuck with a lemon.  I just hope Ron Dennis bought the extended warranty.

And then there's IndyCar.  They're testing at New Orleans Motorsport Park.  Which is a thing.  I guess.  You see, the teams are using the old Dallara road course aero components, which is funny, because now that Brazil is cancelled, those old cars won't actually be raced in this years IndyCar season.  I guess teams and drivers are learning the ins and outs of NOLA, but other then that, I'm not really sure what IndyCar is trying to accomplish with this test.  I did hear Simon Pagenaud saying that he expects good racing for the NOLA race,  Which is good.  I guess.  Let's be brutally honest with ourselves, you can parade the cars around all you want, but IndyCar testing doesn't really start until teams take delivery of the new aero kits.  At that point they can start figuring out how to get the most speed out of the 2015 cars.  Still, it's good to see the DW12's back on the track, even if they're just wandering around aimlessly.

Let's Hear it for Spec Racing!

Hello dear reader (as in singular, because I'm pretty sure there is only one of you).  As you've probably figured out by now, I read a lot of racing media, because, let's be honest, RACER isn't going to plagiarize their content for me.  And speaking of RACER, I've been enjoying their ongoing "IndyCar 2018" series of interviews and editorials.  If you haven't read this series yet, it is the opinions of various people in the American Open Wheel racing scene commenting on what IndyCar needs to do to be successful when they introduce their 2018 car, but this article really isn't about IndyCar 2018, instead it is about something I see in the comments sections of articles about IndyCar, F1, WEC, IMSA, and probably lawnmower racing if I bothered to read about that.  What I'm talking about is car development.

A lot of the commenter' I see claim that IndyCar's problem is that it's basically a spec series these days, and if IndyCar would simply let the teams develop jet powered super cars with frickin' laser beams attached to their head everything would be better.  If only IndyCar would embrace the idea of open development, then people who have no idea what month the Indy 500 is held would suddenly flock to IndyCar like people racing for the last servings of soylent green.  And that thinking is all wrong.

I'm focused a lot on IndyCar so far, but these same arguments apply to F1 and sports cars as well, as well as any other series where internet armchair race directors are screaming for more development.  Here's the basic flaws that thinking open development means race car popularity.  First, and most importantly, the people who are interested in race car engineering are already watching car racing.  Casual race fans (the people who we're trying to get interested in tuning into the Iowa Corn 250) don't understand why the Penske Ilmor pushrod engine for the 1994 Indy 500 was such a big deal.  I'm not saying these people are stupid, and can't understand, they just don't care.  Open development won't bring in more fans because new fans don't know this is something to get excited about, assuming they care about the technical side racing to begin with.

Not only is increased development not going to make new fans, it's going to make the racing product worse.  Say what you want about NASCAR and IndyCar, but the racing is wheel to wheel and you never know whose going to win a given race.  Even a back marker team can win on the right day in those series, and that makes the races exciting to watch.  In Formula 1, the poster boy series for technological development, the winner is going to be either that one Mercedes, or that other Mercedes.  Speed costs money, and in a series that places heavy emphasis on development the winners are the guys willing to throw the most money at the problem, while everyone else is holding on for dear financial life.  Don't believe me?  Ask Caterham and Marrusia.  It's a simple formula really.  Increased developments means more engineering talent is required, more research and development is required, and as a result more money is required, and as costs go up, grid sizes go down.  Car count isn't everything in racing, but an empty paddock is a sad paddock.

And while we're in that sad paddock of eight cars that can actually afford to design a new differential between practice and qualifying, the cars don't actually "race" anymore, they just kind of drive around in ranked order.  When rules governing technical development are tight, it's hard to build a car that's across the board slower then everyone else's.  When development is open, building a movable chicane becomes real easy, real fast.  I love the technical side of racing, but ultimately, I want to see tight, wheel to wheel racing, not a movable demonstration of who has the best engineering squad.  The results of a race should ultimately be determined by what happens on track, but when one car is head an shoulders superior then the others, the significance of the racing itself is minimized.

An argument I've seen advanced a couple of time's online (particularly with regards to F1) boils down to "throw out the rule book and let the engineers go wild."  No technical regulations, build whatever you want.  And I can't think of a worse idea.  The challenge of race car engineering is to build a car within a certain set specifications, and bend those regulations in such a way that you're faster then everyone else.  Or, if you're really clever, break those rules in such a way that the tech inspectors don't notice (looking at you Red Bull).  Because every racing series has some set of technical regulations (at least ever good racing series) there will be some limitations on development, and we shouldn't be afraid of this.  Limitations on technical development aren't strangling competition, they create a challenge.  The teams have a limited amount of development options, and the good teams will make the most of those options, which is the real fun, not whose willing to spend the most money to win.

Should all series become spec series then?  Of course not.  A world that doesn't allow bat guano crazy ideas like the Nissan LMP1 GT-R or the Delta Wing is a world I don't want to live in, but I don't think we should complain when a IndyCar doesn't allow the use of afterburners and plasma drives.  While arguing about the design choices of the Mercedes W06 versus the Ferrari SF15-T is fun for racing nerds, it doesn't put butts in the grandstands, or eyes on TV's.  The ultimate fate of any racing series depends on what happens on the track, not back in the shop.

In the Announcement that Shocked No One...

...IndyCar doesn't have a replacement for the cancelled March 8th race in Brazil.  I kind of figured this would be the result (IndyCar: St. Petersburg Confirmed as Season Opener).  The idea that IndyCar would somehow shoe horn a race into Circuit of the Americas (or any track for that matter), with no warning, in a little over a month, is frankly laughable.

It sounds like IndyCar is trying to find a replacement race for later in the season, which I think is the best case scenario, although I wouldn't be surprised if we only have a 16 race season.

Ruh Roh Shaggy…

I hope you weren’t looking forward to the Indy Car season opener in Brazil, because Thursday (1/29/14), Indy Car announced (announcement here) that the March 8 season opener in Brazil is cancelled. 

Fox Sports has a story (here) that discusses the race’s financial woes in more detail.  Long story short, Terracap, the government owned company that owns the track (which is still under construction) went to Indy Car and said “sorry folks, park’s closed.  The moose outside should have told you.”  Okay, maybe they didn’t use those exact words, but you get the idea.  According to a story on RACER’s website (IndyCar: Series Working on Contingency Plan After Brazil Cancellation), Indy Car is looking for a replacement venue, which (for reason’s I don’t fully understand) has the Circuit of the Americas fans screaming for a race in Austin.  My feelings about COTA are a topic for a different day though.

As an Indy Car fan, hearing that the season opener has been cancelled is disappointing.  More concerning is that Indy Car has a relatively short March to August schedule, and only planned on running 17 races before Brazil got canceled.  By comparison, Formula 1 runs from March to November and has 20 races.  NASCAR runs from February to November and has 36 races.  Tudor United Sports Cars only has 12 races, but runs from January to October. 

Before I completely wander off like an Alzheimer’s patient in the snow, let me explain where I’m going with this.  I love Indy Car racing, but some days I feel like all the Indy Car fans out there could watch the races in my living room.  With room to spare.  For my two cents, one of the reasons more people don’t watch Indy Car is because there simply isn’t that much Indy Car to watch.  They start their season later than the other guys, and end it before the other guys.  I’m no marketing expert, but I think if Indy Car wants people to watch their races, they’re going to need to have races, which is the exact opposite of what’s happening in Brazil.