Bourdais - Reopening tech will widen divide

Sebastien Bourdais warns that IndyCar's move to open additional areas of the car to development will drive a wedge between the big teams and their less well-resourced counterparts.

Previously, most components had to be sourced exclusively from the series-nominated supplier, and run as supplied. However some of those restrictions have been lifted for this year, giving teams the ability to fabricate certain parts in-house, and carry out performance development programs on some other previously frozen components.

Allowing teams to manufacture or source some of those parts themselves should result in those parts becoming cheaper. But any savings will be offset by the costs incurred as teams take advantage of their newly-regained freedom to develop those parts in search of additional performance. Chief among the components ripe for performance development are anti-roll bars, and many teams ran self-fabricated parts at last week's Phoenix test.

Bourdais rejoins Dale Coyne Racing this year, but even with the engineering reinforcement that the team has introduced over the winter, the Frenchman warns that it will not be able to compete with the series powerhouses in any sort of development war.

"What will really hurt us will be if IndyCar heads down the path they are starting to right now, where they are reopening some of the technical windows," Bourdais told RACER.

"They are not just allowing teams to make their own parts, they are allowing teams to make modifications to the parts that they have opened up. And that is what I'm not OK with. If you try to get a series that first, costs less money, and second is more equal, that is certainly not the path to take.

"We just can't respond to all of the areas that have been opened up [for development]. We don't have the people, we don't have the money, and we don't have the time. So if you start to open more and more things like that, then their cars are eventually going to be that much faster than everybody else. And that's what I don't think it's right."

DCR is especially awkwardly placed to take advantage of the increased technical freedom due to its limited in-house fabrication capability: Not only does it not have the resources to match its bigger rivals in a development race, but it will also need to externally source many non-development parts that other teams can manufacture for themselves.

Bourdais also believes that the teams like Coyne will be at a disadvantage when faced with having to learn the new standard aero kit being introduced for 2018, although he says that idea is still ultimately in the best interests of the sport.

"I still believe that every time things change it tends to advantage the bigger teams, no matter what the change is," he said. "They'll figure it out quicker. But in the meantime, things have to change every now and then; it's a cycle, and hopefully that will be a more steady platform for everybody to do their thing."