Dallara begins IndyCar's 2018 bodywork production

Following successful tests with its 2018 bodywork at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Mid-Ohio and Iowa, IndyCar has given Dallara the green light to start manufacturing the superspeedway and road course/short oval kits every Verizon IndyCar Series team will use next season.

"Almost everything went into production after Mid-Ohio, and [today], we'll sign off on everything else," IndyCar aerodynamic director Tino Belli told RACER.

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One item will remain under development prior to receiving its final approval for mass production by Dallara.

"The only thing we have a little bit of work to do on is the front road course brake ducts," Belli said of the Chevy aero kit-based design. "We should be under control on that after we conduct the final test at Sebring on September 26."

Spread across the three circuits it has visited with Team Penske running a Chevy-powered Dallara DW12 and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports fielding a Honda-powered entry, IndyCar has worked through the majority of its 2018 bodywork verification tests.

With Penske's Juan Pablo Montoya and SPM's Oriol Servia achieving similar lap times and lap speeds as the current IndyCar package, albeit with less downforce, the exercises have been rather efficient.

"We are maybe influencing the last five percent of the design," Servia told RACER. "What Tino and IndyCar and Dallara designed was basically done before we ever drove it, and by that, I mean it was good enough that Juan Pablo and I have been confirming what they knew the car could do, and not so much telling them to change this piece or that piece. Really, the bodywork packages were ready to go before we tried them, which I find to be very impressive."