Q: Prior to race in Toronto, Peacock showed Palou’s car and I am curious to know what these devices are on the front end?
Pongo in SoCal
MP: Those are protectors that prevent mischievous fans and members from other teams from making front-wing adjustments on the grid. They’re used by almost every team. If someone can mess with something or steal something, they will, so teams do their best to prevent such things from happening when they aren’t in complete control of their surroundings on the grid.
Q: Andretti’s IndyCar team does not have the most rigorous thought process as far as strategy goes. If it can’t improve, how can we expect it to be remotely competitive in Formula 1?
Isaac Stephenson
MP: If we’re using recent events to form an opinion, things went sideways at Road America with its lead driver, Colton Herta, then the team made a change in strategist to Rob Edwards and Herta was on the way to a great result in their first race together until there was an issue engaging the pit lane speed limiter. Can’t blame that on strategy. In their second race together, Herta earned his first podium of the year at Toronto with Edwards calling strategy. So that’s going well.
I can’t find an ongoing strategy-related issue with Grosjean’s car. Same goes with Kyle Kirkwood.
I’m not saying the team hasn’t fumbled strategy more than once this year, but if we’re talking about where they’re at today, its deficiencies on the timing stand from earlier races seems to have been adequately addressed.
Q: With David Malukas leaving Dale Coyne Racing at the end of the year, how does a team owner like Dale Coyne feel in that scenario when a young talented racer jumps ship to a better deal? Is there even a little sadness or frustration thinking this might be the one that got away, and who, with enough time, could take a mid-pack team to another level of success?
Brandon Karsten
MP: With Coyne, specifically, I’d imagine he’s somewhat sensitive to it because it happens on a regular basis with drivers (Alex Palou comes to mind) and engineers who level up at his team (Scott Dixon’s new engineer Ross Bunnell).
But it’s also the way things usually work in sports, right? A talented kid in the NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL gets drafted by the crappy team that finished at the bottom of the standings, plays through their rookie contract, and if they’re good, bigger and better teams come calling. Malukas is no different. And in some instances, a young player will decide to stick their first team for whatever reasons — it’s local, comfortable, or they get to be a big fish in a small pond — and we respect their decision but also wonder why they continued with a losing situation.
I’d guess Malukas looked at DCR and felt he could do better in a bigger team, and I can’t fault his line of thinking, provided we’re talking about Andretti, Ganassi, McLaren, or Rahal. If it’s a team in need of an overhaul, it would be a bad call.
Q: I shot you an email last week about the refueling process for the Acura NSX at Mosport. At the time it was being pitted, Katherine Legge was in the car and it appeared to me that they had two fuel hoses attached to the car. One on each side. This was quite odd. Perhaps one was a vent?
As a follow up, here is a YouTube link to the race. The incident I am referring to happened with 57m26s left in the race. It is at the 1h50m13s mark of the video.
Yes, I was drinking beer while watching the race. However, I have proof that my eyes were not playing tricks on me. I have never noticed a double fill-type incident on pit road before with these cars.
Mike Desmet, Stevensville, MI
MP: No worries. It’s an older style of decoupled fuel and vent hoses. Instead of having them right next to each other on the fill plate, or incorporated into a larger single probe, the NSX has fuel going in one side and the overflow/vent on the other. The moment the vent person sees fuel splash into the hose, they pull and the refueler reacts by doing the same and the car goes on its way.
I hope it was good beer.
Q: Shout out to the Peacock crew for really making Toronto an exciting race to watch from start to finish! All the talks of strategy through the field are so interesting. They even pointed out how that one pass back in the pack could have ended up being for the win. Really great stuff!
My question is, do Honda and Chevy have to follow the exact same set of rules or is there anything at all done for competition’s sake?
John Shellhamer
MP: Agreed on the increasing quality of the broadcasts when it comes to laying out the strategies in play. My only sorrow related to Peacock is RLL and Lundgaard scored a huge and meaningful win in front of IndyCar’s smallest TV audience with the lowest ratings of the year.
All engine manufacturers must comply with the same rules.
Q: So I heard there was a race this weekend. I saw on YouTube there was an early crash. In the evening, I checked YouTube and watched the highlights. Really, not even USA Network or anything without a pay wall…. sorry I know we it’s only around $5 per month or whatever, but I watched NHRA in Denver instead of that. IndyCar in Canada isn’t even on cable now? Really? Is this going to be the new norm now — if no Peacock, then you are out of luck?
Jerry Daniels, Denver, CO
MP: IndyCar and NBC did this for the first time last year at Toronto and it was carried over to this year’s Toronto race. It’s been a good while since IndyCar’s on-track activity, with exception for the races, has been aired exclusively on Peacock. The TO event is the only one where every session from practice through the race is on Peacock, so that’s one out of 17 races, which would make me lean towards saying no, it’s not the new norm. Not by a mile.