IndyCar – Page 26 – I Watch Too Much Racing

On Marco Andretti

Does Marco Andretti improve or hurt his teammates at Andretti Green Racing?

I’d say probably both in a way, although he’s still improving year on year. His raw talent and speed isn’t in doubt but he seems to find himself in accidents maybe a little more often than maybe he ought to. Accidents cause a loss of track time (obviously), and that’s not what you need especially in a series as close as IndyCar where you need to be on top of conditions at all times.

With four drivers AGR can split the race weekend set-up workload and get results more quickly than other teams can – in theory, anyway. If you take out a chunk of time caused by crashes, his part of that is lost to the whole team. I’m including the races here, even then you lose valuable learning time. Even the most experienced drivers need that time because the cars, engines, tyres and circuits are always evolving even in a largely spec formula.

He’ll sort it out soon – I’m tipping him to do just that this year. He showed signs of it in ’08, it’ll come.

He’s showing an apparent change of attitude since the last part of the ’08 IRL season. The willingness to go to A1GP when he really didn’t need to take an unpaid drive in what is still a fairly obscure series, on his earnings and with his secure ride, I think it says a lot about how he’s willing to broaden his experience base and technical ability. I’m not sure how true that was before. I mean I don’t know if he genuinely wanted to be in the ALMS car, or if he was just parachuted in to help.. Those of you who watch those races may be able to answer that.

So yeah, in summary… If he keeps ending up in the wall or other cars, it hinders his teammates. Sometimes he shows a level of arrogance I don’t like, maybe that hinders things too, although in his defence perhaps that’s the only way to get anything in that team with Princess around.
On the other hand, his ever growing experience with these cars and his experience with another powerful single-seater will give him another reference point to work with. He’ll now approach the Dallara with a completely different mindset. This will help him and his teammates, particularly Mutoh who is still new to this stuff, and may also take some of the set-up pressure off of TK, which in turn will allow Tony to fight for the title… although I’m sure Marco is thinking of an assault on that himself.

News Round-Up

I hope everyone had a good New Year! I had a quiet one after spending the last two years in central London, and the previous one in Edinburgh (the Home of Hogmanay and the best New Year’s Eve street party in the world!). This year I just played a bit of Mario Kart Wii before heading into the middle of the little town I live in for the moment itself.

I thought I should catch up on some of the smaller bits of news I missed when I was revising for an exam in December, believe it or not when you summarise it a lot did actually happen even if it seemed very quiet day-to-day. And not all of it was bad, either. I’ll skip the things reported by my blogging colleagues at the time, I mean we’ve all seen that, right?

F1
– Big news in sponsorship as Vodafone takes their primary sponsorship from McLaren to Ferrari for 2009 onwards.

– Allianz will continue with WilliamsF1 for the forthcoming year, however technical partner Lenovo have instead joined McLaren. No word on the plans of RBS after the bank was bailed out by the British government a few months ago, my fellow taxpayers and I now own 60% of the company.

– Teams have been testing the KERS system and new aero package, to varying degrees. BMW, Honda and Williams were among the first to test the new gear, while Red Bull has been running with ’08 systems simulating ’09 rules.

IRL
– 2008 GP2 champ Giorgio Pantano is looking for a ride in the US after the F1 teams showed no interest in him.

– Penske continue to state that an announcement on Helio’s ride – i.e. will he drive or will there be a replacement – will be made ‘in the next few weeks’, although they’ve been saying that since November.

GP2
– Pastor Maldonado has signed with ART Grand Prix for the ’09 European series. His teammate is expected to be Nico Hulkenberg.

– The Asia series is continuing with what is becoming a regularly revolving cast of characters. Seems several teams are using it as an extended driver test for the main series.

– The February round of the Asia series at Dubai has been moved to Qatar, and will become a night event under the floodlights. MotoGP race under the lights there last year.

F2
– At least 20 drivers have been signed up to the revived F2 series for this year and it looks to be oversubscribed, in which case it will be capped at 24 drivers. So far 10 drivers have been officially announced by MSV and more are being added to this page every week, presumably in order to get more PR from staggered announcements which is a good move.

– Great to see Red Bull joining the party and helping legitimise the series further, alongside MotorSport Vision and WilliamsF1.

F3
– Carlin Motorsport have switched from Mercedes engines to Volkswagen, marking a big increase in VW’s presence in both the Euroseries and the British one. Carlin say they are following their backers Red Bull, who announced in November that all teams they are backing in F3 will run with VW.

– VW already confirmed they are dropping RC Motorsport, and will continue with Signature-Plus (both for the Euroseries), while in Britain they’ll join with T-Sport.

Sportscars
– The Le Mans pre-event Test Day has been cancelled to reduce the costs for both competitors and organisers. Wednesday’s qualifying has now become a mandatory practice session.

– Leo Mansell and dad Nigel tested the Ginetta-Zytek 07S LMP sportscar at Valencia. Meanwhile Leo’s brother Greg tested the World Series by Renault FR3.5 car in a group test at Paul Ricard, back in November.

– Barwell Motorsport will not going back to ALMS this year with their bio Aston Martin. They will instead enter the LMS and FIA GT3. I’m not sure if they’ll use that car but they will run Astons.

– BMW have been testing their GT2 class M3 in the US with World Touring Car drivers Andy Priaulx, Jorg Muller and Augusto Farfus. Priaulx says he’d like to take part in some ALMS races in the car, but Sebring clashes with a WTCC event at Puebla. Joey Hand and Bill Auberlen have been announced as the drivers of Rahal Letterman Racing’s M3.

– The Britcar 24 Hours at Silverstone has been reduced to a 6-hour event for 2009 for cost containment reasons. Organisers hope to return the race to the full distance in 2010. It has only been running since 2005.

– Ex-Super Aguri driver Anthony Davidson tested a Peugeot 908 HDi at Paul Ricard and is the running for a race drive. Go Ant!

Other
– Both Subaru and Suzuki have pulled out of the World Rally Championship. Kawasaki looks set to announce a pull-out from MotoGP next week. Seems like the Japanese car and bike makers are in trouble.

– 1998 and 1999 F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen has become a driver manager, alongside his own manager Dider Coton.

– A1GP has agreed with the Chinese government to run two rounds per season for the next five years. Venues were not confirmed. A1 has raced in Shanghai, Beijing, Zhuhai and Chengdu since the series started in 2005.

– Organisers of the Surfers Paradise street race are building a pit/paddock complex for 40 teams in time for the ’09 event. That should be enough to service all of the A1GP and V8 Supercar teams.

– The Dakar Rally gets under way this week, but in Argentina. The African event was cancelled last year due to terrorist theats which prompted the move over the Atlantic, however a rival series called Africa Race has been set up and will be running at the same time albeit with far fewer numbers competing.

Blog
– Check out the Last.FM radio player in the white sidebar!

– The blog might be quieter than intended between now and June as I am in my final year of an accountancy course. It isn’t quite ‘Accountant’ level, its the level just below it, but that doesn’t make it easy! So I’ll be quite busy doing that.

– It’s New Year’s Day, I didn’t drink stupendous amounts last night yet my head still hurts because I have a cold, only a mild one but I HATE colds. Especially ones I pick up during a stock-take at work on NYE. I need a good rant so might come back soon to tell you all my pet peeves.

All stories shamelessely pilfered from the pages of the last several editions of Autosport magazine and reworded by me.

Christmas List

This week’s United Open Wheel Word Butchers Association question:

What’s on this year’s Christmas List for the IRL?

– Start talking about the new chassis / engine formula so we can get excited about it!

– Make sure the international TV package is good. There are a LOT of IndyCar fans outside the USA and we feel like an afterthought sometimes. Gary and Larry made sure to namecheck all the countries their feed reached and it was nice to hear.

– Make sure the Indy Lights champ of every season gets a test with a major team. Do they already? I have no idea. Surely if they get a test, somebody down the grid will take a chance on them.

– I don’t care about a series sponsor as long as the cars are well stickered-up and look good. Make sure each team has sponsors, and try to attract even more. Yes, this is tough to do these days.

– Make sure safety car periods are kept to a minimum, and the clean up is as fast as safely possible. Don’t extend yellows just to squeeze in a pit sequence or a TV commercial break. TV should fit to the sport, not vice versa.

– Ditch Sonoma, a track with no fans looks stupid. See Bahrain in F1.

– Bring in Road America for 2010 (if not 2009). Also try for Michigan Speedway. Keep the street races to no more than 3 per season (Long Beach, Toronto, St Pete). I’d like to see the schedule mixed around a bit. I don’t like having oval-heavy to start with, road-heavy to end with.

– Above all else: survive this downturn intact, even if it means not doing some of the above until things quieten down.

I know that’s a lot of hard things to ask for, and they are all needed…

Thanks to Joel for this week’s question.

Come back tomorrow for my F1 Top Ten!

IndyCar Top Ten 2008

To close out the 2008 season, and to put some content on this thing, I’m using the age-old device of the Top Ten List. First up is IndyCar, then there is Formula 1, and then I’m finishing with GP2 (if I can stretch that to ten drivers).

2008 IRL IndyCar Series

1. Dixon (1st in points)
Performed well for nearly the whole year, with just the blips at Watkins Glen and Sonoma the only real exceptions. A worthy champion although there remains the question mark over whether he’d have done so well without the advantage of his pit position.

2. Castroneves (2nd)
I think he was solid throughout the whole year, wasn’t he? Didn’t quite have enough for the title despite scoring very strongly in the last third of the year (he never finished lower than 2nd in six consecutive races). Just as in the points race, and on the track, deciding where to place Helio and Scott on any list like this is a very close run thing.

3. Kanaan (3rd)
Managed to take what was generally an underperforming AGR team and still finish 3rd in points ahead of Wheldon and Briscoe, in a year when you could make a serious case for Ganassi and Penske having a performance advantage over every other team. All the while he seemed to be the glue holding AGR together as it seemed to be trying to fracture. Not bad Tony, not bad.

4. Wheldon (4th)
Had a generally good year but probably could have done better. I think he’d agree with that. His first half of the year (mostly ovals) was better than his second half of the year (mostly road courses) which pre-season you would have expected. I’m not sure if the tipping point was the whole thing of whether Kanaan had taken his seat, but it seemed that it knocked his confidence in the team. If so, I don’t blame him.

5. Briscoe (5th)
Much improved. Some bad luck early on cost him points and at one point there were suggestions that his drive was in question. He bounced back with a win at Milwaukee which seemed to change things for the better. He’ll show well next season as I think a lot of the little niggles will be ironed out.

6. Hunter-Reay (8th)
Poked his nose among the Big Three more often than you might have expected, and took a great win at Watkins Glen.

7. Servia (9th)
Oriol was the top-scoring ‘transition’ driver because he’s a solid driver with tons of experience, and it showed. KVR’s steadily increasing pace on the ovals was almost certainly down to him.

8. Power (12th)
Servia scored more in points but Power showed more flashes of brilliant driving. Unfortunately some bad luck tangling with other cars meant the end results often weren’t what they could and should have been.

9. Andretti (7th)
He had a reasonable year, less good in terms of results than before but that’s probably down to AGR hitting a bad patch by their standards. I didn’t like Marco much before this season but he seems to have reached a good place in his head and he’s growing on me as a driver. I was impressed by his run at Milwaukee until the crash.

10. Patrick (6th)
Scored her first win in the big cars by being able to conserve fuel while others couldn’t (or wouldn’t). The rest of the year wasn’t much to write home about but again that was probably as much down to AGR as anything. She finished ahead of Andretti in the points and picking between them is a close call, but I’m marking her down because she whines even more than he does, and that’s an accomplishment. Not sure if she’s whining more now or if Marco has cut down, I suspect the latter so I mark him higher accordingly (plus Marco gets bonus points for doing A1GP). If Danica isn’t careful she’ll soon rival Scott Speed or Nigel Mansell in the whining stakes. I guess it keeps her at the top of the Recent Articles lists on the websites.

Surprise Of The Year
Moraes jumping straight from Formula 3 and scoring some decent results through the year considering his experience and the size of his team – even if his first oval at Homestead was a bit of a culture shock for him.
The other surprise was Mutoh, he had some very good races.

Driver I Most Enjoyed Watching
Ernesto ‘EJ’ Viso. How can you pick anyone else? I watched him in GP2 last season (where he had a similar reputation as he gained in IRL) and it was fun to see him adapt to American racing and their unique interpretation of blocking rules. I seem to remember Doornbos struggling with it last year! It would be great to see Doornbos vs Viso in IndyCars.

Caveats
I have a terrible memory. I’ve probably forgotten some major event/s which should mean a driver is ranked higher / lower than I’ve put them here. And if you disagree with me, make your case in the comments!

2009 News
I’m sure you’ve all by now seen the news that the Belle Isle race has been cancelled*. I can’t say I’m too upset at this news! The race was a procession. It all looked great on TV, particularly the ALMS cars, yet both races were pretty boring in terms of racing. Sorry to all the people in the Detroit region who will miss out but hey, maybe they can bring the Michigan speedway back instead.
* yes we use two L’s in Britain

I mentioned Robert Doornbos earlier, and he has apparently been negotiating with HVM. However, a report in Autosport magazine this week quotes him as saying he’s close to a drive with NHL and the HVM reports are wide of the mark.

“I’ve seen the reports but they are not true. I’ve been talking to HVM but Newman/Haas/Lanigan is the team I’ve been in contact with most. I want to be in the best team possible and hope to have a deal signed by Christmas, but I don’t know exactly who that will be with. I hope I can bring ING to the IRL in 2009.”

ING sponsorship would be huge, racing fans will know them from their involvement with Renault in F1.
There are also reports of Bourdais talking of going back to America which everyone else in the World of Blogs is getting excited about at least on the IRL side, but I still don’t believe it’ll happen. I think he’ll remain a STR driver and I want that to be the case.

Finally, check out the I Am Mindy Show at MyNameIsIRL.com. Go to the site and type ‘podcast’ into his new search box at the top of the page. He’s done two shows now at roughly half hour each, so go now and listen to both!