Schmidt, Honda strengthen ties

Honda has nominated Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to play a greater role in its Verizon IndyCar Series efforts. As part of an engine supply contract extension through 2020, SPM will work closer with Honda Performance Development after years of proving itself to be a valuable partner as a customer team.

"We've seen a significant increase in their capability, and our expectations are a lot higher," said HPD president Art St. Cyr. "Their engineering talent, their ability to analyze what's going on from one race to the next and really be able to up their game each session really impressed us. We are going to be relying on Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to help us gather base data that is going to be the source of our programs like HPD Dynamic, our simulator, and those types of activities that we will be feeding across to all of our Honda teams to make sure that all of them raise their game."

SPM joins Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing as Honda teams that have been graced with extra favor. With veteran driver Oriol Servia in the cockpit, SPM has also looked after IndyCar's development of its 2018 bodywork on behalf of Honda.

"As we move forward with our manufacturer testing, SPM is going to be one of our key teams to really help us characterize the kits and make sure we can understand what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses and how we can maximize the ability of that kit to get the speed on track," St. Cyr added.

SPM General Manager Piers Phillips credited the overall increase in the team's resources, including its growing alliance with sponsor Arrow Electronics, for its elevated status with HPD.

"Our technical partners give us the increased engineering capability which, in turn, gives HPD the confidence in us as a team to take our partnership to the next level," he said. "Our contract extension is the culmination of everyone's hard work. One of the things that we're extremely excited about is working closer technically with HPD for the benefit of not only our program, but for all Honda programs in the IndyCar Series. We're really excited for the next three years and hoping to win a lot of races, some Indy 500s and championships."