Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles says positive talks continue to take place with its current NTT IndyCar Series engine partners and auto manufacturers who are curious to learn where the series is headed with its next engine formula. Having made a …
Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles says positive talks continue to take place with its current NTT IndyCar Series engine partners and auto manufacturers who are curious to learn where the series is headed with its next engine formula.
Having made a midseason conversion to hybridization in July of 2024, IndyCar will continue to race with small-displacement internal combustion engines (ICE) and some form of energy recovery system (ERS) when its new formula appears – as early as 2027 – and is working to retain Chevrolet and Honda beyond the end of their supply contracts.
Adding a third manufacturer to join Chevy and Honda, which would reduce their supply responsibilities and save a considerable amount in annual budget commitments, has been among the series greatest needs since Lotus departed after the 2012 season.
“I’d just say the for both of those populations, it’s very encouraging, both the extension of our existing partners, whose arrangements go through 2026, and the possibility of adding one or more new manufacturers,” Miles told RACER.
In order to move from interests expressed by its current manufacturers and others who might join into something more formal, Penske Entertainment will need to solidify its ICE and ERS formulas. Once it has fixed and tangible plans to present, Chevy, Honda, and more car companies will have the information required to make official decisions on whether they will be part of IndyCar’s future.
“Just as there is work being done for Honda and Chevy, there’s serious interest on the part of prospective newcomers that are paying close attention and doing all you’d expect them to do to understand the costs and their ability to be competitive,” Miles said. “It’s all related.”
IndyCar has used a 2.2-liter turbocharged V6 formula since 2012 and added a custom ERS package last year, done in partnership with Chevy and Honda, which uses primary energy storage and deployment componentry from Skeleton and Empel.
General Motors is rotating its sports car management team, with longtime GM Sports Car Racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser and Corvette Z06 GT3.R program manager Christie Bagne moving back to the production side of the company. In a …
General Motors is rotating its sports car management team, with longtime GM Sports Car Racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser and Corvette Z06 GT3.R program manager Christie Bagne moving back to the production side of the company.
In a statement on the move, GM stated that, “Motorsports is a platform to hone engineering and leadership skills in a fast-paced highly competitive race environment. Rotating team members back into production and corporate programs is part of our core ‘why we race’ mission. Having experience in motorsports programs helps to enrich our team members’ careers and make GM a stronger company.”
At the conclusion of the 2024 season, Klauser will join the Global Hardware Systems and Integration Team as Engineering Group Leader. Concurrently, Bagne will transition to Corporate Strategy as a Senior Analyst. The final race for both will be this weekend’s World Endurance Championship finale in Bahrain.
Keely Bosn, currently Future Tech & Mobility Planning Manager in the Competitor Intelligence, Technology and Mobility Planning organization at GM, will join GM Motorsports as the Cadillac Racing Program Manager. Jessica Dane, currently the Motorsports Integration Manager in GM Motorsports, will become the Corvette Racing Program Manager for all Corvette GT3 programs.
Klauser started in the motorsports side of GM in 2016 as Cadillac was fielding the ATS-V.R in World Challenge before the Cadillac DPi program came online, and helped launch the Camaro GT4.R. She became sports car program manager in 2021, spearheading Cadillac’s LMDh program as well as the Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Cadillac took the driver, team and manufacturers titles in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP category last year, across both the full-season championship and the Michelin Endurance Cup.
Bagne moved from system capability engineer to assistant sports car program manager in 2021, assuming the role of Corvette Z06 GT3.R Program in January 2023 as GM was about to release its first customer GT3 car. The Z06 GT3.R found victory lane in both IMSA GTD PRO and Fanatec GT World Challenge America in its inaugural season, as well as carried Orey Fidani to the Bob Akin Award in the GTD category.
General Motors racing boss Jim Campbell was glowing with excitement on pit lane as he walked towards the pole-winning ceremonies awaiting Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and the No. 3 Chevy crew. Amid a massive roar from the fans in attendance, …
General Motors racing boss Jim Campbell was glowing with excitement on pit lane as he walked towards the pole-winning ceremonies awaiting Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and the No. 3 Chevy crew.
Amid a massive roar from the fans in attendance, Campbell and Chevy IndyCar program manager Rob Buckner watched as the New Zealander shot across the start/finish line to finish his record run which also sealed the first row, second row, and the top eight starting spots for Team Chevy. Once the checkered flag waved over McLaughlin in the ‘Yellow Submarine,’ Campbell gave Buckner a huge hug to cap the Bowtie’s utter domination of qualifying for the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500.
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“It’s so exciting to be here,” Campbell told RACER. “Listen to the fans respond. They respect these drivers and what they do so much. This is a frenzy. They cannot be more appreciative of what Scott McLaughlin did, and they can’t wait for next weekend’s Indy 500.”
After a dozen years of the same 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 IndyCar engine formula, finding such massive year-to-year gains as demonstrated by the Chevy camp should not be possible, but that’s what Team Chevy and their partners at Ilmor Engineering delivered.
“This is the result of an amazing amount of hard work by Chevrolet engineers, Ilmor, and our race teams,” Campbell said. “We look forward to this weekend all year long. The Indianapolis 500 qualifying, it’s so special; it takes so much to even get here. The guys who just put it up on the pole, Scott McLaughlin, and Team Penske, did a hell of a job and I’m proud of all the Chevrolet teams in top 12. I’m also proud of this guy here, Rob Buckner.”
Let’s delve into a phenomenon that’s nothing new in turbocharged forms of motor racing, but took center stage on Saturday in qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 when multiple Chevrolet-powered entries experienced plenum fires at the most inopportune …
Let’s delve into a phenomenon that’s nothing new in turbocharged forms of motor racing, but took center stage on Saturday in qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 when multiple Chevrolet-powered entries experienced plenum fires at the most inopportune times during their four-lap runs.
First, what’s a plenum?
It’s an enclosed airbox that sits atop the 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 IndyCar motors made by Chevy and Honda, and in IndyCar, it’s made from carbon fiber.
What purpose does the plenum serve?
It’s the meeting and mixing place (below, in green) for the highly compressed air sent into the sides of the plenum (in blue) from the turbos and the fuel sprayed downward from atop the plenum by the injectors (in red) to swirl and be inhaled by the engine.
The plenum encases and seals around the engine’s intake trumpets that feed the mix of air and fuel into the cylinder heads, which is then compressed by the piston, ignited by the spark plugs, and exploded/burned to make horsepower.
Marshall Pruett photo
How is a plenum different from a regular airbox on non-turbo NASCAR Cup engines and Cadillac IMSA GTP motors?
Those big naturally-aspirated V8s use scoops to funnel air into the intake trumpets in an open manner; since they don’t use turbos, there’s no need to place a sealed plenum over the air intakes to hold that pressurized air. With the purpose of turbocharging centered on stuffing compressed air into the engine, a sealed plenum ensures there are no pressure leaks.
IndyCar road and street course races, plus qualifying for the Indy 500, uses 1.5 bar of pressure to make big power. On a non-turbo engine, it works at 1.0 bar, which is the normal atmospheric pressure we walk around in every day.
With turbocharging, the air is drawn into the cold side of the turbos and forced under high pressure — known as forced induction –into the engine at something greater than atmospheric pressure.
That compressed air, which is dense, and contains more oxygen than what’s fed to a non-turbo engine, needs to remain compressed on its way into the motor, and that’s what the sealed plenum provides.
So what causes a plenum fire?
With the swirling blend of compressed air and fuel being continually packed into the plenum to be drawn down into the six combustion chambers, that ignitable mixture is at risk of being lit and burned up before it gets into the cylinders if an inlet valve is left open for a fraction of a second while there’s flame left in a cylinder.
The inlet valves open to let the air and fuel mixture into the cylinders to be further compressed and sparked, and when everything is working well, the inlet valves close, and then the explosion happens in the cylinders, and the burned remnants are disposed of when the exhaust valves open and the expended mixture is fired through the exhausts and sent out through the back of the car.
But in the event of the flame sneaking back up through an inlet valve, all of that combustible mixture in the plenum gets lit and burned before it gets a chance to reach the combustion chamber.
It’s believed that at high boost, the extra pressure being applied to the inlet valves from the compressed mix in the plenum is making it possible for the brief unsealing of the valves to then let fire escape when it shouldn’t.
So why are we having a bunch of plenum fires at Indy on qualifying runs?
There are a few reasons, with the first being the high boost pressure that’s being used of 1.5 bar this weekend. We’ve also seen plenum fires at road and street course races; Pato O’Ward was on the way to victory in his Arrow McLaren Chevy at St. Petersburg in 2023 when a late plenum fire caused his car to stumble and let former Chip Ganassi Racing driver Marcus Ericsson sweep by and win with his Honda.
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With the Chevys at high boost, the fires — more accurately, the millisecond or two where an inlet valve stays open to let flames fire upwards into the plenum — here at Indy have been triggered when drivers are shifting while the engines are at their 12,000 rpm limit and the rev limiter is engaged. Something in the interaction between the electronic rev limiter cutting in to prevent the Chevy motors from going over 12,000 rpm while shifting is the cause of the “engine events.”
And while we’ve seen plenum fires happen on upshifts, the common denominator with most we’ve seen this weekend have come while on qualifying simulations or proper qualifying runs while downshifting from top gear — sixth gear — to fifth.
What does it feel like for the drivers when it happens?
“The engine stops,” said Team Penske’s Will Power, who experienced a plenum fire during Sunday’s Fast 12 practice session. “It kills your speed massively. At first, I thought the engine was blowing up, but it wasn’t.”
It feels that way because the continuous flow of air and fuel into the combustion chamber has been temporarily halted; there’s no mix to explode and make power and that means the engine is momentarily starved of what it needs to keep accelerating. Think of it like a bad, single hiccup.
Once the hiccup clears, breathing goes back to normal, but when you’re flying at nearly 240mph, any brief interruption in acceleration is alarming and will certainly hurt your qualifying speed.
What about Honda?
It’s worth noting that while Honda has far fewer plenum fires with its engines at 1.5 bar, they do happen on occasion with their motors. But the frequency has been much higher within the Chevy camp. It’s hard to say why since we don’t know what both manufacturers are doing mechanically within their engines and with engine calibrations, but there’s something that’s different enough to make this a Chevy story instead of a Chevy and Honda saga.
And finally, what can Chevy or their drivers do to solve the problem?
Nothing that we know of on the Chevy side. GM racing boss Jim Campbell said on Saturday evening that Team Chevy engine technicians would be working overnight to try and devise engine calibrations that would be loaded into the engine control units to use Sunday morning in the aforementioned Fast 12 practice session, and while there were many options to try, it happened again with Penske and Power.
For the drivers, once they get up to speed on their warmup laps and shift into top gear, they need to stay there. It means they might lose a bit of ultimate speed where quick downshifts to fifth would keep the revs and speed up, but with the ever-present threat and clear downside of triggering a plenum fire, holding the car in sixth is the one obvious remedy for the problem.
Again, this is by no means something new for Chevy, but it has become a serious concern as it looks to break Honda’s four-year pole position streak at the Indy 500. Once qualifying is over and the engines are reverted to low boost, plenum fires should be all but forgotten on race day.
It’s only one race, but if Team Chevy has this kind of horsepower, torque, and fuel mileage to offer for the rest of the IndyCar season, the General Motors brand will be hard to beat. Josef Newgarden, Pato O’Ward, Scott McLaughlin, and Will Power …
It’s only one race, but if Team Chevy has this kind of horsepower, torque, and fuel mileage to offer for the rest of the IndyCar season, the General Motors brand will be hard to beat.
Josef Newgarden, Pato O’Ward, Scott McLaughlin, and Will Power used their 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 Chevys to trounce the field throughout Sunday’s 100-lap Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg as they locked out the top four positions, with the winner from Team Penske turning his pole position into a victory that came with the race’s fastest lap and 92 laps in the lead.
“I think we had some deficits last year. There’s no doubt. You can’t hide from that,” Newgarden told RACER. “But we also had some tremendous strengths. We leaned on a huge win at the Indy 500, we were very strong on ovals. I think you’re seeing a good ebb and flow between the manufacturers, which you want to see as a competitor and as a fan.
“For us, we would love to have it easy, but we want a strong competition between the manufacturers, and I think you had that last year. Maybe we were a little bit weak in some parts that we needed to bring up, and I think today, as I assess the race and as I assess the weekend, I think you see a lot of parity.
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“I would say there was more parity than last year here. I think Honda looked pretty strong at this event for the [2023] opener [which it won]. I think this weekend we looked even in a lot of respects, but we certainly have strength on our side that we can lean on now. This is one example right now, one data point. Let’s keep going a couple more rounds.”
Although Chevrolet won last year’s Manufacturers’ championship, its rivals at Honda took the higher-profile Drivers’ championship, and it’s here where the Bowtie’s teams and drivers decided it was time for the car company to double down and try to rectify the situation. Based on Sunday’s performance, Team Chevy was listening.
“I’ve got to say, Chevrolet, they work hard every off-season,” Newgarden added. “They worked really hard this off-season. We were hard on ourselves. It’s not just them. We had to really improve our side on the chassis, and we were hard on them, too. We said, ‘We’ve got to make all of these things better,’ and they delivered in spades.
“You ask for the menu, and you don’t get the whole menu [of improvements]. They somehow gave us the whole menu. It’s pretty cool. They did a great job, and it makes me very encouraged for 2024.”
Just as one would look around their home after the holidays wondering what they want to get rid of, Joey Cohen and Legacy Motor Club did the same thing at the race shop. “How am I going to get rid of all this clutter?” Cohen, the vice president of …
Just as one would look around their home after the holidays wondering what they want to get rid of, Joey Cohen and Legacy Motor Club did the same thing at the race shop.
“How am I going to get rid of all this clutter?” Cohen, the vice president of race operations, joked to RACER.
In this case, the clutter is cars, parts, and pieces no longer of use to Legacy Motor Club as it goes from competing with Chevrolet to Toyota this season. So, after the November season finale at Phoenix Raceway, one of the organization’s biggest priorities making room for new inventory.
“I turned into part salesman the last three races of the year,” Cohen said. “We have a communication path with all of our other teams, so I’m sending emails to all our Chevrolet counterparts. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these Chevy parts sitting here. They’re only a year old, or at most two years old. First come, first served. Whoever comes and gets them, gets them and they’re yours.”
The advantage of NASCAR’s Next Gen Cup series car is the single-source supplied parts. There are hardly any proprietary pieces being made by race teams and kept from public eye.
“There are Chevrolet teams out there willing to take advantage of getting (our) parts used at a discount to save a little money,” Cohen said. “We can just recoup a little bit of our capital back for the parts that are no longer any good to us.”
It took about a month for Legacy Motor Club to remove traces of being a Chevrolet team. Cohen described it as mind-numbing to see just how many parts and pieces ended up in a storage unit after two seasons with a new vehicle. There were full bodies – some that hadn’t been raced – oil tanks, oil lines, air boxes, and specific parts for a Chevrolet motor.
“Frankly, like a million-and-a-half dollars’ worth of stuff,” Cohen said. “What are we going to do with it? It’s a big responsibility to figure out, because I’m going to have to turn around and buy that same stuff again for Toyota. So, I’m sitting here and the owner’s calling asking, ‘what’s our plan here?’ I’m like, ‘hey look, here’s the realistic probability. If we can get 60 cents on the dollar, we’re doing really good.’ The good thing about the Next Gen stuff, it holds its value because it’s common.”
The race season ended on Sunday, November 5. By the time the calendar turned to December, Legacy Motor Club had its first Toyota car on track. Erik Jones drove the No. 43 in the two-day test at Phoenix on December 5 and 6 as NASCAR experimented with its short-track package.
Before the test, Legacy Motor Club had a pile of 2023-style parts sent by 23XI Racing to be put on the pit stop cars. The organization has brought its pit crews in-house – just as 23XI Racing did going into 2023. The Legacy crews will train alongside its Toyota teammates from 23XI Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing.
There have been plenty of other changes around the shop. A fresh coat of paint on the walls and a redone floor. The lobby is also being redecorated, as are the walls leading into the race shop. One wall has a mural of the history of GMS Racing, the now-shuttered Craftsman Truck series operation. The other wall will be done with the history of Legacy Motor Club plus those of co-owners Maury Gallagher, Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson.
By the front door, a wall has been taken down and replaced by glass windows allowing visitors to see into the shop. And GMS Racing no longer being in operation has freed up more space for the Cup series team since both organizations were splitting the shop floor.
“A majority of the October, November unraveling was how do we wind that down, clear this space out and make it more dedicated, more intentional for a Cup shop?” Cohen said. “Whereas before, we were trying to be good roommates. We were like, hey, you guys are over here, we’re over here, but if you need this … Now we go down there and we have all this space. We cleaned up some things, brightened it up. The building needed some attention.
“We’re bringing tools and people in that needed spaces. So, it was a really good time to tackle that as we’re waiting on the other things to happen.”
There was a lot of waiting before action could be taken. Legacy Motor Club and Toyota announced their partnership on May 2 2023. In the aftermath, the organization remained committed to finishing its tenure with Chevrolet and fulfilling its partnership even as those resources and tools dried up.
“We were in the race season, right? We’re actively competing with a Chevrolet team,” Cohen said. “You have to be respect of your current agreements; you have to honor those. We did that.”
In the interim, no possession of Toyota parts or changes were made in the race shop. But there was a “countdown to Toyota” tracker kept on a white board.
“They had all sorts of countdowns,” Cohen laughed. “Like ‘countdown since the last major announcement.’ Or ‘days without a new hire in the building.’ It was like four or five different ones. It’s funny because that’s what’s the most noticeable about our environment, there is something happening all the time.”
Legacy Motor Club still had to go to the track and compete as a Chevrolet team while preparing to transition to Toyota. John K Harrelson/Motorsport Images
With nothing physically to do for the transition until the season ended, it was all meetings and planning between the May announcement and the season finale. The thrash began the day after.
“You can have conversations and planning sessions, but you can’t put hands on things and you can’t sit down in formal environments and really open the books up and say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to do it at Toyota,’” Cohen explained. “Truly, those things were the Monday after Phoenix, but [there was] a lot of conversation, a lot of internal planning on our part.
“There were some connection points there we could make with how we were going to do things with the competition area, how we’re going to do things on the sales and marketing area. Our group could go out and actively sell that partnership because everyone knew we were going to Toyota. So, I think [the months after the announcement] served a huge advantage for our marketing group and sales group to pitch partnership.
“On the competition side, we still have to go out there and run a Chevrolet and honor all our partnership and like I said that’s what we did. Until the last day, the last hour of that agreement, we were a Chevrolet team.”
On the day of this interview, Cohen had just given back his personal Chevrolet vehicle. Many other employees have done so too, and more and more Toyota-branded vehicles were beginning to appear in the parking lot at the shop.
There are also more people employed there. In addition to taking on its own pit crews, Legacy Motor Club has been able to add more depth to its organization while revamping and restructuring some of its departments.
“Part of that is a direct connection with Toyota – we have responsibilities now and stuff we’re beholden to as a tier one partner with TRD,” Cohen said. “We have an aero department now that has a lead. We have a quality control department that has a staff of four that has a lead. We have somebody that’s directly tied in with software development or engineering technology tools that we’re going to start to take on with Toyota and what they do with that type of stuff.
“We have a simulator that lives here in the shop. Those guys are on that two to three days a week, so that’s a responsibility that needs someone to manage it and operate it. We didn’t have that last year.”
Cohen estimated the organization has grown from 70 or 75 employees to about 115 and he’s confident it’s the right size for a two-car team.
Jimmie Johnson joined the fold ahead of the 2023 season. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images
This is the third iteration of what is now Legacy Motor Club. It was Petty GMS when Gallagher bought the majority of Petty’s operation in December 2021 ahead of the 2022 season, and it became Legacy Motor Club with the addition of Johnson going into the 2023 season. Now comes a Toyota transition, while many other changes have also happened over the last two years. Some have been visible: personnel shuffled and added (i.e., Matt Kenseth and Cal Wells), different drivers (Ty Dillon and Noah Gragson have gone and while John Hunter Nemechek has joined) and crew chief changes.
The season starts in less than a month with a trip west to the L.A. Coliseum for the Busch Light Clash. While the initial thrash of the transition is over, Legacy Motor Club is still in the thick of preparation and will be spending the rest of January building its stable and developing plans on how to hit the ground running as a Toyota team.
“The biggest thing is we’re going to have to be intentional about communication between all of our groups because nobody knows the whys,” Cohen said. “Nobody knows why the Toyota stuff is like this or why the engine group does that. We’re still having calls with Toyota of, ‘Hey, we used to do our stuff this way. Why do y’all do it like this?’ So, we’re walking through it.
“We’re learning every day and everything is new. It’s fun. We’ve not had a boring off-season.”
And there is a lot of anticipation within the race shop to finally get on track.
“I won’t call it nervous energy but there’s a lot of pent-up energy just ready to explode,” Cohen said. “After winning a race in 2022, I think that instilled an amount of confidence in the whole shop that we can do this. Because there was a lot of people who never raced in Cup before in this shop. They never envisioned they could win a Cup race with the vehicles we build here.
“Now, what happened in ’23 was a little out of our control but we’re fine with taking a little pause in this journey and I think now, everyone is looking around like, wow, we have a lot of resources, we have a lot of people here that are really smart and really good. We have great crew chiefs and drivers.
“There are a lot of things happening that everyone is just ready to explode with seeing cars run up front and be in contention for wins. Everybody is kind of anxious right now more than anything.”
Chevrolet completed the sweep of the manufacturers’ championship in all three NASCAR national series by clinching the Cup series honor at Martinsville Speedway. It is the third consecutive year Chevrolet has won the manufacturers’ championship in …
Chevrolet completed the sweep of the manufacturers’ championship in all three NASCAR national series by clinching the Cup series honor at Martinsville Speedway.
It is the third consecutive year Chevrolet has won the manufacturers’ championship in the Cup Series and their 42nd overall. Chevrolet previously clinched in both the Craftsman Truck series and Xfinity series Oct. 21 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
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“Chevrolet is honored to win the 2023 NASCAR Cup series manufacturer championship for the third consecutive year and the 42nd time overall,” said Jim Campbell, General Motors U.S. vice president of performance and motorsports. “This title is the result of great teamwork by the Chevrolet drivers, crew chiefs, and teams working tirelessly throughout the season.”
Chevrolet has won 17 races with seven different drivers and started the year winning the Daytona 500 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. It was their first win in the Daytona 500 since 2018 with Austin Dillon.
William Byron has a series-leading six victories in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
“Winning the Manufacturer Championship in the NASCAR Cup Series is a remarkable achievement,” said Megan Brobeck, GM Racing program manager for the NASCAR Cup series. “We are very proud of the dedication and cooperation among Chevrolet’s teams and engineers, and their efforts all season long paid off with this special honor. Congratulations to all who contributed to the championship for this much-deserved accomplishment.”
Chevrolet will have two drivers racing for a championship in the finale at Phoenix Raceway. Byron and teammate Kyle Larson both advanced for Hendrick Motorsports.
Despite winning only five races to Honda’s 12 this year, Chevrolet has taken its eighth crown in the 12 IndyCar seasons since it returned to the series at the start of the 2.2-liter V6 twin-turbo era. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Will Power, …
Despite winning only five races to Honda’s 12 this year, Chevrolet has taken its eighth crown in the 12 IndyCar seasons since it returned to the series at the start of the 2.2-liter V6 twin-turbo era.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Will Power, and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott finished second, fourth and fifth in the 2023 season finale at WeatherTech Racing Laguna Seca to clinch the title by 12 points. The number of early engine changes – that not only drop a car by six grid positions on road courses, and nine spots on ovals – prevent that car from scoring points on that weekend. In this regard, Chevrolet’s engine units proved more sturdy in terms of reaching 2000 miles.
General Motors’ VP of racing Jim Campbell said, “It was close. It was close. Big thanks to Will Power and Callum Ilott. They got the key positions for the key points to put us right over the top. Super proud of the fact this is, as you said, the second in a row, eighth overall since we returned to IndyCar in 2012. It feels really good.
“Obviously proud of the five wins…Josef [Newgarden] with four, Scott McLaughlin, one at Barber. Certainly would have loved more wins, but we got the manufacturers’ championship. Super proud of that.”
Rob Buckner, IndyCar program manager added: “Just so proud of our people. A huge thank you to everyone that wears a Bowtie in the paddock, not just our technical partners at Ilmor and our GM employees — all of our race teams, everyone worked together.
“Like Jim alluded to, not enough race wins. We have a lot of work to do. Not pleased with all of the results, but to get the manufacturers’ championship, huge moment for us. Very proud of everyone on the program. Thank you to everyone who played a big role in that.”
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Asked about the reliability battle toward the close of the season, Buckner said, “I think each one of those situations is unique. Sometimes it’s crash damage. Can’t comment on the Honda side, what issues they had. For us, I think it’s a huge testament to the build quality of our engine builders, the way our trackside group works to eliminate any issues as they pop up. It really comes down to an attention-to-detail-type situation.
“Also, both of us are pushing these engines so hard compared to when they first debuted. They were right on that edge of reliability, so huge kudos to our trackside group for looking after everything. They’re the reason we had cars on four engines eligible to score points.”
Buckner was not giving anything away when questioned by Racer regarding the amount of horsepower the Chevy has now compared with 2012 at the start of this engine era.
“If you can get Dave Salters [HPD president] to come in here and show you some charts, Honda’s number, we’ll follow up with ours,” he smiled. “It’s definitely been a huge increase. If you ran a 2023 spec 2.2 liter engine against 2012-spec 2.2 liter engines, it would lap the field. It’s been that sort of magnitude. It’s all small, incremental gains. Just goes towards the diligence of the group to keep finding performance every year.
“We think we have exhausted the 2.2 liter formula – and we keep finding more! We know if we slow down, we’re going to get surpassed. Us and Honda really push each other very hard. It’s a fun battle, one that we really enjoy.”
There have been similar leaps forward in fuel mileage.
“That’s another area we’re always pushing really hard,” agreed Buckner. “Working with the teams and drivers, fuel mixtures, the way they drive the car, looking for efficiency. I don’t see any reason that’s going to stop. Fuel mileage competition is like clean air versus dirty air — once you know there’s a huge advantage there, you’re never going to unlearn those things. We’ll just keep polishing on it. I don’t doubt our group will be able to come back in ’24 with a better package.”
Team Chevy’s response to its drubbing by Honda at the 2022 Indianapolis 500 was on display throughout most of the race as its drives led 130 of 200 laps while making exceptional fuel mileage on the way to victory for American auto manufacturer. …
Team Chevy’s response to its drubbing by Honda at the 2022 Indianapolis 500 was on display throughout most of the race as its drives led 130 of 200 laps while making exceptional fuel mileage on the way to victory for American auto manufacturer.
Josef Newgarden’s triumph for Team Penske and Team Chevy on the last lap was a thrill felt throughout the Speedway and General Motors.
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“What an exciting pass by Josef Newgarden and an incredible finish to The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” said Jim Campbell, the brand’s VP Performance and Motorsports. “We all will be talking about Josef’s last-lap move, sprint to the finish line and post-race celebration for a long time. Josef drove a solid race all afternoon and he put himself in position for that well-timed and memorable move. This is a great win for a popular driver and champion.
“Congratulations to Josef and the No. 2 Shell Team Penske Chevrolet for his first Indianapolis 500 win, and congratulations to Roger Penske on his 19th. Thanks to all of the hard work by our Chevrolet engineers along with our technical partners at Ilmor on delivering an engine package that delivered the right combination of power, durability and efficiency.”
In recent years, Honda has made use of strong late-race engine settings that made their 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 engines a problem for the front-running Chevy drivers to overcome. Team Penske president Tim Cindric credited the progress made in this area as making a difference in Newgarden’s ability to sweep past Honda-powered 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson and claim his first victory on IndyCar’s biggest stage.
“They’re here to win, and they’ve continued to put more and more resources behind it,” Cindric said. “It’s the details that win this place, and when you look at last year’s race, I think the Chevys needed a little more at the end when it was time to go, and they gave us more at the end when it was time to go.
“I think we either closed the gap or at least gave us the tools to win as Chevy teams, and when you looked at it, there were quite a few Chevys going into the third to last restart, I think there was four Chevys up there in the top 5. It’s a testament to what that whole group has done.”
