Q: I was looking at the payout schedule by position/driver. I can understand that one-off drivers such as Marco would receive less than full-time drivers, but don’t understand someone like Sting Ray Robb, who’s been in the series, finished 16th and gets $238,300 while Romain Grosjean finished 19th, and gets $517,000.
Tom Corso, Rancho Mirage, CA
MP: Sting Ray is piloting an entry that did not receive a Leaders Circle contract in 2023 due to finishing outside the top 22 in points, so that entry’s payout at Indy is decidedly lower than a LC entry like Grosjean’s. His No. 41 is the renumbered No. 55 Benjamin Petersen drove to last place in the entrants’ standings — 27th of the 27 full-timers.
Q: I can’t remember so many engine failures in the Indy 500 for quite a while (except for grenading Buicks). It doesn’t seem like any of these failures were team- or driver-related, so will the teams earn grid penalties for this? Does Honda have any explanations for so many failures? I know that Chevy had their issues during high boost runs, but Honda basically got their rear-end handed to them this year.
D Thomas, Tell City, IN
MP: In IndyCar’s latest, but somewhat longstanding engine penalty structure, it’s the driver who pays the price for failures. No, Honda hasn’t explained what’s caused all of the failures; most manufacturers, across every global racing series, do not, so that isn’t a surprise to me.
Not one of the failures in May for Chevy or Honda, to my knowledge, were due to the driver or team.
Q: Timeline, 2026. In his first year in Formula 1, Kyle Larson says he won’t race at Monaco so he can run and win Indy for the second time.
All kidding aside, what can’t he do?
Steve
MP: Dunking a basketball is about all I can come up with.
Q: I was listening to Rossi’s radio at Indy and they told him to pit with Pato and Dixon on the second to last pit sequence. He saw Newgarden and McLaughlin stay out, so he ignored them and stayed out. He was then saving fuel while Pato and Dixon were full rich. If he had listened to them and pitted, does he win or at least finish in the top two? Would have loved to have seen his fast car not saving fuel for the last sequence.
Luke Entrup
MP: Rossi sure looked like he had something to work with if he was able to attack. At the same time, I think Newgarden’s car was just that tiny bit better. We’re only 51 weeks away from seeing if he can become a two-timer.
Q: During the 500 victory banquet one of the speakers said that Josef’s car was brand-new and just delivered to the team a few days before the race. How much of the car can be changed between qualifying and the race? Second, I thought teams spent most of the year working to make the bodywork as smooth as possible. I would assume that there’s some variability to all of the car parts, so how much of the car was really delivered just a few days before the race? And how does a car get delivered to a team? Does it look like a car, or is it a bunch of parts that need to be put together?
Ed
MP: I was on a flight home when the banquet was happening so I don’t know what was said, but I’d assume they were referring to “before the race” as in before the race meeting started, not three days before the green flag. There would be no reason to replace the car he used to qualify third, obviously.
Q: What are the gear ratios teams are using for fifth and sixth gear at Indianapolis? I’ve always been curious to know just how close they are when watching qualifying, as there’s an obvious jump in top speed between third, fourth and fifth on the warmup laps, but the choice between fifth and sixth during the four-lap run seems like it takes a team of eagle-eyed engineers watching telemetry or a first-person vantage point from the cockpit. Are teams restricted to using specific gearing, or if there are options, how big is the set? And how do the exact gear ratios compare at Indy versus the other ovals and road/street courses?
Always love when you dive into the mechanical side of things in the Mailbag — feel free to over-inform!
Pete, Rochester, NY
MP: A classic “how long is a piece of string” question, Pete. There’s no single answer to offer as teams have plenty of ratio options to choose from and they’ll change those ratios based on ambient conditions. Gears are being changed once or more per day, at minimum, as teams try different downforce packages, engine settings — high boost and low boost — and so on.
Teams have software to tell them which ratios will produce which top speeds based on the car’s setup, and with ambient factors included. Depending on the conditions, the top few gears could be separated by just a few hundred RPM or more, if there’s a concern of greater drop offs in speed. You’ll see bigger splits in the gears at most other tracks; Indy is the only place where you’ll edge towards something in the region of 1:1 ratio in top gear.
Q: Were temporary airport circuits like Edmonton, Cleveland and currently Berlin-Tempelhof less expensive to set up than street circuits? Compared to the concrete canyon street circuits that became ubiquitous during the 1980s, airport circuits provide much better views for spectators in the grandstands. Many cities have airports in their immediate vicinity that are already abandoned or sparingly used for aviation purposes, and would seem to be possible sites for less claustrophobic temporary tracks that avoid the need to close downtown city streets. Why aren’t there more of them?
Keith Baxter, Toronto, ON
MP: Cheaper, yes, but not cheap. More airport tracks — all it takes is for motivated promoters to propose them, and if it would benefit the series, I’m sure it might happen again. But it all starts with someone trying to create the event.
Q: I’ve quit going to races a good half dozen times now. Between weather, red flags, Southwest middle seats, etc., it wears me out. But, just like Al Pacino, “they pull me back in.” I’ve booked me travel on points (refundable) and waiting till last minute to GA a ticket to Gateway. What’s the odds of a sell-out? How early should I get to the track for a decent seat? Will you be around to share some dark beers in the hotel/airport bar?
Shawn, MD
MP: Gateway hasn’t had an IndyCar sellout in a while, so you should be safe. There was no date clash last year so I could go to Gateway, but that clash is back this year with the big Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion historic event, so I’ll be with my favorite cars of yesteryear instead of my favorite IndyCars of yesteryear… and today.