The RACER Mailbag, September 28

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the high volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.

Q: I read your article about Penske's takeover of Indy Lights, and it got me thinking about the next generation of IndyCars. What is going to happen with the surplus of the current IndyCar chassis in 2024? Is it too much of a beast to hand the leftovers down to the Indy Lights teams? Not necessarily give the chassis away, but sell them -- or lease them -- at a discounted rate so that some of the IndyCar teams (especially new teams with recent investments) can get a return on their dollars spent, and the Indy Lights teams can also step up their engineering programs. Might be a dumb thought; just spitballin' here!

Ian Craddock

MARSHALL PRUETT: I don’t foresee the Dallara DW12s going away for another three or four years, and when they are mothballed, keep in mind that IndyCar is comprised of independent business owners who count the cars, wheels, dampers, and everything else as assets. It’s not like IndyCar owns 60-plus DW12s and can give or sell them to others (with Penske being the exception; he’s free to do with his cars as he desires, but he’s not known to let many go).

Most of the cars are long paid for -- thanks to amortization -- so they’ll make more money for teams as show cars where their sponsors pay extra to have those cars displayed in their colors, than if they sold them off at whatever someone might pay. No disrespect to Dallara, or any other mass producer of spec cars, but those cars have yet to become hot sellers that command high dollars on the vintage market. And in the big picture, ancient hand-me-down IndyCars aren’t the answer for Indy Lights.

Q: With the lighter aeroscreen coming up in 2024 along with the larger-displacement engine combined with the ERS, meaning less weight on the front end and more on the rear end, is it safe to say that the next-gen IndyCars will be more oversteery than they currently are? I'm aware that this is a matter of taste (and/or driving style) and that some drivers can deal with loose cars while some don't, but as far as watching the drivers wrestle the cars around corners on the onboard footage, I would tend to think that this might actually be fun to watch. What say you?

Xavier

MP: Having worked on, built, and/or run a lot of racing sedans, GT cars, prototypes, and open-wheelers, there are some fun handling characteristics to deal with when one end of the car is significantly heavier than the other. On the front-engine road car side, you tend to get an understeering pig -- more of a bull, actually -- that wants to keep charging and plowing forward when you turn the steering wheel because all of that mass tends to overpower the front tires.

Drop a bunch of weight onto the back of an open-wheel car, and oddly enough, you tend to get the same response with an understeering mess, but with powerful front wings, it can be managed by dialing in downforce up front to help cornering when the cars are running at a high rate of speed.

In the slower corners, though, where mechanical grip (instead of downforce) does most of the work, it’s the part where the car is saddled with a bunch of rearward weight that makes it squat down on its haunches that is problematic.

When a driver’s off the throttle, the weight distribution shifts to the back of the car and lightens the weight on the front tires -- that’s where the problems are found. I always think of it like a see-saw with the small weight on one side (the front) and the big weight on the back (the rear).

Where you tend to get the oversteer is when the rear tires give up after trying to manage that excess weight, and it can come as a snap oversteer as the initial understeer gives instant way to the rear tires sliding. Bottom line is an imbalanced IndyCar is not fast or a lot of fun to drive.

Q: Will Alexander Rossi drive the No. 6 car that Robert Wickens drove -- which at one time was being reserved should Robert return to IndyCar -- or a different number?

Dan in Arizona

MP: As I understand it, Rossi is stepping straight into the No. 7 that Felix Rosenqvist drove last season with Felix’s race engineer Craig Hampson continuing with the car and Brian Barnhart serving as the entry’s new race strategist, just as he did last season at Andretti Autosport. Felix would move to the No. 6 Chevy and have Chris Lawrence as his new race engineer.

The No.6 Chevy is expected to be back in full-time service next year - but probably not with Rossi at the wheel. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

Q: 1. Push to pass: I hear TV announcers say they can use PTP for 20 seconds. Is that per lap, or in a single burst, or something else? If it’s in a single burst, is there a cooldown time before they can use the next burst? Assuming anyone would want to, could a driver use 20 seconds, cooldown for one second, then do another 20 seconds?

2. I read the story about the Road to Indy prize money cut. My understanding is an Indy Lights program costs $800k-$1m. I have seen that same cost to run the Indy 500. Why would someone pay to run a season in AAA when they could spend the same money to run the 500? I get it is a season vs a race, but winning the race is life-changing while winning Lights isn't even a sure full season proposition (see Kyle Kaiser or Sage Karam). Even with the old prize, why spend $1 million to run a series no one watches just to win a $1 million scholarship when instead you could run and win the biggest race/prize in the sport?

Ron K., Baltimore, MD

MP: Let’s go in reverse, Ron. If we’re talking about a kid coming out of USF2000 or Indy Pro 2000 and having $1 million to spend, the reason they’d go to Indy Lights instead of doing the Indy 500 is because they’d be drastically unprepared and unqualified to participate in the Indy 500. And for those reasons, there’s no way IndyCar would approve their license. Of the other practical matters, no quality teams would want to waste their time running a crash waiting to happen, nor would Chevy or Honda waste a lot of their money on such a driver.

On the first question, IndyCar sets a limit per use. Here’s what they put out for the last race at Laguna Seca: 150 seconds of total time with a maximum time of 15 seconds per activation.

You tend to see drivers use it in a strategical manner, meaning they’ll use it for seven seconds on a straight, for example, and then deactivate it just prior to braking and coasting through a corner, and then, if there’s another decent straight coming out of the corner, reactivate for that stretch of road. But since there are so few road and street courses where a straight or connected series of high-speed sections run together, it’s rare to see it activated and left engaged for the maximum time.

Q: After all of this year’s paddock shenanigans, perhaps we could add some extra spicy pre-race entertainment by letting the IndyCar team owners loose in Spec Miatas or Spec GR86s for a race of their own. It may well degenerate into something akin to a local figure-eight race once Zak and Chip figure out which car each other are driving, but this feels like the cathartic experience we all need. We could even get the Bus Bros to do the commentary and Malukas to be the pit reporter.

Anyway, just something to mull over in the off-season.

Duncan Butcher, Ottawa

MP: Our new champ, Will Power, is one of the biggest MX-5 Cup fans in the paddock. And as a former entrant in the series during its debut season in 2006, I’d love to see it!

On the Chip and Zak part, let’s be real. There would be two completely demolished Mazdas after the race and a proper recreation of the legendary 1979 Daytona 500 punch-fest where Donnie Allison mollywhopped Cale Yarborough. Who wants to bet on the winner of that scrap?

[ED's note: A one-make Ford Escort race for F1 team managers actually happened at Brands Hatch in 1971, complete with the grand prix drivers giving the pit signals. I'd have run a photo if I'd been able to find one, but you can see video of it here - MG]

Q: I didn't see any coverage of the battle for the last spots in the Leaders Circle. Who is in and who didn't make it? Why isn't this reported on?

Scott in Michigan

MP: I lost interest after seeing all the Foyt entries and the 48 CGR car circling the LC drain towards the middle of the season, and in the end, that’s precisely how it played out. Technically, the 48 car placed 22nd in the entrants’ championship, which is the last eligible position to claim a LC contract. But it wasn’t counted due to the LC rule that says only the top three cars from each team are eligible for LC contracts, and since Jimmie Johnson and the 48 car were CGR’s fourth-place entry, CGR doesn’t get a contract for the car.

But, and here’s a fun one, when the LC was being formulated years ago, Andretti Autosport was grandfathered in as a four-car team, so it’s the annual wild card when it comes to LCs. Andretti’s Devlin DeFrancesco, who placed 23rd with the 29 car in the LC -- —the team’s fourth-place entry in the LC -- would, therefore, take 22nd from CGR’s ineligible fourth-place 48 car, and get that $1 million contract.

That leaves CGR’s 48 plus Foyt’s 14 and 4 entries on the outside of the lucrative guaranteed-prize-money payouts from IndyCar in 2023.

Q: With IndyCar season over, and discussion of car counts looking a little lower in 2023 due to lack of engine leases, it’s safe to say 33 is the top number in 2023 for the 500, and that is fine. The question -- or food for thought -- is this. As a lifelong IndyCar fan, and also a good run following NASCAR during the Split years, I'm very intrigued by the rise, passion and branding of Trackhouse in Cup.

Justin Marks said via Twitter that the Indy 500 could be an eventual goal of Trackhouse as it seeks to increase its visibility in other racing formats, and with Kimi Raikkonen having ran the PROJECT91 car at the Glen, I have to wonder... can we get them to jump in with a partnership sooner than later?

Trackhouse has the image, the passion, and seems to do great with funding from varied sponsors. It has a good Chevy affiliation. Can you connect Justin Marks and maybe Larry Foyt to have lunch and find some synergy for a "Trackhouse with A.J. Foyt Racing" to field that third car for a couple of races as they in turn cross-pollinate a Cup driver or two into an IndyCar? No reason the PROJECT91 couldn't work by bringing them into IndyCar in the same manner.

Ed in Westfield

MP: Car counts won’t be down next season, Ed. We’re trending towards 27-28 for the full season. Indy 500 will likely be 33-35, with Nos. 34 and 35 being subject to some truly exciting opportunities to get Chevy or Honda to support extra cars.

RACER had a whole story about Trackhouse’s interests outside NASCAR last week -- might be worth taking it for a spin. I’m sure I could connect Justin and Larry, but to my knowledge, Justin wants to run his own team, just as most team owners want to run their own team. I’m not saying a technical alliance with a top Chevy performer wouldn’t be pursued, but I’d rather see Trackhouse learn IndyCar and become proficient at it on its own than try to co-enter a car with someone and be in the lesser role of providing sponsorship and a driver for an experienced team to run on their behalf.

Q: Listening to JR Hildebrand’s podcast, he really was trying to pull out of Will Power what he did differently this season. I have been trying to figure it out for myself: Alex Palou, now Will: what are these guys doing that the others are not? What are teams’ drivers saying they’re doing, and what will teams do to mimic this success?

Tristan

MP: Best answer here is what worked in 2022 is something Will says he found for himself, meaning that beforehand, he was missing something, compared to this thing being some great secret that produces championships that he’s keeping to himself.

Consistency was the obvious thing he was missing before his 2014 IndyCar title and afterwards, so whatever he needed to do to prioritize points over taking big risks is the big inner development that paid off. He mentioned watching Palou do that last year, and it triggered something that got him back on track to using the same formula Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon used to earn eight titles over the 13 seasons spanning 2008-2020. Palou put that same formula of winning whenever possible, but always placing a higher value on earning maximizing your points haul, in 2021, and was rewarded.

I often cite Franchitti and Dixon for mastering this formula, and that’s because they’re the most recent and consistent purveyors of the art, but they are by no means the first. Four-time F1 world champion Alain Prost was another master of winning titles by focusing on having the best season-long average as some of his faster or more aggressive rivals racked up more wins while also recording more big losses that doled out a modest amount of points.

The rarities are the runaway championships where a Dixon won four of 14 races in 2020 and had 13 finishes inside the top 10 -- just murdering the opposition with wins and big handfuls of points almost everywhere else. Newgarden did similar things the year before with four wins from 17 races; only three finishes were outside the top 10 and he became a two-time champ.

Pivot to this season, and Newgarden took five wins, more than anybody, but from those 17 races, five came with finishes ranging from 13th to 25th, and when nearly 30 percent of your results come with a tiny allocation of points, those five big wins won’t be enough to secure the title.

Be Josef in 2019 or Dixon in 2020, or be Power in 2022, and win once and finish inside the top four at 12 of 17 races -- 71 percent of the time -- and you’ll be an IndyCar champion.

File the "Trackhouse to IndyCar" speculation under the "definitely maybe" category. John Harrelson/Motorsport Images

Q: Prompted by a recent Mailbag submission, I watched an IndyCar race on the old Laguna Seca track layout. Given that this is your local track, what can you share about why the layout was changed in the late '80s?

Matt Philpott

MP: If you’re familiar with Lime Rock, Laguna was like Lime Rock, but run in reverse. It was a harrowing bullring-type circuit where today’s infield didn’t exist. As cars went past the finish line, then crested and plummeted down the hill, they kept going at the crazy rate of speed through Turn 2’s wicked-fast left-hander that extended and connected to what we now call Turn 5.

Q: I'm just wondering if there are any rumors or real leads that Ryan Hunter-Reay has any possible IndyCar rides for 2023, either full- or part-time, or Indy-only? I feel he's still a strong competitor and I liked having Captain America in the field. I think his bad luck with a fading Andretti team over the last couple years didn't allow him to race solidly to the end of a career.

So what's the word on RHR? He seems a good guy, but is he viewed as difficult, retired, over-the-hill, or what?

Mark in Milwaukee

MP: Not that I know of on the full-time side in IndyCar or IMSA, unfortunately. I’m hoping to see RHR confirmed with Ganassi for the endurance races in its new Cadillac GTP entry. I can tell you this: If Andretti could get a fifth engine lease from Honda, I bet they’d do everything in their power to get RHR back into the family. Wow, did they miss his leadership and driving talents last season.

Q: This is a bit in response to a Mailbag F1 question for last week. If Shane van Gisbergen is going to have a Super License and wants to start an open-wheel career, Chip Ganassi should call him up to replace Palou in the 10 car so that McLaughlin and SVG can resume their rivalry. If you aren’t following Supercars, it’s the only series I watch, with racing on par with (and sometimes better than – don’t hate me comments section – IndyCar.) Right now, SVG is decimating everyone in the field and he’s doing it with racecraft. Two drivers have more poles than Shane this year, but SVG has won over 70% of the races by passing people rather than running away from up front. This guy in IndyCar? Yes please.

Ryan in West Michigan

MP: I’m not entirely sure he’d fit in a Dallara DW12; he’s got broad shoulders that would be a challenge to wedge into the cockpit, I’d imagine. But, if he wanted to, at a later stage in his career, I’ve no doubt he’d be right there with McLaughlin after having the same amount of testing and racing to learn the formula. Super fast, highly aggressive, and he has wicked car control. We’d be lucky to have "The Giz" over here.

Q: A dark end of September for SoCal motorsports: the government permits paperwork is all done now, and after multiple delays, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana will officially be converted from two miles to a half-mile oval after next February's NASCAR Cup race. Due to local noise regulations, the new oval won't be used for weekly shows, just two weekends a year for NASCAR touring series. The remainder of the property will become warehouses, etc.

And the property that Irwindale Speedway sits on was just sold to a developer last week, with plans to soon build warehouses and an industrial park on the site.

John Severinsen, Los Angeles, CA

MP: I’m saddened more by the Irwindale changes than Fontana. Been to Fontana a zillion times and loved it for all of its superspeedway awesomeness and its kinda crappy roval/infield road course, including a one-off visit by the JGTC series (think Japanese GT cars that rivaled IndyCar for cool technology back in the day). But the locals fell out of love with the place, even when NASCAR visited, a while ago. Irwindale has always been a home for hardcore audience of car fans, racing fans, short track fans, drifting fans, drag fans, etc. As a cultural hub, its loss hurts.

Irwindale in 2010. Another SoCal track bites the dust. Motorsport Images

Q: I recently heard Colton Herta say he wasn’t really considering a winter regional series to accumulate additional Super License points. This boggles my mind. Yeah, it’s considered a step down but if you have an opportunity to get one of only 20 Formula 1 seats why wouldn’t you do it? In anything the extra points would come in handy if he wanted to go to F1 in 2024. If my math is correct Herta will need to win the IndyCar championship in 2023 in order to have enough Super License points for 2024. Driving for Andretti, that’s ain’t gonna happen. Agree?

Bottom line, I think I want this to happen more than he does.

Ken, Lockport, NY

MP: I think you do, Ken. Let’s say there’s a new Super NFL league that’s been created, but since he hasn’t won a Super Bowl, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen would need to go and play Pee Wee football in order to qualify for this awesome new football venture. At no point in time would any reasonable person suggest that Allen, one of the most talented young QBs in the NFL, should go back to where he started as a child just to gain access to the super league.

It would involve embarrassing himself, showing desperation, and bowing his head to the idiots who cooked up the nonsensical requirement. And then you lose all credibility and become the top-tier athlete who lowered himself to play in the gutter just to get an invite to the exclusive club. And if you do that, and get into the club, you’ll always be that sad-sack person with no dignity who is treated accordingly. Those are the reasons why you don’t do it. Elite pros don’t play with children. Why would Allen, or Herta, be any different?

Now, the one thing I have been wondering is how closely the FIA monitors who’s actually driving in the fringe junior open-wheel series that deliver big Super License points hauls. Colton’s younger brother… how do we get him suited up for an entire weekend, or drop one of Andretti’s rapid Indy Lights drivers into a Herta helmet and suit that they never change out of, and have them race under his name and get those points? Devious minds want to know…

Q: I have to give a lot of praise to "Joseph" and Scott for creating the Bus Bros episodes. My boys have become even bigger fans of IndyCar over the past season and a big reason has been these episodes. They have really been fun to watch and I really wish we had more content like this. Also, congratulations to Will Power for an amazing year! Hoping to see him offer some Vegemite samples on a future episode!

Jason Morrison, Terre Haute, IN

MP: I know my wife’s a fan of the Bus Bros because she always tells me when a new episode pops up in her YouTube timeline… It’s a perfect combo with one extrovert and one introvert. And let’s give credit to the person who makes it all happen behind the camera and on the production side with Brian Simpson, IndyCar’s former head of digital who left to go into business with Newgarden and whose creativity is missed every day by the series.

Q: The Super License points and how they're distributed have been a hot topic, but hear me out on this concept: Give out points for winning important marquee events like the Indy 500, 24 Hours at Le Mans/Daytona/Spa, the Bathurst 1000, the Daytona 500 and so on. The precedent already is there from how the Macau Grand Prix gives five points from a win. How come this isn't used more?

Otto V, Laukaa, Finland

CHRIS MEDLAND: I love this idea! Genuinely. I think if you’re a winner in the top category at any massive event that should be rewarded with some form of points. Macau was a fairly new addition but don’t forget it’s also an FIA event that is aimed at younger drivers coming through feeder series, which is another reason other championships have been given fewer points. But sign me up to this.

Q: After watching Nyck de Vries’ run at Monza, certainly everyone had to be impressed. Well, probably everyone with the exception of Latifi. I think we may be watching the end of his F1 time. He’s had a few flashes, but just not frequently enough. Any thoughts or insights?

In the September 21 Mailbag, there was discussion of Newgarden’s age as a negative point. Would you say the same thing about de Vries? Assuming he lands a deal somewhere, he will be 28 before the 2023 season starts. That is pretty unusual in this day and age.

Don Hopings, Cathedral City, CA

CM: So you’ll have seen the Latifi news that was came out since you sent this question in Don, and you were right on the money -- he was nearly out earlier this year and it was meant to be Oscar Piastri replacing him, but I think the team did the right thing in sticking the season out. He still has that P7 from Hungary last year and a good performance at Silverstone this year, but as you say, it’s not frequent enough. His funding was very helpful for a team trying to recover from years of struggle, though, so that shouldn’t be totally overlooked.

I did say the same thing about de Vries earlier this year, I’ll admit. I like that it shows drivers develop at different rates and can still be brilliant prospect in their late 20s (plus good for a decade from that point on), but I did think it made him a less likely pick until he got his race chance in Monza. I also want to clarify in case it wasn’t clear last week that I rate Josef and think he’d likely perform very well in an F1 car, but that if you’re a team looking at him or Colton, then age might come into your thinking out of the two.

He'll struggle to pass for five, but de Vries could prove to be an outlier in an era where F1 rookies aged in their late 20s are a rarity -- assuming he finds a seat. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images

Q: Another F1 schedule without a race in Germany. It wasn't all that long ago that the demand there was so great that they had to alternate years between Hockenheim and Nurburgring to keep everyone happy. I attended three F1 races at Hockenheim between 1993 and 2004, and the crowds were massive. What happened? I vaguely recall that the promoters there weren't willing to pay the escalating sanctioning fees, but somehow most of the other old-school European tracks managed it. Any insight on the issue and whether we might see a German Grand Prix again any time soon? Thanks.

Alan, Orlando, FL

CM: Those alternating races in the 2000s were not due to demand but actually because neither track could afford the full-time fee to be on the schedule every year. The boom years you talk about in the '90s were all due to a certain Michael Schumacher making the sport massive in Germany, just like Max Verstappen is doing now in the Netherlands and Fernando Alonso did in Spain (remember Barcelona and Valencia being on the calendar?).

There’s just not the same fan base that there was in Germany, and that was clear with the final races at Hockenheim -- as much as I loved going there. They lack a true exciting star to get behind, and don’t see Mercedes as a fully German team given the UK headquarters and power unit facility. Audi coming in might address that a little and lead to more corporate interest that would fund a race, but a driver that fans really engaged with again (also tougher now every race isn’t on free-to-air TV) would be the catalyst.

Q: During the recent dust-up over Colton Herta’s lack of Super License qualification, I was taken aback by Stefano Domenicali’s submission to the resistance of European interests for such, I assume from entrenched FIA bureaucratic turf lords. Domenicali works for Liberty Media, not the teams or the FIA. Hard to imagine that Liberty’s push to promote F1 in the U.S. would not include getting Herta in an F1 seat. His success in F1 isn’t guaranteed, but winning seven Indycar races by his current age begs for the shot at it.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Jack Woodruff, Richmond, CA

CM: Actually, I found Domenicali not to be supportive of Herta’s attempts, nor Andretti’s desire to enter F1. From the driver front, he used to head up the FIA’s Single Seater Commission that helped create the ladder that the Super License really focuses on, so he’d be going against something he put in place. I wouldn’t say he was submissive, I think he was actually proactive in saying that the FIA should stick to its rules.

I’ll admit that surprised me, but then if you make exceptions because you want to commercially crack a certain market, then you open up a can of worms in future when it comes to any driver with huge money behind them from another market. They just need to address the Super License points that IndyCar gets, quickly.

THE FINAL WORD

From Robin Miller's Mailbag, October 1, 2014

Q: OK, that was an interesting F1 race in Singapore. Another chink in Mercedes armor, a resurgent Red Bull, a tightening of the championship. And now a dark weekend. No IndyCar, no F1. Am I required by IndyCar management to watch NFL this weekend? Or may I simply curl up with a good thriller?

Randall Rich

ROBIN MILLER: You may lose you parking privileges to glamping at IMS if you cannot prove you watched at least one half of an NFL game last weekend.