Category: IndyCar

IndyCar Series

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.

***
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.

Mike Conway to IndyCar

In a surprise announcement about 24 hours ago, Dreyer & Reinbold announced Mike Conway as their first race driver of 2009. I’m guessing that wording means one or two drivers will be added to the programme, and that one of those is probably Milka Duno. It’ll be interesting to see if she does the full year this time.

I’d just like to say hi to anyone coming over here as a result of Jeff’s kind link at MyNameIsIRL.com. I commented over there about Mike Conway’s race history. MyNameIsIRL.com has been the source of most of my visitors for some time now, so thanks for coming!

Mike Conway is a fast driver who doesn’t seem to pull a decent year together. He’s one of those guys who you always think it’ll only be a matter of time before he does pull a good year together. A bit like Vitor Meira, he runs quickly but always seems to have a backmarker take him out or a little bit of mechanicals go wrong at just the wrong time. There’s never a right time, but mid-race when you’re running in the top three or four is particularly galling.

I commented on his test with Panther at the time and noted how that story seemed to come from nowhere – and this new announcement certainly did as well.
I wrote at the time:

Conway won a race at the Monte Carlo round of the GP2 Series, supporting the Monaco GP, and currently sits 11th in points. Not stellar, but respectable given the competitiveness of the midfield in GP2, and a win at Monaco is nothing to be disregarded. I saw that race and he was dominant, it was not a fluke.

Since then he put in some good performances but still only wound up 12th in points. Given his speed this is a bizarre finishing position to find himself and I struggle to explain it because he was a top 5 driver all season. Okay so his team did fade a little toward the end of the year, but not THAT badly!

I also noted how only autosport.com had the story. Clearly the ‘name’ US journos we all know and love (Miller, Cavin) must have known about the test – the guy was fastest – but I assume they didn’t take the prospect of him driving in 2009 too seriously. I didn’t either, I expected him to go for a full GP2 title assault with a top team!

I wish him well for 2009, it’ll be fascinating to see how he adapts. I have a feeling he’ll turn out to be a good oval racer but it might take him most of the year to get into it.

On Marco Andretti

This week the Word Butchers ask:

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.