Category: IndyCar

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!

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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.

UOWWB: Hamilton & Dixon

United Open Wheel Word Butchers Question of the Week:

If Lewis Hamilton and Scott Dixon switched places for the 2009 season, how would each driver fare in the other’s league? Who would be more successful in 2009?

Dixon would have a year much like Raikkonen’s 2008. F1 cars are not easy to get your head around because they are much more ‘knife-edge’ in terms of setup and driving style than any other car. I’m not doubting he has the talent to be a successful F1 driver because he clearly does, I’m just saying it’ll take time and F1 cars can be notoriously finicky things to learn. If you don’t get the car right or it inherently doesn’t suit your driving style you’re nowhere – again see Bourdais who was driving better in the STR2 early in the season than he was in the STR3 for most of the rest of the year. And how else do you explain Kimi’s lacklustre season?
So if he dials it in, and the car suits him, he would do very well. I think he’d end up on the middle road with an ‘average’ but respectable first season before stepping up in performance in 2010. He’d probably win a race in that first season. This assumes McLaren are still a top team in 2009!

The same would be true of Hamilton in the Dallara, he’d have the same kind of year as Dixon in F1. But he wouldn’t be properly up to a Ganassi-level of performance until after the huge mileage they do at Indy over those few weeks. Jumping directly into two street fights at St Pete and Long Beach is going to be a challenge for all the newcomers this year! And then on to the ovals. There isn’t what he’d know as a ‘normal’ track until the Glen in July, so he’d have to completely relearn how to race. And I include the street races on purpose here, American street tracks are not like Monaco, Melbourne or even Montreal, they have to be treated differently.
Again he’s with a top team so a win isn’t out of the question. Ganassi’s guys certainly know how to use strategy to get him there and you have to assume they and Penske will remain top dogs in ’09.

I do think the Dallara would be the easier car to learn but the tracks the IRL races on are a lot tougher, more rough and ready, more physical. F1 drivers are quite pampered when it comes to race track surfaces and run-off areas, so Hamilton would have to mentally adjust himself. Meanwhile Dixon could let it all hang out without fear of hitting much of anything.

There are so many variables which could affect the performances, not least of which is how much pre-season testing they do. There isn’t any doubt though – they’d both get there eventually.

Weekly Question – Foreign Drivers

UOWWBA asks:

Is the prominence of foreign drivers in the league hurting the IRL?

The answer to that depends on which drivers you’re talking about. If you’re referring to the highly successful championship winning drivers Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Juan Pablo Montoya, Cristiano da Matta and all the rest – then clearly you are insane if you think that somehow hurts IndyCar or any other series they’ve run in over the last decade. Joel at IRL-O-Rama wrote a good piece in answer to this same question, and I agree with him entirely.

On the flip side if you’re referring to the ride buyers which propped up the last few years of Champ Car then yeah, it does hurt. Several of those guys had no business being in a top line single-seater. But then you could say the same about the ride buying Americans which propped up the first years of the IRL.

Us hardcore fans of racing don’t give a monkey’s where the drivers come from if they are talented and are able to get a ride in a good team.
What I think the question is driving at is the appeal to the more casual fan. The guys who only watch when someone of their nationality is winning. We have the same in Britain, many more people watch F1, tennis, golf, etc. whenever a Brit is winning or competing for wins.

Those ‘fans’ will never change and that’s a shame because they are missing some great racing and great sport generally. They seem to miss the whole point of Indy-style (and sportscar) racing as opposed to NASCAR – bringing top drivers from around the world and racing them against the best America has to offer to see who’s best. And guess what guys: sometimes the Americans win!

From my limited knowledge of the beginnings of the Indianapolis 500 I seem to remember something about those first races consisting of drivers from everywhere racing cars from all over the place to see which combination was best over a distance. I’ll wager that’s one of many reasons why the 500 became so huge in the first place. Surely as the Speedway enters what it terms the ‘Centennial Era’, that’s the one thing it needs to hold on to?

Let me compare it to our little BTCC. Ten years ago it was at its height with big fields of British drivers alongside the cream of talent from all over Europe choosing to join them and race here. Result: big crowds at the circuits, good TV ratings, sponsorships, all the rest of it.
Nowadays we have smaller fields of British drivers and only one foreign driver, albeit he’s one of the best tintop drivers around. Result: far smaller crowds, relatively low TV ratings, and less sponsorships (and this was before the crunch).
OK the modern cars aren’t as good as those a decade ago and you didn’t have WTCC then, but still the point remains:
BTCC fans not only appreciate the foreign drivers racing here but consider it something to be proud of that some the best talent from across Europe chose to race here instead of DTM or any of the other national series. There really isn’t any reason why IRL fans can’t look at it the same way.

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Speaking of non-Americans looking for IndyCar rides, check out Dan Clarke’s quotes when he was interviewed by Autosport.com prior to this weekend’s A1GP event.

“I’m still living in Indianapolis, and we’re still gearing up for a season in IndyCar. But if the opportunity arises to do more of these (A1GP) races then I will jump at them, of course. But after this race I will go back to Indianapolis and continue with the negotiations that we’re having there with the teams in IndyCar.”

More on Autosport.com.