Q: RP: All those red flags, they did a hell of a job getting Josef in position to win the 500.
Team: Check.
RP: So how do we get Josef a championship?
Team: Well, he’s really, REALLY good on ovals. If we had more ovals, especially at the end of the season…
RP: Check.
I’m usually not a conspiracy guy, but they are literally setting up the perfect schedule for Newgarden to win the championship. Random coincidence? If RP is trying to appear impartial to his team, this sure as hell isn’t helping.
Ben Malec, Buffalo Grove, IL
MP: Josef won four races on the way to his first IndyCar title, and only one of those was on an oval. He won five to get his second championship, and two were on ovals. He’s capable of winning a third with nothing more than road and street success, but to your point, his oval prowess and Team Penske’s series-leading performances on ovals the last two years cannot be overlooked as having the greatest potential benefit for them.
Ganassi/Palou were the dominant road and street course team in 2023 and had six of the last eight races on their favored circuits, which made it easy for Palou to clinch the title early. Penske had a chance to match and beat them, but didn’t. The dynamic has flipped, so let’s see how it plays out.
Q: With the recent news of NASCAR being in negotiations with Honda to join the series (per Steve O’Donnell), what will this mean for the health and longevity of IndyCar as a whole? I can’t see the series surviving on just Chevrolet alone and — from what I can tell — there is no progress on a new manufacturer entering the sport. I’m worried, MP. Scared even.
Go Rossi,
Nick
MP: As Honda’s Chuck Schifsky told us, they could stay in IndyCar after 2026, take the budget and go to NASCAR, apportion it to F1, or do something else with the funds. Unless IndyCar comes up with a giant engine supply cost reduction plan in the next 12-18 months that Honda would want to be a part of, I think they’ll be gone.
Q: In the article “FOX Sports making serious play for IndyCar TV rights,” there is this unusual phrase:
“The series that debuted at the 1911 Indy 500.”
Is RACER really saying that the debut of the IndyCar Series was the 1911 Indy 500?
You could certainly say “the series whose roots date back to the 1911 Indy 500.” But the debut of what we now know as the IndyCar Series is either the AAA Contest Board’s first championship season in 1905, won by by Barney Oldfield, or the unification of IRL and CART/Champ Car/whatever in 2000-whatever, or perhaps even the creation of the IRL in 1996.
I know Marshall was just looking for a way to not write “IndyCar Series” for the umpteenth time in this article, and I don’t fault him. That part of news reporting can get really repetitive and awkward I’m sure.
May I suggest some alternative phrases that are fit for purpose and technically correct, which is the best kind of correct?
“The world’s fastest circuit racing series”
“The history-filled open-wheel series” (especially if Marshall is bagging on the age of the core chassis design),
“The series that’s home to the Greatest Spectacle In Racing™®©”
“The series that is racing [today/next week/end/whenever] at [city] [course/speedway/weird housing development race club thing]”
“The series which has featured such racing greats as Andretti, Fittipaldi, Franchitti, Foyt, Sato, Dixon, Mears, and the Racing Dentist Dr. Jack Miller”
Hope you find some or any of this helpful. I love RACER and just want to drop a little knowledge and give something back to the people who have given me so much (mostly information about race cars and Palou’s contact snafus).
Benny
MP: Serves me right for putting 0.3 seconds of thought into the part of the story that didn’t matter. And how dare you omit “The series which crowned co-champions Scott Sharp and Buzz Calkins and still survived.”
Q: Greetings from Finland!
Read the article about FOX being interested in IndyCar and started to wonder: Has there been any effort from IndyCar side to get a meeting with Netflix regarding IndyCar rights?
With WWE Raw moving to Netflix in 2025, it would be a really smart move to try to get IndyCar on Netflix with a similar coverage package when it comes to regions (USA, UK, Canada, Latin America with rest of the regions being added at a later date). That package would be way better than what any U.S. TV network could offer with their streaming. (Geoblocked mess that limits the reach.)
Hoping that aging IndyCar leadership is familiar and up to date with the change in media landscape and how content is consumed nowadays, because the next TV rights package will decide the future of the series when it comes to visibility and exposure.
Jymy Ojanen
MP: Roger Penske and his team would be dancing on the streets of 16th & Georgetown if Netflix expressed a serious interest in giving them money to air IndyCar races. It’s a bit like wanting to marry a supermodel, though, because dreaming about it happening is far different from that supermodel actually wanting to be your spouse. And from what I’m told, it’s a dream held by IndyCar, and not something — so far, at least — that has Netflix looking with loving eyes towards the series.
Q: Greetings from the UK. I understand both the NBC and Sky Sports broadcasting rights for IndyCar are up at the end of ’24. There’s been mention regarding FOX’s interest in the U.S., but I wondered if you’ve heard any chatter yet regarding Sky Sports continuing for the next year onwards in the UK and Europe? If FOX got the contract over NBC, would there be any issue/complication in a Sky deal going forward with Comcast owning both NBC & Sky?
Lastly, who would you choose (and why) as the stand in for the injured David Malukas?
Jeremy, Derby, UK
MP: I don’t have the foggiest notion on how Sky would or wouldn’t fit into a FOX world, brother. I hope to become less dumb on the subject in the near future.
On the Malukas front, and writing this six days before the Mailbag goes live, the only experienced and available driver I can think of who could step into an Arrow McLaren car and put it on pole and possibly win at St. Pete is Callum Ilott. The team is very interested in seeing his talents from the inside — that was part of the attraction of doing the alliance with Juncos Hollinger Racing — and if there’s a way for Callum to intertwine his early FIA WEC commitments with helping the McLaren team, it would arm them with strong intel for later in the year if they have a seat to fill. But, the WEC calendar is rather tight and would potentially make things too hard for Ilott to do both in a fully committed manner to his Jota Hypercar team. [Ed: Since Marshall wrote this answer, the team has announced that Ilott will drive the car in testing this week.]
If it isn’t Ilott, I’ve been a big fan of RC Enerson for many years, and he’s only 26. I think he’d blow some minds in a front-running car, even if it’s only for one race.