The RACER Mailbag, August 9

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the high volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published …

Q: This seems to be the Year of Midseason Changes!

  • ECR and Daly and RHR
  • Dr. Marko and de Vries and Ricciardo
  • Whoever at Renault/Alpine and Szafnauer and Permane and Fry
  • Ferrari/AlphaTauri with Mekies and Ioverno

I go back many years across a great number of disciplines and I don’t remember so many changes in the upper reaches of the sport. It just feels unprecedented. Is there something in the water?

Given how quickly Fry has made a deal with Williams, might he have been contemplating a move before this reshuffling? Also, might Szafnauer and Permane be a good fit for Andretti F1?

I would guess that Andretti is aligned with Wayne Taylor Racing in order to gain experience with hybrid systems. I can’t speak to the chronology of how deals came together, but would it have made more sense for Andretti to be aligned with a Cadillac team? Probably not Ganassi, but perhaps Whelen? Is WTR thinking about expanding into IndyCar?

The involvement of Brown and McLaren in IndyCar always struck me as a bit odd as there doesn’t seem to be much synergy. But, is this a poor man’s version of the Red Bull/AlphaTauri setup?

Don Hopings, Cathedral City, CA

MP: Are we talking about the same Andretti team that’s been in the all-electric Formula E series since its inception and just won the championship and has more experience with electrified racing than all of the IndyCar teams combined? I’d think Andretti’s interest in joining forces with WTR was to jump into the top class at IMSA with a factory relationship.

McLaren, through Zak, wanted to be in IndyCar, identified the best midfield team that was in need of funding to do better and was receptive to taking on a major partner, and got it with Schmidt and Peterson. McLaren had a solid background in IndyCar a long time ago, and Zak’s big on racing history. Not sure why there’s a negative take here or where the “poor man’s approach” is coming from.

CHRIS MEDLAND: While driver changes — especially at Red Bull’s junior team — are not uncommon mid-season, I think the team personnel ones are partly a knock-on effect of all the changes in that area over the winter. Four teams changed bosses then, and that has led to other opportunities opening up since then. 

Fry had definitely already done a deal long before all the Alpine changes. James Vowles sounded him out as soon as he started with Williams in February but Fry said he was happy where he was. Then by April — around the time things were getting tense behind the scenes ahead of Laurent Rossi’s outburst in Miami — he had agreed to move. Both Williams and Alpine knew he was leaving three months before announcing it.

Former Renault technical director Nick Chester is working with Andretti so Permane certainly could be a good fit to help the team get up and running if it gets an entry approved, but I’m not sure if Michael would rather have a crack at being team principal than put someone else such as Szafnauer in that position. Otmar has good experience if he did want to go down that route though.

And as for McLaren in IndyCar, it’s because of the different reach in the U.S. market it provides compared to F1. The F1 presence is still growing but is only a few times a year, compared to the much more consistent visibility IndyCar provides, and that’s filling a gap for McLaren in a huge market for its road cars. 

If you need a visual representation of how comfortable Andretti is with electrical power, Jake Dennis’s trophy haul from the just-completed Formula E season should do the job. Sam Bagnall/Motorsport Images

Q: Chris, welcome to your summer break. In order to heat things up when the season resumes, I propose a new rule. Once the championship is clinched, the champion goes on holiday. Red Bull must fill his seat with non-F1 drivers to see if they, too, can dominate in a Red Bull. Start with all Super License-eligible IndyCar and Super Formula drivers. There should be at least seven or eight races left in the season for this, right?

Let’s throw some ideas at the wall and see what sticks. What have you got?

Ryan

CM: I like it! Although seven or eight might be asking a bit much even of Max — I think he’s most likely to win it around Qatar or Austin (if my math is correct, the earliest he can win it is in Japan by winning every race with the fastest lap between now and then, and Sergio Perez failing to score in any of the next three). So we’re looking at four or five races in that case.

Maybe we should start with the IndyCar and Super Formula champions and give them a couple of races each? Just so they have half a chance of showing what they can do!

I also think that by winning the F1 championship more than two races early, we should make the champion have to race in either the Indy 500 or Le Mans 24 Hours the following year (which would likely mean missing a couple of races — whoever performs best out of the IndyCar and SF runners could step in…).

I know it’s been touted before, but one single throwback weekend where teams run a retro livery should be introduced. And one race at the venue that can host it where everyone runs three cars and has to put a rookie in, with them qualifying for their own championship but not scoring points towards the constructors’.

Oh, and a team principal’s race in single-make normal road cars to end the season.

THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, August 12, 2015

Q: In reference to who should replace Derrick Walker as president of IndyCar, I think I have the answer to the question. Someone with balls, who doesn’t care what others think! I hereby nominate Uncle Bobby or AJ. Either would be great. The thought of AJ bitch-slapping whiney drivers, or Mark Miles, would make for great TV. Or if Uncle Bobby gets the nod, let’s have Sam Posey as his assistant. Who could miss an episode!

Curt Cyliax, Doylestown, PA

ROBIN MILLER: Not sure there would be any owners or drivers left after a couple of races, but it sure would be entertaining for a few weeks.