Q: What is the point of IndyCar when it has been eclipsed by F1 not only in domestic popularity, but also in quality of racing? Five different winners and four different teams have seen the top step of the podium in the past six races. Is the series going to take any proactive and immediate actions to increase the quality of the product which has slipped precipitously (outside of the 500) since 2020?
Woodford from Stankonia
MP: Max Verstappen won seven of the opening 10 races this year, so if we don’t cherry-pick the latest races to prove a selective point, and look at the full season, there’s more to the story. Last year, Max won 14 of 22, and with Sergio’s two, Red Bull won 16 of 22 in one of the most lopsided seasons of F1 to date. Max and Red Bull have “only” won 50 percent of this year’s races, and that’s an indicator of a great change? Mercedes has won three of the last four, with Piastri getting the other for McLaren.
In those 14 races, seven drivers have won races and one of those drivers owns half of the wins. In other words, pure dominance once again from Max and Red Bull.
In IndyCar’s 11 championship races, seven drivers have won races, and no driver has taken more than two victories so far. Over the last six IndyCar races, five drivers from four teams have won. The opposite of dominance. So what exactly has slipped?
If we’re talking about raw entertainment of the most recent F1 races vs IndyCar, there’s no argument that F1 has been winning (the three races before IndyCar went hybrid weren’t exactly stunning). Let’s hope F1’s thankful change from monotonous Max-wins-again races holds firm and the recent fun continues, and let’s hope IndyCar’s generally underwhelming races of late return to the higher state of fun they tend to produce.
Q: When F1 teams got CART drivers to test, was it more of a driver evaluation or were there some components that the teams are trying out? Did drivers get paid a certain amount to come and test? If Scott Pruett or Paul Tracy did decide to drive in F1, and assuming they had good equipment, do you think they would have had a solid career in F1?
Brandon Karsten
MP: Each situation was unique, since each driver was unique, so it’s hard to give specific answers to general questions. I can’t think of why an F1 team would ask a complete novice with the car and formula to give feedback on new components in a one-off test, but it’s possible.
Michael Andretti was a test driver for McLaren prior to being hired, so he would have been asked for comparison feedback. Willy T. Ribbs had one day in a Brabham, and it was like going from a skateboard to being strapped to a rocket. He had great talent, but it was a better fit for GT cars. Pruett was wickedly talented as well, and was sneaky-good in IndyCar, but he was old by F1 standards when he tested for Larousse and wouldn’t have gotten a shot in a front-running car. In a fantasy world, I’m sure he’d have done well in a good car and team in the late 1980s; there were lots of drivers like him in F1 at the time, but as in most series, there’s the handful of megastars, and then the rest. Next to a Piquet or Senna or Prost, I don’t think Scott would have given them a reason to worry.
PT and Al Unser Jr, are different. Tracy’s test with Benetton went well and I always felt he would have been a monster in F1. I don’t believe his former CART rival Jacques Villeneuve had any more talent than PT. Little Al also had all the talent in the world and in the right team, could have done big things for Williams or whoever if he was in the right place with his lifestyle and focus. But Michael Andretti has always been the great “what if” among the homegrown talents. McLaren’s 1994 car was not stellar — mostly due to an explosion-friendly Peugeot engine — but given a second season there or in another good team, I’m confident he would have been just as special as he was in CART.
Q: I have noticed the occasional difficulty with team radios in several types of racing. Signals get weak or totally lost on portions of some tracks, particularly road courses. On the flipside, the audio and video feeds for TV don’t seem to be affected. I would think that the video feeds would be especially intense in the signal required, and teams would also be concerned about the weight of transmission equipment, so I can’t imagine that that package can be large or heavy. So, why are there issues with something as simple as team communications?
Craig Nelson
MP: Because racing teams don’t have the same equipment or funding as billion-dollar networks who specialize in the transmission of audio and video signals throughout miles of cables put down across racing venues, and beaming those signals in 4K HD through satellite dishes?
Q: My wife and I spent last Saturday at Lime Rock Park watching sports cars, Miatas, Nissans, an impressive stock car all-star race and a couple of IROC exhibitions that bode well for the future. We sat on a hillside at Turns 2, 3 and 4 just before the Paul Newman Straight and had a great time. I got to thinking, could IndyCar run at Lime Rock? Have you been there? I’m not sure the pit facilities and runoff would be up to standard, but man, what a nice circuit!
William Phypers
MP: I have. It’s a delightful area and a beautiful place to hold a motor race. But it’s too small and too fast for IndyCar. Some runoff areas would need to be pushed back at least 50 feet, if not 100, to try and create deceleration opportunities that don’t exist today. IMSA took its prototypes off the Lime Rock schedule and made it a GT-only event (before it was dropped altogether) for the same reason.
Q: So, it seems IndyCar has the ability to remotely turn the hybrid on and off. Why do they need to do that? I was not aware of any time during a race weekend when a car cannot use the hybrid. Seems like a failure point they could get rid of.
Craig
MP: Yep. Arrow McLaren team boss Gavin Ward is also of the same opinion.