Q: You’ve talked about Romain Grosjean and his contract situation numerous times. Do the sponsors have a say in who the driver is? Does DHL get a say, or is it all up to Michael Andretti? And do you think Grosjean stays at Andretti?
Cory
MP: Without a doubt, yes, Cory. A major company like DHL, or any other, wouldn’t commit to giving a team millions of dollars without agreeing to the choice of driver who will represent their brand. I recall hearing at the time of the impending Hunter-Reay-for-Grosjean swap that Romain offered an international profile for the company through its sponsorship of the No. 28 Honda that RHR could not bring, and after almost two seasons of getting whatever amount of international exposure it sought from having Grosjean in the car, we’ll soon find out if the company wants to continue, and if it does, whether Grosjean is still their guy and still who Andretti wants in the car.
Q: IndyCar drivers have been jumping starts and restarts all year without consequence. Pato O’Ward put Scott Dixon in the wall at Long Beach without penalty. Drivers have been weaving down the straights at IMS for years without a word from race control. Josef Newgarden played chicken with the attenuator at IMS coming to the checkers and no one said anything.
Sting Ray Robb leaves the pits with a loose wheel at Iowa and he’s immediately disqualified?
Even if you believe that loose wheels are especially dangerous, I’ve seen wheels fall off in the 500 — where speeds are significantly higher than Iowa — twice in the last decade and no one was DQ’ed.
Why was this situation different from these other non-calls?
Kyle
MP: Hoping the answer earlier in the Mailbag covered this one off, Kyle. It was a team penalty, but Robb, who’s paying to drive the car, paid the price. He deserves better.
Q: At the recent oval doubleheader in Iowa, team owner and oval specialist Ed Carpenter’s participation went almost unnoticed. He got little or no mention in television coverage and finished near the back, many laps down. That has been the situation for a number of years recently, even at Indy. I realize there always have to be those who make up the numbers, but how does he continue to get sponsorship for his ovals-only career, and does he not see his time has passed on track?
A. Jenkins, Ontario, Canada
MP: I’d say the Iowa weekend as a whole was brutal for ECR. Carpenter started up front on Sunday and I watched his No. 33 Chevy sink like a rock. VeeKay did his best, but his car was largely uncompetitive, earning a best of 17th for the team at the event. Hunter-Reay was racy at times, but his car also went to crap, and closed the event by smacking the wall.
Ed’s struggles were the worst of the team, and it’s true, we’d have to look back to his fifth at the 2021 Indy 500, fifth at Texas in 2020, and second at WWTR in 2019 as the last times one of IndyCar’s most accomplished oval drivers placed better than 11th in a motor race.
Moving to a third car that only runs on the ovals, compared to having the best ECR entry he shares with someone who handles the road racing for him in the same car, has been rough.
Q: Can you explain the wave-around? At Iowa, a number of cars a lap down got their lap back under yellow. Does everyone who is one or more laps down get a lap back, or just those who are down one? I assume the advantage is that those people who were down one lap can also put with the leaders.
Matt, Florida
MP: Per the rules, there’s nothing specific listed about laps and getting things back. What you see in IndyCar on ovals is a lapped car staying out under caution when the leader pits to then pass the leader, get a lap back, and pit afterwards.
7.7. Race Restart
After a Yellow Condition, cars between the pace car and the race leader are waved by: The wave-by will take place as soon as practical.
NASCAR, I believe, has a different practice where the first car that’s a lap down gets it back as part of its wave around procedure. I think it’s called the “lucky dog” but I don’t watch enough NASCAR to say for sure.
Q: Just remembering Sam Hornish. IndyCar Radio was playing the last minutes of his win at Indy this weekend. What was the driving force behind him leaving IndyCar racing? My guess, is after the merger there was more road racing and Sam wasn’t up to it.
Steve
MP: If we’re looking at timelines, the Indy Racing League rebranded itself as the IndyCar Series and incorporated road and street racing into its calendar in 2005.
I’d say a road racer like Hornish, who came up in his era’s equivalent of the USF Championships presented by Cooper Tires by using USF2000 and Formula Atlantic as his primary training grounds, was on the established road to CART, but his main opportunity came in the IRL, so that’s where he went. He won the Indy 500 and the championship in 2006, and then a bigger opportunity arrived in NASCAR. Had nothing to do with road racing; that was his foundation.
Q: Two quick money questions: Since Graham Rahal’s primary ride failed to make the 500 and a large part of the purse is made of leader circle money, do they just miss out on that amount or since they are a full time entrant is it somehow made up to them some other way?
Second, I seem to remember NTT Data moving over to McLaren from Ganassi, so are we still sure that the 10 is a seat that will be paid instead of going to who brings a check?
Andy Brumbaugh, Columbia, SC
MP: If you’ve caught some of the races this year, you’ll have seen the No. 10 Honda has carried primary sponsorship from the American Legion, and we also wrote a story about the Legion taking over from NTT in 2023. Seeing how Alex Palou’s not paying to drive the car, and that it’s had sponsors on it at every round, I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve written about it being a seat that pays.
As for the Leaders Circle, it’s a lot like movie “Fight Club” where the first rule of the LC is we do not speak about the LC… I doubt I could get anybody from the series to provide an answer on this, and teams have to sign quadruple NDAs to get their LCs, so RLL wouldn’t answer.
But, if we consider how RLL is a longstanding and upstanding member of the series, I’d imagine the series made them whole on payouts for the No. 15 Honda, despite it missing the race. It’s the series’ money, so they can do with it as they see fit.