Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. 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: Not this again! The powers that be are talking about… guaranteed starting spots in the Indy 500? Two quick questions:
1. They’re kidding me, right?
2. Where has RACER been on this in the several days since this broke?
BK, Indy
MARSHALL PRUETT: Roger Penske isn’t kidding. He’s been serious about having guaranteed starting spots at every IndyCar race, including the Indy 500, for many years, and has spoken about it in print to myself and others for years, both before and after he purchased the series.
I realize “guaranteed Indy 500 starting spots” recently surfaced as an item of interest, and if you weren’t aware of it beforehand, it could have been mistaken as something new. But it wasn’t.
On the subject of “where has RACER been?”, here’s a link from August, which was the last time we wrote about the topic, which spelled out the same exact thing you’re referencing, but six months ago:
“IndyCar introduced nothing that was remotely formal or final in the meeting, but some interesting ideas were shared – and commented on by team owners – that could form the framework of a future system that is heavily modeled on the Leaders Circle program … the same number of 22 Leaders Circle contracts was mentioned, but with a twist where those 22 entries could be guaranteed to start at every race, including the Indianapolis 500.”
Also, if you’re a reader of RACER Magazine in addition to RACER.com, here’s what Roger Penske told us in May:
“To me, if you are going to commit to a full season competing in our series, you should reap the benefits and ensure that you have positions secured on the grid. That security will be a benefit to our teams and their sponsors, as well as those team’s ability to attract drivers.”
Q: I just finished reading an article about the IndyCar hybrid. While I kind of understood the overall concept and I am sure you have talked about it in previous write-ups, I now better understand the technical challenge IndyCar and Honda/GM have been dealing with. That is, implementing hybrid power on an oval.
Many if not all of your readers know that drivers basically do not lift during a lap at the 500, for example. So when would the hybrid be able to regen? Obviously a major technical challenge. The decision to keep the package as light as possible is yet another technical challenge that eventually precluded lithium batteries and pushed the direction to supercapacitors. And as you mentioned in previous articles, vendor and supply issues slowed down the whole process.
Based on my further understanding, I can understand the delays and say well done to Honda and GM for taking charge of the project. As you reported, the last test was relatively trouble-free, so that is a positive. While I look forward to its implementation, my only concern is, when should it go online? Honestly, I am not sure it makes sense in the middle of the season just to tick a box. I will stay tuned.
Glenn, Renton, WA
MP: Think of drivers running in the draft at Indy where, as you point out, they’re hard into the throttle and don’t brake. Under normal hybrid racing circumstances, there would be no way to charge the energy recover system (ERS) while flying around Indy, and only while braking for pit lane would charging be possible.
To address this, IndyCar and its ERS partners created an option for drivers to use a “fiddle paddle” as it’s often called, which is a small paddle mounted to the back of the steering wheels. Some road-going hybrids have the same exact paddle (not the same paddle itself, but the same technology) where drivers can lightly squeeze the paddle and engage the motor generator unit (MGU) to spin at relatively low RPM and harvest electricity that gets sent to the supercapacitor. If you’re cruising in your hybrid on the freeway and traffic is speeding up and slowing down as it often does, cars with that regen paddle give the driver the chance to use the paddle to manage their speed, get some charging done, and avoid using the brake — and triggering the brake lights — which can be annoying.
So, rather than having to drag the brake to trigger the MGU to wake up and spin and harvest on your IndyCar, a paddle on the steering wheel is gently engaged by drivers with their fingertips. Where this is really smart, in the context of an oval race, is for every driver in the draft, they’re almost never at 100-percent throttle. They’re having to lift to avoid running into the car they’re drafting off of, so with the ERS and paddle, drivers in a draft can use that extra throttle to counteract the MGU.
Simply put, if a driver is sitting at 90-percent throttle in the draft at Indy, and they want to harvest some electronic horsepower to recharge their supercapacitor, and they drag the paddle and the MGU want to slow the car by the equivalent of seven-percent throttle, a driver can go from 90- to 97-percent throttle and use the internal combustion engine to match and neutralize the slowing/charging effect of the MGU.
Also, if a driver wants to let another driver go past them, a harder pull on the paddle and bigger recharging moment would give them more of a MGU boost to use whenever they wanted to repass them. That’s a new strategy to look out for in 2025 when hybrids debut at IMS. And the paddle can be used anywhere; it isn’t just for the ovals. But it is particularly handy on the ovals.
At the other ovals, all small by comparison to Indy, we could see big lifts into Turn 1 at WWTR get somewhat or mostly traded by staying harder in the throttle while using a bigger pull on the harvesting paddle to slow their speeds. Lots of strategy to consider when IndyCar goes hybrid.