Tag: NTT Indycar Series

Five Years Ago

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November 4, 2019- I had just left the coffeehouse after breakfast with a group of my friends. My plan was to go to the gym, then run some errands. A text as I got to my car changed my schedule, and it changed much more.

“What do you think of Penske buying the Speedway?” my friend asked.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I read the article attached to the text.

I drove home, checked my email, and saw that a press conference was set at IMS for 10 am. I changed clothes- after all, you want to look nice for an ownership change like this- and drove to the track.

After five years of Penske ownership of IMS and the IndyCar series, what has improved? What still needs to change? I have a few thoughts.

IMS

The improvements Penske has made to Indianapolis Motor Speedway are sweeping and were sorely needed. The track and facilities have never looked better in my lifetime. Everyting is pristine, and the added touches such as the tables outside the main grandstands and the new grab n go market in the plaza have brought the track into the 21st century.

I love the additional high quality video boards and the new PA system.

Bringing an IMSA event to IMS is a high quality enhancement to the racing programs at IMS.

I am still not completely sold on the qualifying format for the Indianapolis 500, although I have warmed up to it a bit. I still think the pole should be decided on Saturday so that the winner can use Sunday for publicity while the rest of field is set. If there has to be a shootout, go back to nine cars. Twelve is overkill and cheapens that segment of qualifying.

The IndyCar Series

If it were not for Roger Penske, there might not be a series today. He purchased it at the right time, and he kept it going through COVID. I am not sure if COVID caused some of the delays in the hybrid debut, but it did not help the situation.

The competition has been at a high level, although I felt it dropped of a bit this past season.

The series itself seems to be mired in a time warp. A new chassis is badly needed. The hybrid boost needs to be turned up. The schedule has also gone stale, although the addition of Milwaukee and Nashville mad for a great ending to the year.

I do have hope for the future, however. The 2026 schedule looks like it may be a radical departure from what we have seen with the addition of a proposed race in Mexico and possibly Brazil. My only hope is that the schedule expands to 18 races and that no oval race is sacrificed.

IMS and the 500 are in good shape. The series has an opportunity in the next couple of years to get stronger, but there cannot be huge delays as there with the hybrid. A new car no later than 2027 would be helpful, but 2026 would probably be ideal for the new machine.

Simpson Confirmed at Ganassi; Browne, Koolen Fill CGR Indy NXT Seats

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Chip Ganassi Racing today confirmed Kyffin Simpson as driver of the number 8 car for the 2025 IndyCar season. The move was long anticipated. Simpson, 19, from the Caymen Islands, drove car 4 for Ganassi in 2024, finishing 21st in the standings. Simpson finished 21st on the lead lap in the Indianapolis 500, leading three laps.

Ganassi Indy NXT

Neils Koolen and Jonathan Browne will drive for Ganassi’s new Indy NXT team. Both drivers have some Indy NXT experience, driving for HMD in 2024.

Koolen (l), Browne (r)

Koolen, 23 years old from the Netherlands,, finished 10th in the Indy NXT race at IMS last May. He also spent time in the European le Mans Series in 2024.

Browne, 24, ran the entire season for HMD, finishing 13th in the standings. The Irish driver earned eight Top 10 finishes.

Floersch Tests IndyNXT; IndyCar Grid Still in Limbo

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HMD Motorsports announced last week that Formula 3 driver Sophia Floersch will drive in today’s Indy NXT test at Barber Motorsports Park.

Floersch, 23, has driven in Formula 3 and has also driven in the European Le Mans Series. In 2018 Floersch suffered a spine fracture in a horrific accident in Macau when her got airborne and landed outside the track after tearing through the catch fence. She underwent a 10 hour surgery and made a full recovery.

Floersch is exploring her options for 2025and has not signed with any series.

IndyCar Grid- Still 5 Seats Open

Filling the IndyCar grid for 2025 will come down to who has the cash. There are two open seats at Dale Coyne Racing, two at Juncos Hollinger Racing, and one opening at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

While no drivers have been formally announced for the second car at Meyer Shank Racing, the third Chip Ganassi Racing seat, or the second car at PREMA, it is presumed that they are all spoken for.

Available drivers include Rinus VeeKay, Linus Lindqvist, Conor Daly, Jack Harvey, Sting Ray Robb, Devlin DeFrancesco, Jamie Chadwick, and Katherine Legge.

Robb and de Francesco have money, and they could possibly help find a teammate.

Coyne might try to cobble together a rotating lineup as he did last season, but the charter rules limit each entry to three drivers a season.

I think VeeKay, Robb, and Lundqvist have the best chance at landing full time rides, while the others we may see in part time roles. It would be a shame not to see Jamie Chadwick make her IndyCar debut this season.

Pato on a Roll

The Pato O’Ward frenzy at the Grand Prix of Mexico this past weekend was quite a sight to behold, and it made the absence of an IndyCar race in Mexico even more of a glaring schedule omission. I am hopeful the race will happen in 2026, and there is now more room for optimism.

Several credible sources are reporting that O’Ward will run some demo laps in an IndyCar during the Formula E weekend at the circuit in January.

My IndyCar Rules Change Wish List

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Photo by Kyle McInnes

There seems to be a bit of a break in the IndyCar news cycle. The boff time was nice, and I spent the last 11 days living in movie theaters enjoying the Heartland Film Festival. Now, back to work.

This is my annual plea for the series to amend some rules. some of these changes i have advocated before, and a couple are based on things that happened in 2024.

Keep the pits open during a yellow. Gathering up the field causes more yellow laps, and it has caused some running order confusion leading to even more yellow laps. Not closing the pits avoids penalties, and cars that absolutely need a splash of fuel can keep their track position. This procedure will also add some randomness back to the sport. The series is overmanaging the races (See last 10 laps of 2023 Indianapolis 500).

Throw the yellow when it needs to be thrown. If the pits are kept open, there is no need to delay a yellow, or allow a yellow to give an advantage to car that spun. Immediate yellows will avoid dangerous situations like we had in Toronto, where Pato O’Ward was a sitting duck. O’Ward got hit by three cars, and Santino Ferrucci got airborne.

Set oval qualifying order by practice speeds. The current practice is for cars to qualifying in inverse order of entrant points. This gives the series virtually the same qualifying order every oval race. By using inverse order of practice speeds, we will see a new order each race, and the fastest car will still be up front. Occasionally a leader will have a bad practice, and go early, but again, more randomness.

The Indianapolis 500 sets qualifying order by random draw; why can’t there be randomness at the other ovals as well? It is one step IndyCar could do to make oval qualifying a bit more interesting.

Stiffer penalties for restart violators. Leaders who do not follow the correct restart procedures should have some sort of penalty. Going to the rea or a drive through is too severe. Perhaps they should give up two spots. if they’re fast enough to lead, they should be able to get back out front. Also, race control needs to wave off restarts if the field is not set properly.

Vary the length of the two races at doubleheaders. The doubleheader may be heading toward extinction, but as long as they are on the schedule, I think the first race should be longer than the second. If one tenth of the distance is added to Race 1 and subtracted from race 2, the mileage would be the same. A longer first race and a shorter second race would also let the fans head home earlier on Sunday. Sometimes Sunday’s race seems exactly the same as Saturday’s- the same pit windows, same fuel saving strategy- which longer and shorter races could avoid.

Keep exploring the use of alternate tires on ovals. The alternate tires on ovals is intriguing. It seemed to work well at Nashville, and I think Firestone can continue to refine the differences between the two compounds. Anything that will spice up the ovals. I’m in favor of.

I’m sure the series officials will read this and take these ideas to heart as they always do. Anyway, it’s great to be back. There is some news to catch up on, and I will share that in the next day or so.

INDY NXT by Firestone Drivers Featured at Chris Griffis Test Friday at IMS

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From Indy NXT:

  The Chris Griffis Memorial Test is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 18 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
INDY NXT by Firestone drivers will turn laps on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. ET.
The annual open test is named in memory of Chris Griffis, the team manager of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports who passed away suddenly in September 2011.
.WHAT: Chris Griffis Memorial Test
WHO: INDY NXT by Firestone Drivers
Abel Motorsports: Callum Hedge, Jordan Missig, Myles Rowe, Yuven Sundaramoorthy
Andretti Cape INDY NXT: Ricardo Escotto
Andretti Global: Salvador de Alba Jr., Dennis Hauger, Lochie Hughes, James Roe
HMD Motorsports: Nolan Allaer, Bryce Aron, Christian Brooks, Caio Collet, Hailie Deegan, Josh Mason, Josh Pierson, Liam Sceats, Tommy Smith
Juncos Hollinger Racing: Alexander Koreiba, Frankie Mossman
Miller Vinatieri Motorsports: Jack William Miller

WHEN: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18Noon-12:45 p.m.: Media bullpen interviews with drivers Caio Collet, Hailie Deegan, Lochie Hughes, Myles Rowe and Yuven Sundaramoorthy; Trackside Garage 25WHERE: Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course 
 

Hy-Vee Leaves Rahal

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The Rahal Letterman Lanigan off season roller coaster continues. The team has had an FBI investigation at their shop, a 1-2 finish at IMSA’s Battle of the Bricks last month, and last week announced the signing of Indy NXT champ Louis Foster. Friday, sponsor Hy-Vee said they will no longer be the primary sponsor of car 45.

The Iowa based grocery chain will continue to sponsor the Iowa IndyCar doubleheader, but they will not continue their support of the Milwaukee race.

Rumors have been floating that their car sponsorship would move to A. J. Foyt Racing, but the company statement indicated they would no longer sponsor a car.

Hy-Vee has sponsored a Rahal car since 2021. That is a fairly long time in this modern era. All sponsors cut back their involvement at some point, some gradually, some severely, and some leave the series.

Rahal said they still plan to field three cars in 2025. This decision may affect which drivers the team can hire.

Palou Tops IMS Test

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From Indycar”

 INDIANAPOLIS (Friday, Oct. 11, 2024) – There’s still one jewel missing from Alex Palou’s racing crown, but testing Oct. 11 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway showed he may be closer than ever to adding it next May.

Reigning NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Palou has won the championship three times in the last four seasons, but he still seeks his first Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge victory. But Palou led testing on the historic 2.5-mile oval Friday with a top speed of 224.342 mph in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

.Palou’s best Indy 500 finish is second, behind Helio Castroneves’ historic fourth win in 2021. Palou earned his first “500” pole in 2023.
“It was a good day of testing,” Palou said. “We tried a lot of stuff. Yesterday was Firestone, today was more us, Ganassi and Honda. We’re happy. You want to come here, and even if you’re testing a bunch of stuff, you want to be first.”

Looming right behind Palou on the speed chart was two-time reigning Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden, second at 223.973 in the No. 2 Shell Powering Progress Team Penske Chevrolet. Rinus VeeKay was third at 223.383 in the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda in his first day of testing with that team.

Graham Rahal was fourth at 222.650 in the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, with 2022 “500” winner Marcus Ericsson rounding out the top five at 222.324 in the No. 28 Andretti Global Honda.

Eleven car-and-driver combinations – one driver from each team – combined to turn 1,123 laps in six hours of testing Friday after four drivers tested tires Thursday afternoon for Firestone. A primary area of focus for all teams and drivers was the new hybrid system, which made its competitive debut in July 2024.

The hybrid system offers the competitors and their twin-turbo V6 engines an additional 60 horsepower. Previous iterations of the hybrid package were previously tested during the development process, but this test marked the debut of the system as it will race next May.

“I think the overtake we get (from the hybrid) is nice,” Palou said. “I think it’s good enough to set up a pass maybe in the middle of the pack. We’ll have to see.”

The 109th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge is Sunday, May 25, live on FOX and the INDYCAR Radio Network. Visit IMS.com for ticket and event details. 
 

Test Day 2- Midday

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Photo: A New look for the ECR 20 car

First session times:

Rinus VeeKay is testing for Dale Coyne Racing today. He talked about the difficulty of finding a full time ride for 2025 at this late date.

“…there’s a few seats, but there’s no not really. There’s not really paying seats. So for me, it’s my priority to ride full time next year, and I think no matter what, so at least you have this opportunity now to show you how I work and show the engineers how I work, and what my feedback is. They seem pretty aggressive this morning. “

It was strange seeing Alexander rossi in a different driving suit.

Cars are back on track. I am going mout to watch for a while. I will have a wrap up later today.

Day 2 of IMS Testing

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Today’s schedule:

10-12 pm: Group Test Session 1
1-5 pm: Group Test Session 2

Chevy
DRR: Hunter-Reay
ECR: Rossi
Foyt: Ferrucci
JHR: Daly
McLaren: Lundgaard
Penske: Newgarden

Honda
Andretti: Ericsson
CGR: Palou
DCR: VeeKay
MSR: Castroneves
RLL: Rahal

It will be another beautiful day to watch vars run at IMS. The turn 2 mounds are open for viewing. I will be on site this afternoon.

Yesterday morning Sting Ray Robb was scheduled to drive the 18. Yesterday afternoon, An announcement was made that Rinus VeeKay would be in the car,. I don’t know if this is a job audition for VeeKay. Time will tell.

The drivers taking part in yesterday afternoon’s tire test agree that the hybrid will probably not have much effect on the racing in May.