Q: What can be done to control costs in a car designed to house a very expensive engine?
If we assume that Honda plays hardball to bring costs down or to leave the series if it can’t get what it wants, and if Chevrolet doesn’t want to supply the whole field without the teams paying a lot more for its engines, what can be done to put a less expensive engine in the current chassis?
I love the sound of the current engines, but not as much as I like the competitive balance of the series. If newer, less expensive cars and engines are what it takes to keep the series going, then I am in favor of that change.
What are your thoughts?
Doug Mayer, Revelstoke, BC, Canada
MP: The series has been proactive in trimming costs wherever possible, including through the restrictive amount of on-track testing we have today. But that ignores the inevitable response by teams which, in the absence of abundant on-track running, have poured tons of dollars into off-track testing technology and hiring the high-dollar brains needed to lead simulation and R&D programs.
As teams always do, when something is taken away, they look for workarounds, and that’s been what’s happened with off-track testing. That’s the last big area IndyCar has left to try and regulate, and savings there by capping things, would save the engine manufacturers and teams a lot of money.
The other area is the one Honda suggested, which is to shed the wild annual cash burns on making their own motors. After 12 years of using and developing the same 2.2-liter V6s, there’s almost nothing left to find that hasn’t already been found and put to use as a performance, reliability, or fuel economy gain. In the offseason of 2012, there were vast gains to find since the motors were only a year old. Heading into 2024, it’s spending crazily to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.
And since the new 2.4-liter V6s were abandoned, the chance for that development quest to start anew is gone. So, do Chevy and Honda keep shoveling tens of millions of dollars each year into the 2.2-liter V6 development furnace, or does IndyCar look at ending that financial waste and go with a spec formula that keeps manufacturers in and adds new ones who can afford to play?
I never imagined I’d be in favor of the latter, but if it helps the series to grow, let’s do it.
Q: Would a common engine formula between Japan’s Super Formula series and IndyCar make sense for the OEMs and each series? Toyota and Honda are already involved in Super Formula, and the engines obviously fit in a single-seater, unlike IMSA’s GTP formula.
Joe
MP: If that’s what Chevy or Honda wanted, I’m sure they could. Historically, IndyCar has been responsive to the wants and needs of its manufacturers when it comes to engine formulas, so it’s not impossible if all involved agree on the change.
Q: I’m guessing this has already been bounced around in regard to cutting costs, but what about an approach taken by some of the European car makers, where they share the cost of a common short block?
I believe it was Peugeot, Renault, Volvo and someone else that shared the costs and development of a V6 short block, to which each manufacturer then applied its own cylinder heads and accessories.
Maybe IndyCar could do something similar, where then Honda, Chevy/Ilmor, and whomever could then just focus on cylinder heads (and maybe pistons — as there would be an interface there.)
Hopefully that would help with costs while still giving participating manufacturers some individualism, something fans to cheer for, and keep the series from becoming a total spec series…
This, of course would still mate to the common hybrid system. Just brainstorming and always respect your thoughts, so what do you think?
Bill V., WI
MP: Fixing those PRV V6s probably covered half of the Pruett family’s income while I was growing up; my father loathed those things, but they were great for business since the heads always leaked and other maladies meant our garage had PRV-powered cars strewn throughout the parking lot in need of repair.
Maintaining individuality is usually the argument against going spec, but this idea of allowing engine suppliers to do their own cylinder heads, or maybe another area that piques their collective interest, could be a winner.
Q: When Roger Penske bought the IndyCar Series in 2019, I had high hopes that the series would finally go back to the late 1980s and early ’90s that made IndyCar popular. It’s 2023 and it’s just as bad when Paul Gentilozzi, the late Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Fosythe ran Champ Car into the ground from 2004-07. In fact, Forsythe, who’s retired and owns Cosworth engines somewhere in Michigan, must be chuckling the way Mark Miles and Jay Frye are running IndyCar Series like a sideshow.
This has been another terrible offseason for IndyCar with cancellation of the video game, the delay of the hybrid and the possibility of Honda pulling out of the series, for which I don’t blame it. At this point Penske should sell the series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Liberty Media because he’s staring at 90 years old which very old to keep the series going with little progress since he took over the series.
Alistair, Springfield, MO
MP: Another RACER Mailbag Public Service Announcement: Penske Entertainment makes all major decisions and runs IndyCar, not Frye or Miles, who were the people who ran it with autonomy before it was purchased. If it’s a big decision since January 1, 2020, it’s been done by their bosses. Seriously. I’m not making this up.
We return you to your regularly schedule programming.
Q: The past few weeks have seemed like an endless stream of bad news from IndyCar. Long before all the bad news became public, I realized the health of the series was questionable the moment I watched Colton Herta and his dad run those demo laps at Laguna Seca. There, for all to see, was a 25-year-old Champ Car that was way cooler than the Frankenstein that the DW12 has become. It was embarrassing.
How did IMSA get hybridization so right and IndyCar so wrong?
Jonathan and Cleide Morris, Ventura, CA
MP: It’s an oversimplification for me to say that IMSA’s hybrid solution is a 100-percent off-the-shelf package, but it’s not too far from being accurate. Also, the GTP cars have no concerns with space limitations to house all of the Bosch and Williams ERS technology. And we can’t escape the fact that the GTP cars were designed, from scratch, to be outfitted with batteries and motor generator units and whatnot.
The opposite was true with IndyCar’s adoption of hybridization, where it chose to use its existing non-hybrid chassis instead of building it from scratch. And with no passenger area to stuff all of the components, IndyCar and its ERS partners had to find a way to package everything in the one empty space it had, which is inside the bellhousing. It’s a good thing IndyCar outlawed the use of a single turbo soon after the 2.2-liter V6 formula began, because if that was still in place, it’s home would continue being where it was from 2012-13, and that’s where the ERS units are meant to live.
Thanks to eliminating Honda’s single-turbo selection from the dawn of the current motor formula, the series has that unused space to fit the MGU and supercapacitor. If it didn’t, I don’t know how it would go hybrid.
So, by comparison, IMSA’s adoption of hybridization for 2023 in GTP was much easier than IndyCar’s aborted attempts to join them by having to fashion an all-new solution in a pre-existing car.