The RACER Mailbag, July 8

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 12pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.

***ED'S NOTE: The Mailbag is taking a break next week, but keep the questions coming in and we'll run them in the July 22 edition***

Q: You're Chip Ganassi. You can choose either Lundgaard or VeeKay for the No. 9. 

Break down the pros and cons the addition of either driver would potentially bring. Who do you ultimately move forward with, and why?

Kristopher Strebe

MARSHALL PRUETT: This is a fun one. VeeKay.

I can’t say if Rinus is faster than Christian because we’ve never seen VeeKay in anything other than a midfield car. But we can say he is the complete package if you’re picking between the two. He’s a beast on ovals, and that’s the part Lundgaard has yet to acquire.

Both are known to be extremely good on the feedback side, so that’s a bit of a wash. What about being team leaders? Lundgaard hasn’t been in a situation where he was asked to be nor expected to be the team leader, not with Graham Rahal at RLL or Pato O’Ward at Arrow McLaren. But that shouldn’t have stopped him from trying to win over both teams to claim those thrones.

VeeKay’s been thrust into the leadership roles at Dale Coyne, where he was lauded for his leadership traits, and again this year at Juncos Hollinger, where he’s taken on that team-wide leader role and is doing big things.

Demeanor is another factor to consider. VeeKay has a reputation for being warm and uplifting; he’s a motivator, as the Coyne and Juncos Hollinger teams have told me. Lundgaard is revered for his competitive streak; he’s got a sizable ego, and that’s not a bad thing. Plenty of championships have been won by drivers who were their own biggest fans. But he wasn’t spoken of with reverie as a teammate by RLL, and he and O’Ward have a frosty relationship, at best.

At least for the reputation he carries, Lundgaard is described as a solo artist inside of the team construct, and depending on the team, that might be a perfect fit. But not at Ganassi. That’s as blue collar a team as you’ll find in the series; big egos are welcomed inside the cars from green to checkered, and that’s it. Everything else about the team is built around teamwork, selflessness, giving and being part of the greater whole.

A solo artist wouldn’t last a minute in today’s Ganassi team. Maybe back when Juan Pablo Montoya was there and he vacillated between being an angel or devil, but he was also the most talented driver in the series and made his rivals look silly, which made his demeanor an acceptable part of the package.

If I’m Chip and I’m thinking of the Indy 500, it’s VeeKay, all day. If I’m Chip and I’m thinking of roads and streets, I’d lean toward Lundgaard simply because he’s been a formidable threat in a car and team that should be a formidable threat. Logic says VeeKay should do the same in the same caliber of car, but there’s only the occasional evidence of that in the occasional breakthroughs he’s been able to make in lesser equipment.

In total, I’m going VeeKay because he’s a team-first guy who’s shown to be good everywhere and just needs a chance to prove it.

Chip's next hire? Travis Hinkle/Penske Entertainment

Q: With the upcoming driver shake-ups, all else being equal, are there any drivability differences between Chevrolet- and Honda-powered cars that they need to adapt to?

Roger, Omaha, NE

MP: Yes. But the gap appears to be incredibly slim after Honda’s renowned torque and midrange punch was matched or exceeded by Chevy last weekend. Chevy drivers going to Honda (Will Power is the latest) comment on the added user-friendliness with the Hondas, and drivers going the opposite way often speak to the peak power offered by Chevy. But after 15 seasons with the same motors, we should be at a place like we are now where it’s hard to find much in the way of differences, except for the Indy 500 where special annual efforts are made to create separation at the Speedway. 

Q: The last known right-foot braker in IndyCar was Dario Franchitti. If memory serves me correctly, when the new car was introduced Dario had to get special exemption to have a part created to allow him to right-foot brake.  

Do you know if Josef Newgarden is using that same part design for his car as Dario used, or was another model made?

Doug W., Wheaton, IL

MP: Dario tried to adapt to the left-foot braking setup that came as the standard with the DW12, but found he needed the right-foot method to extract his full potential. I don’t know what Josef is using. Last I saw, he was asked by a FOX Sports pit lane reporter about it and completely ignored the question in his answer.  

Q: Thanks for the excellent explanation of everything going on at Arrow McLaren. Your analysis was insightful and helped put the recent changes into perspective.

Extrapolating from the themes you raised, I had a thought: would it make sense for McLaren to buy Nolan Siegel out of the remainder of the season and put Ryan Hunter-Reay in the car?

RHR obviously provides tremendous value in his current role, but it seems like there could be even greater benefit if he were gathering firsthand information behind the wheel. By driving on a variety of circuits, he could identify setup shortcomings, technical issues, and areas where the team may be headed in the wrong direction much more directly than from the outside.

It seems like the data and feedback he would generate that Siegel doesn’t could give Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist a stronger baseline to work from as the team develops next year’s package. Even if it didn’t immediately translate into better race results this season (which it likely would), it would accelerate the process and pay dividends in 2027.

Brian, Phoenix

MP: It’s an interesting idea with RHR and Nolan, but I feel confident that Nolan’s contract does not allow for a buyout unless he approves it, and there’s no scenario where his career survives if he takes a payout (a rebate, more likely) to not drive.

He wants to continue in IndyCar, and he’d have a much harder time selling a team on taking him and his funding if he demonstrates a willingness to not fight for what’s his. That’s often a concern for drivers who come from wealth; give hardcore racers the impression you’re OK with not driving, and you’re viewed as a rich kid pretending to be a racer.

RHR would be helpful on the ovals, but there’s nothing he can give the team on roads and streets that Lundgaard can’t. And as he found in 2023 as a mid-season replacement, coming off of the couch to race a DW12 left him looking like a rag doll since he didn’t have adequate time to train for the physical rigors and endurance demands of these cars on roads and streets.