Tag: NTT Indycar Series

No Added Pressure for Drivers in Contract Year

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Photo of Will Power by Chris Jones, Indycar

Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay are beginning contract years in the NTT Indycar Series. Simon Pagenaud may be in a contract year, but he side-stepped the question last week. All three drivers plan to keep driving the way they always have and not worry about 2022. The consensus is that there is always pressure to perform, regardless of their contract status.

Ryan Hunter-Reay Photo by Chris Owens, Indycar

Hunter-Reay had a frustrating year in 2020. It began with a car that wouldn’t fire on the grid at the opening race in Texas. The Andretti Autosport driver did manage a 10th place finish in the season standings, however. Hunter-Reay usually finds a way into the top 10 despite problems during a race. Last year was a bit more of a struggle than most years.

Looking ahead to 2021 Hunter-Reay said, “Yeah, definitely I’m looking forward to that kind of makeup,what feels like a makeup season almost. Hopefully we can do that, barring any variants of COVID that might derail that.”

As for extra pressure coming from a one year deal, Hunter-Reay said that he approaches every race as if it could be his last in the car.

“My whole career has been that way. It’s been, Hey, here is your opportunity. Get in the car, we’ll let you know if you’re going to be in the car the next race. That’s how it always has been for me. That’s why I’ve always had that grab-it-by-the-neck mentality. Even when I had a three-year deal, if I had a bad weekend, it was the end of the year. I have to make sure I’m performing next weekend, otherwise somebody with a big smile is getting ready to jump into my seat. It’s just part of my mentality, part of my makeup. No, that’s how I’ve been operating for 20 years, man. Right at home for me.”

Hunter-Reay has stiff competition from his own team. Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta should be fighting for the championship and possibly a win at the Indianapolis 500.

Power Hopes for Better Start

Will Power feels the need to have a better start to the season. 2019 and 2020 both began with a series of issues that hampered his run for the title. He has still managed to win twice in each of the past two years and add to his career pole mark. He is inching closer to Mario Andretti’s career pole total. Power goes into 2021 with same attitude he does every year.

“…same effort that I put in because I had put so much effort in every time. I so badly want to win. Yep, same fire, internal fire burning. Just do as I do, do obviously my best.”

Any extra pressure seems to come from the poor starts of the last two years.

“It actually does feel a little bit that way, youknow, considering we’ve started the last four seasons in a really bad way. It certainly isn’t speed that’s the issue. It’s our bad days are just too bad. Our bad days are DNFs and multiple laps down. They’re not like a 10th place or a seventh place, and that’s our problem. The speed is certainly not. Winning is certainly not. Consistently,whether it’s mistakes on pit lane or mistakes by me, you just — we have to have a solid beginning to the season.”

Like Hunter-Reay, Power will compete with Team Penske teammates-Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, and Simon Pagenaud for points and podiums.

Pagenaud Looks for Better Qualifying, Race Results

Simon Pagenaud Photo by Chris Owens, Indycar

Simon Pagenaud had a frustrating season in 2020. Poor qualifying forced him to play catch up during races. he did get a victory in Iowa race 1 after starting last, and his eighth place final standing seems like a decent year. It was not good enough for Pagenaud. What went wrong?

“…a combination of things that didn’t work out the way I wanted. Obviously the car change made a big difference. The lack of testing made a big impact on my season.”

Team Penske has been able to test this pre-season and that should make a big difference in Pagenaud’s year. As for pressure to keep his job in 2022?

“…my personal opinion is just go out there and do the best you can, race hard and be in the moment. The contracts will take care of themselves when they do.It’s too early to tell anyway. But yeah, I always race as hard as I can. My motto is having no regrets ever, so I work hard, and I want to have no regrets. So if I have no regrets, there’s no reason it shouldn’t continue.”

Newgarden: Focus on 500 Win and Aiming for Another Championship

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Photo: Chris Jones, Indycar

Don’t get Josef Newgarden wrong. He is focusing on winning the Indianapolis 500 this year. That doesn’t mean he is putting his desire for a third NTT Indycar series title aside. He would gladly take both in 2021. Since 2017, Newgarden’s titles have come every other year. This is one of those years. About his plans for the upcoming season, Newgarden says,

“Well, it’s definitely the same. It’s a little boring, but it doesn’t change. We want to win an Indy500. For me specifically, that’s a big goal. I’ve not won that race. Obviously as a team, we’ve had a lot of success there. They’d like to add to that.For me, I’d like to get my first. Then the championship as well, yeah, we’re looking for another one. Obviously I was hoping we were going to win our third championship last year and we could be working on the fourth. We’re going to have to go back to square one and try to knock the third off this season.”

Winning the 500 takes a lot of time and effort. Newgarden explains,

“Indy is a really tough track, not only because it’s the most important race but I think because it’s all about very small details, and those little details take a tremendous amount of time and effort to move the needle. It’s all these little things that add up at the end of the day when you show up in the month of May . It takes a tremendous amount of time to make large progress at Indianapolis, whereas at another track you may find a small difference or small change with something that you found that didn’t take nearly as much energy or money or resources.

We didn’t perform like we wanted to at the 500 from a qualifying standpoint and race standpoint. I think that’s why we’ve heavily leaned to get that right in the off-season.We haven’t left anything else behind. We’re still pushing forward on all the other fronts because we need to be strong across the season.”

Newgarden’s Team Penske crew was was not as strong at Indy as they have been in the past.

“Last year our qualifying form was not strong. We were all disappointed with our speed. That was first and foremost. How do we fix the speed of the cars from last season? There’s been a tremendous amount of work that’s been put in. We have the best of the best in my opinion when it comes to talent and personnel. There’s been no shortage of effort and time to make these Penske race cars as fast as possible. That was first and foremost.”

Newgarden shares many other drivers’ optimisim that Roger Penske is the right man to leading Indycar during these difficult times.

“I think this year has strong potential to really go to the next phase of where we’re at in this pandemic, hopefully back to a newer normal and working towards what we love, and that’s having people at the track, putting on great shows,providing great entertainment.I’m really excited. As we get to this next phase, I think the best is still yet to come from Roger Penske and the entire organization. I think, like I said, we’re all very thankful that he’s in charge and that we’ve got a good direction in front of us.”

Newgarden summed up his 2020 season as one where the breaks didn’t fall his way.

“I feel like last year was one of those years. We were just inthe wrong place, wrong time, a little too often. You have that happen just one too many times, basically what happened to us is the result of it. I felt like our momentum was quite consistent throughout the year, at least from a performance standpoint. We could just not seem to catch enough breaks. That’s the nature of the beast.”

Indycar iRacing Returns

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It’s back for a three week run. Indycar will present a 3 week series of iRacing to end the month of March and begin April. The news release with the details:

Season 2 of INDYCAR iRacing Challenge
to Take Green Flag March 18
INDIANAPOLIS (Thursday, March 11, 2021) – A packed lineup of NTT INDYCAR SERIES stars will return to compete in Season 2 of the popular INDYCAR iRacing Challenge, which starts Thursday, March 18. The virtual series involving NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers made its debut last spring to the enjoyment of race fans across the globe during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, it’s set to build up to the series’ 2021 opener Sunday, April 18 at Barber Motorsports Park. Each race will be streamed live on INDYCAR.com, along with INDYCAR’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, and iRacing’s YouTube channel. Secondary channels also will be available from NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers’ personal accounts. “The first season of the INDYCAR iRacing Challenge definitely filled a competitive void that our drivers were missing last spring,” INDYCAR Vice President of Marketing SJ Luedtke said. “It captured many entertaining moments and helped set the stage for the return to competition on the track in real life. Season 2 will undoubtedly double down on those fun, colorful moments highlighting the personalities of our athletes and get our fans ready for the green flag on our 2021 season in Birmingham, Alabama.” The three-race series will feature virtual races Thursday, March 18 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course in Montreal; Thursday, March 25 on the Homestead-Miami Speedway oval; and Thursday, April 1 on a fan-voted track. Fans can vote March 12-15 for the site of the INDYCAR iRacing Challenge season finale via INDYCAR’s social channels. Season 2 will feature a stellar lineup of NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers, including two-time series champion Josef Newgarden and series champions and Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge winners Ryan Hunter-Reay, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power. Also planning to compete are two-time and reigning Indy 500 champion Takuma Sato, 2019 series Rookie of the Year Felix Rosenqvist, race winners Graham Rahal and Ed Carpenter, young stars Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou, and colorful and popular Conor Daly. Other notable participants include three-time Australian V8 Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin and Formula One veteran Romain Grosjean, both racing this season in INDYCAR. One entry each week also will feature a driver from the Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires INDYCAR ladder system. Live streaming of each INDYCAR iRacing Challenge Season 2 event will begin at 6:30 p.m. (ET). Teams can design car liveries to match their 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES paint schemes. Team strategists and engineers also may participate in support of their driver. An entry list of the drivers participating in each event will be announced each week.

Herta Expects to Contend Again; Hopes Father Knows Best

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Photo: Chris Owens, Indycar

No one on the Indycar Content day zoom conference was surprised to hear Colton Herta make his intentions to be in position to win the series championship this year.

“I wouldn’t be in INDYCAR if I didn’t have the confidence in myself to perform. Yes, I believe I can. I think we showed it last year of what could have been. If I didn’t have that slip up at Iowa, mess that up for us, we could have been really good in the championship hunt going into the last round,” he responded when asked if he could win the championship this season.

Herta exuded his usual confidence during the conference. He seemed more focused and calmer than he has the last two years. . He knows he has the driving talent to win and the team to help him get there. What does he need to go from third to first in the title chase?

“… cutting out the mistakes, changing kind of those top fives, fourth and fifth places that we had last year, we had a bunch of them, into podiums, and some of those podiums we had into wins. We need to win a little bit more and we need a little bit more podiums, a tiny bit more consistency to really make a true championship run.”

One thing that will change on Herta’s team will be his race strategist. Bryan Herta, Colton’s father, will be in his ear during races. The elder Herta is one of the best strategists in the paddock. He managed fuel strategy for Alexander Rossi in the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Fathers as their son’s strategist has not worked well in the past. Michael Andretti was Marco’s strategist, which didn’t pan out. Bobby Rahal was on the radio for Graham one year. That was not a good situation Why will this arrangement work out better than the previous ones?

Colton explained, “I think you can tell by now that we’re both pretty mellow. We don’t get excited and we don’t get upset or very sad. We stay pretty even. Our emotions don’t really get the better of us. I think in that aspect, I think the other personalities will get heated at each other, where I don’t think it would happen with us because of how mellow we are.”

Winning more races and eliminating mistakes are what Herta believes will bring him the championship. He hopes he can bring his dad along for the ride to the top.


Rossi Set to Bounce Back from Year that ‘Sucked’

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Photo: Chris Owens, Indycar

Alexander Rossi will tell you exactly what he thinks.

“No, I just think we sucked globally. Like there wasn’t anything we were doing right, whether itwas qualifying performance, whether it was race performance, pit stops, my driving. None of it was good…Last year just sucked. It sucked on track, it sucked off track. It was a terrible year for everyone except for Scott and Takuma, so good for them.”

The Andretti Autosport driver did see a reason for optimisim toward the end of the season with four podiums and a strong performance at St. Pete, where he was ina position to win until a late crash ended his race and frustrating season. he takes the blame for the incident.

“..the end of the year went really well for us for the most part,minus St. Pete, which is on me.There you go. I’m not going to get into the details of it because it’s not necessary, but I think we’re operating at a really high level right now, and I’m excited to get on track in Barber.”

Rossi said that the team’s testing has gone quite well, and that they are ready to come out of the gate strong. He believes the schedule with fewer short ovals plays to the strength of the Andretti team overall.

” I think street courses followed by the superspeedways followed by road courses are Andretti Autosport’s strong suits and we only had one of those last year which we did not capitalize on whatsoever…Fortunately short ovals really aren’t a huge factor anymore, so yay for that.”

Rossi believes a lot of the issues in 2020 revolved around the condensed track time at races, and not getting to where they needed to be quickly enough.

“…at the end of the day as much as we as a team struggled with the minimal practice time, I did, as well. Like I wasn’t doing a good enough job getting up to speed quick enough, which was putting us on the back foot and having to take pretty big risks in qualifying. Sometimes it was okay, sometimes we qualified — quite honestly we qualified all right all throughout the beginning of the year. We were just never kind of in the top three, which is where you’ve got to be these days. It’s where you’ve got to be to go out and win races.”

Rossi is excited for the 2021 season to begin. he is very about the way preseason testing has gone, and believes he and team can put 2020 in the past. I thought last year was an aberration for Rossi. I look for a strong year from him, and he will be contending for the title all season.

Dixon: Seven is Better than Six

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Photo: Joe Skibinski, Indycar

Scott Dixon is just a couple of small steps from the rarefied air of Indycar all time greatness. In 2020 he became the third driver in history to win 50 races. Three more wins will put Dixon in second place all time, passing Mario Andretti. Repeating as series champion will tie him with A. J. Foyt at seven titles. Dixon has two goals for 2021- to repeat as series champion, which he has never done despite his six Astor Cups, and to improve the team’s qualifying efforts from last season.

On repeating and winning a seventh championship, Dixon said,

“Seven sounds a lot better than six, so why not? I’ve never been able to repeat, so that’s goal number one, is to go back-to-back.It’s always tough. I think even to win the last two out ofthree has been pretty exceptional for our team, and it’s been fantastic for PNC and welcoming them to the sport and on board the 9.

To me it would mean everything to me to be able to do that. I think even to get the sixth was — in the current landscape is extremely tough and very difficult to do. Very proud of that. The obvious goal is to add to that. That will be what we’re trying to do.”

From the weekend: O’Ward Ready to Fight for the Championship

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Road course qualifying was a challenge for the Chip Ganassi racing team in 2020. Despite Dixon’s consistent finishes and four victories, he was starting mid pack. Dixon thinks they have found a solution.

“Yeah, I think we’ve found some better understanding of maybe the process of — it was kind of weird, I think ’19 we maybe had the best average of the field for qualifying position, and then ’20 was a pretty rough year, especially for road course I think for our team as a whole. Street course was okay, ovals were pretty good,with the exception I think of Iowa where we had a problem.We have some ideas. I think the problem that we’ve faced I think in recent years is when you do this testing,especially in winter months, the tracks are very cold and the conditions are extremely different to what you get to.”

Dixon also acknowledged that he has some some things to work on as a driver as well.

“You think you have a process, but we probably won’t understand it until we get into a few races and see if we can rectify it. Personally I think there’s definitely somethings I needed to change and apply differently, which I’m pretty cognizant of that and have tried to apply that I think to some of our testing thus far, even though we’ve only had two or three days.It’ll be a season-long process, I think, trying to get to that point and knowing if we can fix it.”

Dixon usually hits his stride just after the Indianapolis 500, which may explain his hot start to last season, which began in June.Indycar has not seen a back to back title winner since Dario Franchitti, who the championship in three consecutive years, 2009-2011. Dixon hopes to join his former teammate. Even if he fails to repeat, he is certain to finish in the top five.

O’Ward Ready to Fight for the Championship

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Photo: Chris Owens, Indycar

Pato O’Ward left no doubt about his plans for the 2021 Indycar season.

“We want to win races. We want to be consistently fighting for podiums, and we want to be there. We want to be contenders every single race weekend.I think in doing so, that’ll put us in a position at the end of the year to fight for the championship. That is the goal. I want to get to Long Beach having a possibility to win the championship,” The Arrow McLaren SP second year driver said on Indycar Content Day yesterday.

O’Ward finished fourth in the season standings in 2020, winning his first career pole at road America. While he has yet to win a race, that will happen this coming season. I have a feeling he will stand on the top step of the podium more than once this year.

O’Ward spent time in the off-season watching his races from 2020, focusing on the races he felt he should have won. His goal this year is to qualify better and to minimize pit errors, which hurt him in a couple of races last season. O’Ward told the media,

“Man, I rewatched every race where we were in contention, both Iowa races, both Gateway races,Road America. Just from things that I learned last year,you qualify up front, you make your life so much easier.Another thing is that pit stops are huge in INDYCAR racing. I lost a lot of my race wins because we didn’t execute in the pits, and that’s huge. I feel like our pace was very, very strong. I think we were very strong in many places that we went to all year.But where we need to push this year, and we may need to make sure if we have a mistake it has to be minimized, is in the pits, and me as a driver just do my job.”

Motivation has never been an issue for O’Ward, but he seems even more determined to succeed this upcoming season.He feels that he and his team are ready to mix it up with the big three of Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti. He does acknowledge it’s a tall order.

“I feel like last year we left a lot of unfinished business. We were close to winning four races, and we didn’t get it done. We didn’t get it done. There were tough pills to swallow,and I felt like that left everyone in the team so hungry. I can see it from the off-season, just how much work has been put into the development of trying to make the cars go faster at the speedway and road courses.Me as a driver, I truly don’t think I’ve ever been fitter, more ready to try and win the thing. I have lots of faith in the team. I have lots of faith in what we can accomplish as a group. It’s going to be ridiculously hard, but it is possible.”

The addition of Juan Pablo Montoya for the Indianapolis 500 should help him as a driver and the team overall, O’Ward believes. He also thinks having gone through a complete Indycar season as ateam and knowing what to expect, will improve their chances of success.

“I think having a year under our belts and the engineers knowing what I like and how I go about things, I think that just helps everyone work better and more efficient. I have lots of faith that all those small guys behind the computer doing all the analysis and the developments of either it can be a road course, street course, superspeedway for drag,aero, whatever it may be, I feel like in this off-season they had a direction and they had more of a clear picture of where they had to work, to work at or see where there was massive improvements to be made.”

The Indianapolis 500 is where O’Ward really wants to improve. Last year the superspeedways were “like driving into a black hole,” he said. He believes the team, with Monotya’s help, will be stronger at the brickyard in 2021.

I am putting O’Ward on my list of title contenders. This is the first of a series on each of the drivers I think has a shot at the Astor Cup in 2021.

Barber Puts Tickets on Sale- Limited Capacity, Paddock Closed

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Previous ticket holders for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama received an email this morning offering tickets for sale to the April 16-18 Indycar season opener. The sale ends March9 at 6 pm Eastern time. Remaining tickets go on sale after that. The email said capacity is limited, bu gave no specific number.

The email also indicated that the paddock would not be open to fans. Prices are about what I remember, $100 for the three days.

The promoters are emphasizing Jimmie Johnson’s participating in the race.

Rookies Agree They Have a Lot to Learn

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Photo of Romaiin Grosjean by Chris Owens, Indycar

Indycar’s 2021 rookie class is unusual. Three drivers, successful in other major disciplines, older than the typical first year driver, have decided to take the plunge into Indycar. Scott McLaughlin, Jimmie Johnson, and Romain Grosjean spoke to the media yesterday during Indycar’s content day. Unlike past years where some of the rookies have moved up from Indy Lights with some knowledge of the cars and driving style required, the three newcomers come from NASCAR, Australian Supercars, and Formula 1. Two have multiple championships in their previous series.

All three are happy with their progress during pre-season testing, but all admit they have a long way to go to be competitive in the Indycar series.

Scott McLaughlin. Photo by Chris Owens, Indycar

McLaughlin summed up the steep learning curve.

, “There’s a lot of things I’ve got to get used to. For instance, even just driving a turbo car. I’ve never really done that before in Australia. For me, I’m learning boost levels, aero maps, trusting aero, aerodynamics through corners and stuff.”

Jimmie Johnson by Chris Owens, Indycar

Johnson talked about driving an Indycar.

“…the intensity of driving that car. It’s a monster. That’s the best way I can put it. There’s so much power,so much downforce, so much grip. It’s wild to drive.”

He also said that gettintg the final 10 to 15 percent woukld the hardest to reach.

“But that last little bit, that’s what the elite guys are so good at and chase their whole career. I don’t know if I’ll get to100 percent with the amount of years that I have to give this a try, but there’s still so many things I haven’t even experienced yet. I’ve never been on a red tire. I’ve just recently had a chance to drive a street circuit tire and understand how much more grip it has versus a traditional road course tire.When you look at the street course tracks, I won’t even be able to drive on one until the practice, the opening practice session that we have prior to qualifying.”

Grosjean noted the different driving style needed for an Indycar compared to a formula 1 machine:

“I think it’s the driving style. It’sfairly different between Formula 1 and INDYCAR. Does itcome from the tires, the car, from the aero, the mechanicalgrip? I don’t really know. I just found that it was different todrive and to go fast.That’s something I really adapted between Barber andLaguna. I think I’m going to the simulator tomorrow beforeflying home. I think we’ve got some good tests that wewant to do with Dale Coyne and Honda, get as muchknowledge as we can before we start the season.”

Grosjean has a good understanding of where he is as far as driving this season. In spite of his 20 year racing career, he said,

“But I need to remind myself I’m a rookie. Even though I got 20 years experience in racing, I’m a rookie. From the rolling start to the refueling to the racetracks, there’s many,many things to learn.We will take step by step. We’ll see how things are going. But the whole team has been great helping me to find my marks. Honda has been really helpful as well in getting me up to speed, telling me all the procedures. The team has been really good.”

In spite of their success, or perhaps because of it, in other series, the 2021 Rookie class has a realistic perspective on what they can achieve this season. I’m impressed that this trio has made the decision to try a new type of racing.