Category: IndyCar

Weekend Preview: 4-5 April 2009

Here it is people, it all kicks off this weekend! Tons and tons of racing!

* * * *
Feature Event

FIA Formula 1 World Championship
– Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix (2/17)
– Sepang International Circuit
– Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
– www.formula1.com
– Track Map

Please see my F1 Preview here.

Support events:
GP2 Asia Series (x2); Formula BMW Pacific (x2);

A much quieter support card to Australia. GP2 Asia is holding rounds 9 and 10 of the winter series with just one double-header remaining in Bahrain (again supporting F1).
FBMW Pacific kicks off their year here this weekend.

* * *
Other Events:

IRL IndyCar Series
– Honda Grand Prix of St.Petersburg (1/17)
– St Petersburg, Florida, United States
– www.indycar.com

Please see my IndyCar preview which follows imminently!

UK TV: Race LIVE on Sky Sports Xtra from 7.30pm BST Sunday.
US TV: Qualifying recap at 5pm ET Saturday.
Race LIVE on VERSUS from 2pm ET Sunday, race starts at 3.

Support races: Firestone Indy Lights (x2)

American Le Mans Series
– Acura Sports Car Challenge of St.Petersburg (2/10)
– St Petersburg, Florida, United States
– www.americanlemans.com

A very low entry of just 17 cars is a cause for concern with just 6 prototypes and no GT1 cars. GT2 is the battle to watch here.

UK TV: Race DELAYED by one day, from 3.00pm BST Sunday.
US TV: Race LIVE on ABC from 1.30pm ET Sunday.

Le Mans Series
– 1000km of Barcelona (1/5)
– Circuit de Catalunya
– Barcelona, Spain
– www.lemans-series.com/

The European endurance racing season gets going with an entry list of 43 cars this weekend! Aston Martin are currently topping the times in the absence of Peugeot and Audi, which means the LMP1 entry is fairly thin in number compared to last year – but it does boast Aston, Pescarolo and the two Kolles Audi R10s.

UK TV: The start can be seen LIVE on Eurosport at 10.15am BST for 45 minutes, with further coverage at 11.45am for 30 minutes. There will be highlights at 11pm. Eurosport are busy with GP2 Asia, World Rally, Superbikes, cycling and European basketball so they really had to fit in what was a late deal wherever they could.

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Samsung 500 (7/36)
– Texas Motor Speedway
– Fort Worth, Texas, United States
– www.nascar.com

Yet another 500, they seem to have a lot of them in NASCAR. Didn’t 500 mile races used to mean something?

UK TV: TAPE DELAYED on Sky Sports Xtra from 10pm BST Sunday.
US TV: LIVE on FOX from 1:30pm ET Sunday.

The reason for the UK tape delay? SSX is showing IndyCars at St Pete live instead! Three cheers for the ICS bumping Cup! Hooray!

Support races: Nationwide Series (Saturday)

FIA World Rally Championship
– Rally de Portugal (4/12)
– Vilamoura, Portugal
– www.wrc.com

Intercontinental Rally Challenge
– Safari Rally (3/12)
– Nairobi, Kenya
– www.ircseries.com

Formula Nippon
– Fuji (1/8)
– Fuji, Japan
Support races: Japanese Formula 3;

HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
– Brands Hatch Indy (1/10)
– Brands Hatch (Indy)
– Kent, England, UK
– www.btcc.net

Time for some proper tin-top wheel banging! The BTCC season opens on the one mile Indy configuration of Brands Hatch, with the three fast and frenetic 20 minute BTCC races and a packed support card.

UK TV: LIVE on ITV4 from 11.45am Sunday with uninterrupted coverage until 6pm including a whole bunch of support races.

The reason for the UK tape delay? SSX is showing IndyCars at St Pete live instead! Three cheers for the ICS bumping Cup! Hooray!

Support races: Porsche Carrera Cup GB, Formula Renault UK, Renault Clio Cup UK, Ginetta G50, Ginetta Juniors

* * * *
Hectic!!

I think that covers everything, please add your comments if you find anything more!

IndyCar TV: Versus & Sky Sports

While I’ve keeping up to date on the BBC’s F1 coverage here in the UK, I’ve been remiss in not talking about the new TV deal for the IRL IndyCar Series. Since it is effectively the series I cover most after F1, I need to put that right straight away.

US Coverage
(see below for UK coverage details)

New for this year is a switch to the Versus cable channel, which brings with it an increase in race day coverage and as well as more time for qualifying. What’s interesting is that all of their content will also be available on Versus HD – which is a result!

Five races are still with ABC, doing that curious American thing of splitting coverage between broadcasters. Obviously Indy isn’t moving any time soon but with the rest of them… guys just put them in one place and market the hell out of them, yeah? I’m guessing ABC insisted on this arrangement.

Versus is cleverly choosing to air IndyCar programs around the 500 so as to keep the content rolling and the awareness out there, which is good thinking. I think it includes something on qualifying but that’ll be announced properly later.

Previews
Prior to the season there are four hour-long previews every Saturday at 2.00pm ET.
– The first of those was aired last weekend and was about Danica P. Okay, not my choice but she is the marketing darling of the series so I can live with that, even if I’d prefer a similar show about the reigning champion – but I’m just a hardcore fan not a casual viewer… The remaining shows are:
– ‘Top Ten Closest Finishes in IRL History’ which should be very entertaining! (I’m fairly sure this is ‘IRL’ and not ‘Indycar’ history, so since 1996);
– Next is ‘Crashes and Conflicts’ which worries me slightly, we don’t want to be attracting the sort of “fans” who “only watch for the crashes” so I hope they treat it with a respect for the danger instead of ‘hey that’s cool’ – because it isn’t cool, what’s cool is the skill in avoiding the crashes;
– Finally we end with ‘IndyCar World Tour’ which is about the circuits visited during the season;

Qualifying
During the season there will be a post-qualifying wrap up show at 6pm ET on the Saturday. I don’t think ESPN covered qualifying did it? I’m not sure, someone let me know, but if so this marks a big improvement and dare I say a toe-in-the-water for potential live coverage next season, so make sure you watch it to convince them to do it!

If the IRL knock-out qualifying is as good as it is in F1 then it’ll be worth watching, and the oval system seems interesting in a completely different way.

Race
This is followed on Sunday by a live 3-hour race show featuring build-up and post-race. It sounds like you guys are finally getting for IndyCar what we’ve got here for F1! IndyCar finally gets the hours it deserves.

Race commentary will be provided by Bob Jenkins, Jon Beekhuis and Robbie Buhl. Jenkins is an experienced hand who’ll run a steady ship, Beekhuis is possibly the best IndyCar technical expert around, and Buhl is a team owner. That’s a good, solid line-up.

In the pits will be the inimitable Jack Arute, along with series newcomers Lindy Thackston and Robbie Floyd. I hope Thackton isn’t the token female that Brie was for so long last year (due respect though – she did get A LOT better). Apparently she’s been on ALMS pit reporter duty before so that’s promising. Floyd seems to be coming in as a total newbie to racing, so maybe he’s the one in the deep end this year? Good luck to them all, let’s keep an open mind and give them a few races to bed in.

Races will be re-aired in full the next day (Monday). There will also be further reruns on Sunday for races in odd timezones, like Motegi.

Lights
Alongside the Monday re-air, Versus will show Indy Lights in full – a great result for the Lights guys. Furthermore, two of the Lights races will be live – at Indy and Homestead. I’m sure this marks a major step up for this series.
(PS – if someone could see their way to sending MotorsTV in Europe the Lights tapes a little earlier than last year, that’d be cool too)

Overview
On the whole this looks to be a very good deal, and it’s long-term as well. Okay so the reach isn’t as big as ESPN’s but ever since the coverage announcement was made a couple of months back several US-based IRL bloggers have noted that Versus has appeared in their local area, or the area of people they know. So it is growing and will continue to do so – this a great chance for the IRL to put their series in a place where it can grow along with the network, a bit like NASCAR did many years ago. There’s a lot of potential here – this is a good deal.

The IndyCar Series begins on April 5th on the street/airport hybrid circuit in St Petersburg, Florida. This will be live on Versus at 2.00pm ET, and remember to check out the qualifying recap show the day before at 6.00pm – get eyeballs on to it to show them you want to see it live next year!

UK Coverage
IndyCar once again returns to Sky Sports with every round live or same-day delayed, primarily on Sky Sports 3 (St Pete will be on Sky Sports Xtra).

There are precious few details around at the moment and I’ve been unable to locate an announcement but I have found a short-term schedule of motor racing appearing on Sky over the next six weeks and IndyCar is on it, along with NASCAR and A1GP.
I assume there will be at least one replay of the IndyCar races if not more at various stages in the week, however there is no HD coverage as far as I am aware – this of course may still change. Last season there were only two HD races across their entire motorsport portfolio, yet this year I believe most if not all of the NASCAR events held so far have been in HD. We’ll know more nearer the time.

We also don’t yet know who will provide commentary. In previous years ESPN supplied a different commentary pairing, Garry Lee and Larry Rice, along with the same pit crew seen on American TV (albeit with fewer reports). We don’t yet know if we’ll have Jenkins/Beekhuis/Buhl or another team – frankly there are pros and cons to both options. It’s nice having the guys talking to us without endless promotion for other stuff on the network, and giving shouts to countries watching. On the other hand, it’d be fantastic to have everyone watch the same thing (a la A1GP) and maybe the US domestic guys could shout out the different places tuning in live.

Once again you can expect interjections from Sky’s London studio with Keith Heuwen and guests during any yellow flag periods.

The IndyCar Series begins on April 5th on the street/airport hybrid circuit in St Petersburg, Florida. This will be live on Sky Sports Xtra at 7.30pm and is directly followed on the same channel by live NASCAR Sprint Cup from Texas. That’s a good long day of racing, starting with the Malaysian GP – love it!

UOWWB Questions

I’ve been remiss on not answering the United Open Wheel Word Butcher questions of the last couple of weeks and there’s another one up today, so let’s run through some quickie answers:

Many IRL drivers from last season have not been officially signed to a deal for 2009. This includes Ryan Hunter-Reay, Oriol Servia, Justin Wilson, Darren Manning, Buddy Rice, AJ Foyt IV, Bruno Junqueira, Enrique Bernoldi, Jaime Camara, Milka Duno, Townsend Bell, Mario Dominguez, and a few others. How many of these drivers will be driving in the IRL this season?

This question was posted on Feb 9th and obviously we now know the fates of Wilson, Duno and hopefully Junky (I think he’ll get the other Coyne car). I think Camara is in with Conquest again, he’s listed to test with them tomorrow but I don’t know if he’s confirmed.
I don’t see many of these others getting drives without funding. I’m pretty sure Manning is in sportscars, RHR and Servia definitely need to be in the series but I don’t see anything rumoured on the other blogs/sites. So we’re getting some good guys back, some are sitting out who shouldn’t be sitting out, and others… I don’t really care about!

If you were given one wish and could change anything about auto racing, what would you’re one wish be?

Two words: Economic Recovery!!
At this point all the stuff we’d usually discuss about drivers, teams, tracks, events, sponsors, etc – these things are just niceties right now. We just need to survive. It’s that bad. So essentially what I’d change is the attitudes in some parts of racing right now who seem to have their heads in the sand, thinking this is just going to go away by itself.

“Of the unemployed drivers in the Indycar Series (see below) which two would you employ to join your racing team”
* Ryan Hunter-Reay
* Oriol Servia
* Justin Wilson
* Darren Manning
* Buddy Rice
* AJ Foyt IV
* Bruno Junqueira
* Enrique Bernoldi
* Jaime Camara
* Townsend Bell
* Mario Dominguez
* Jay Howard
* Alex Lloyd
* Tomas Scheckter

We can strike Wilson and Camara as taken for Coyne and Conquest, I don’t think they are 100% official yet but they are almost there.

So to answer the question: I’ll take Ryan Hunter-Reay and Darren Manning, please. Servia is a close call but Manning nicks it for patriotic and personality/PR reasons – and I’ll take RHR any day, he’s the business.

* * *
Interesting day tomorrow, we’ve got announcements from the BBC F1 team on what they have planned, we’ll have something from Peter Windsor’s USF1 operation, and perhaps something will come from the former Honda F1 team as I believe their Mercedes engine option timed out today. While all this happens the IndyCars will have their first test of the year, at the Homestead oval, which will be about as useful as any test of any car in terms of form guides but it’ll give us something to talk about.

I’ll do a round-up at this time tomorrow, if some of that hasn’t happened yet then tough!

In the meantime if you’re on Twitter you should add these:
LeeMcK (Lee McKenzie, BBC’s F1 pit reporter for 2009)
BMWSauberF1Team
Vision Racing
HVM Racing

Tell me if you know any more!

Lots of news

Sorry for the short quiet period there – I had a great weekend of Wii, much beer and an engagement party (not mine!). Unfortunately that wiped out the last couple of nights as I had to do my college work then instead of in a block at the weekend.

A lot has happened in the six days since I last posted, it seems as though the racing world has just suddenly realised there’s a season upon us in six or eight weeks.

Here are some snapshots:

F1
– Someone seems to be actually working on an American Formula 1 team. The idea has come and gone over the last couple of decades but nobody has really tried it since Penske in the 70s, and his cars were based an hour from me in Poole, England. Rumours suggest this ‘USF1’ team will be based in Charlotte, North Carolina with an operating base in Bilbao, Spain. I’m taking this with a pinch of salt until further notice. I didn’t believe the Prodrive F1 entry until very late on and I won’t with these guys, and that’s down to a) their choice of splitting across two continents, b) the fact no bona fide indie has entered since who knows when (not counting Aguri), and c) uh, hello, recession? What is in their favour is the new agreements about ‘cheap’ engines and drivetrains.

– FOTA and the FIA have agreed to engines costing no more than 5 million Euros and a drivetrain (gearbox etc) 1.5 million Euros. They also agreed that any team may choose to use the control Cosworth/Xtrac option currently in development – you might remember Mad Max originally intended every team to use it. Discussions continue this week.

– The Singapore GP organisers plan to adjust the layout of the circuit for this year. The pitlane entry and exit will be moved away from the racing line, turn one will be tightened to create a harder braking area, and other turns will be reprofiled.

– The great Teddy Mayer has died aged 73. Mayer was the man in control of McLaren between the death of Bruce McLaren in 1970 (he helped Bruce found the team) until Ron Dennis bought his way in in 1982. McLaren were active in F1, CanAm and USAC/CART and won the Indy 500 with Johnny Rutherford. After McLaren, Mayer moved back to America where he set up a team in CART, hiring Tom Sneva who nearly won the title with them. After a stint with Beatrice back in F1, Mayer joined Penske where he remained until his retirement in 2007. His son Tim is the COO of the American Le Mans Series and IMSA.
Please read this obituary at Motorsport.com, with thanks to No Fenders for pointing it out.

IRL
– Multiple reports had Robert Doornbos signing with Newman Haas Lanigan, however his own site denied this – for the time being. Reading between the lines it seems they are still discussing the finer points of the contract.

– Yet more reports, originating from Robin Miller I think, have Milka Duno also joining N/H/L…. which will be interesting. It seems an odd choice to me and I wouldn’t have put that team down as a ridebuying team, so I guess times really are hard.

– Five car manufacturers were unveiled as being in discussion with the IRL about future engine regulations. These were Honda, Audi, VW, Porsche and Fiat. Obviously 3 of those are actually under the same ownership now. The Fiat link is interesting, originally it was supposed to be their Alfa Romeo brand but perhaps with the recent Chrysler tie-in they may feel Fiat is the better marketing platform.

GP2
– Bruno Senna confirmed to Autosport.com that he will not be returning to GP2. The GP2 driver market has been hanging on his decision, expecting that with the Honda F1 team now defunct he would return for another year. Bruno seems to think he has a shot either at Toro Rosso, or is pinning his hopes on someone buying the ex-Honda team outright. I think he made the wrong choice – unless F1’s 3-car rule comes into effect in which case he’ll look very smart indeed. Or just lucky.

– Ocean Racing (formerly BCN) has signed Karun Chandhok for the 2009 main series.

Sportscars
– The ACO has received 82 applications for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours. There are only 55 spots. 15 places have already been allocated through invitations based on results at the 2008 Le Mans, Petit Le Mans and the championships of the LMS and ALMS. This leaves 67 entries for 40 places. The ACO will select 55 entrants and 8 reserves and announce them at the end of this month. I’m tempted to do a little blog post about that when it happens.

Loads more has happened but it’s half past midnight and I want to go to bed!

**
Back tomorrow with Weekend Preview – although I think the Bud Shootout is the only thing on.

By the way, I don’t know who of you is from Bristowe, Virginia and keeps visiting every two hours but please stop, you’re fucking up my Feedjit stats. Just once (or twice) a day will be fine. Ta. You’re probably a bot.