Q: A few weeks ago, I came across an old podcast of yours from early 2019 in which you talked about the ‘upcoming’ aeroscreen with Tino Belli, Dario Franchitti and… Christian Horner. Yes, the Christian Horner, since Red Bull Advanced Technology originally designed it. It got me thinking: With Red Bull getting bigger and bigger in motorsport and having now stepped into IndyCar with the Aeroscreen, wouldn’t the next logical move for it be to put together (or purchase, like McLaren) an IndyCar team?
Back in the early 2000s, it used to have its logo all over Eddie Cheever, Tomas Scheckter and Buddy Rice’s cars (although just as a sponsor). Fast-forward 20 years later, Red Bull has now won several F1 titles (both driver and constructor) and is pretty much driving around the rest of the field. So, I’m assuming it would definitely have the power and the money to do this in the near future, especially with the F1 budget cap which has decreased by another few millions this year. And then, the logical move after that could be to add an Indy NXT team to it as well.
Obviously, I’m not in Mr. Horner’s head so I don’t know whether or not that makes sense for him. But I just thought it would be a nice addition to Red Bull’s motorsport program and a cool alternative route for the youngsters from the Junior Team. What do you think?
Xavier
MP: I love the idea, no doubt. Just hard to justify it from a marketing standpoint, unless Red Bull feels it’s missing out on connecting with 60-year-old males, because that’s IndyCar’s main demographic. It made more sense 20 years ago with Eddie Cheever’s team, and the NASCAR team IndyCar president Jay Frye ran, but that was during a time when energy drinks were still somewhat new to the market and there was lots of competition among buyers.
Twenty years later, Red Bull is everywhere, and thought of like Kleenex is to tissue paper and Band-Aid is to bandages; its name alone equates to the industry is leads, so spending money for a team in North America’s second most popular racing series would be damn near impossible to get past the marketing department.
I do, however, like the concept of funding a development seat for any of its drivers who’ve graduated F2 and could use more seasoning before they’re considered for AlphaTauri or the big team.
Q: There were recent rumors that Jack Harvey’s ride could be in jeopardy as soon as for the Indy 500 if results do not improve. Harvey has continued to be at the bottom end of the grid in pace, and at the bottom of the three RLL drivers. Is Harvey’s ride safe for the 500? Should Harvey be relieved of his duties? Which qualified drivers are left to run the car at Indy? Hildebrand, Kimball, Ed Jones, Karam? None of those are recent Honda drivers.
Jason Jennings, Batesville, IN
MP: I wrote in our preseason primers that if Jack got off to another bad start, his seat could be in jeopardy by the time we reach Indy, and sadly, he’s in the midst of a terrible opening to his sophomore season with RLL. Word on the street is jettisoning Jack would cost at least $1 million with some form of early termination clause, so that might be a financial deterrent. Jack tends to be pretty good on ovals, so I do wonder if the team would want to thrust itself into turmoil heading into its biggest race. Based on how they ran at the Indy Open Test, RLL has a lot of work to do to turn things around for all four cars; Harvey wasn’t the issue.
Two main takeaways here: Whatever worked for Jack at Meyer Shank Racing hasn’t worked at RLL — on either side — and it’s hard to ignore how from 2017-2021, he earned 10 top 10s for MSR through 49 races. Since moving to RLL in 2022? A single top 10 from 20 races. The other takeaway is RLL’s greatest issue, which is the ongoing engineering anomaly where everyone but Christian Lundgaard and his race engineer Ben Siegel tend to find themselves rolling off the trailer with missing speed.
Funnily enough, all it will take is a good Indy GP, where RLL’s cars tend to be pretty good — and Jack has recorded some amazing drives — for all in their world to be right. But yes, if Jack’s fortunes don’t improve by the time we leave May, I’d think some fresh talent might be tried in the No. 30 Honda as an evaluation for 2024. RLL spent a good portion of 2021 trying out different drivers, so it’s not an unfamiliar in-season process for them. Linus Lundqvist and Juri Vips have seats in hand and are ready to drive.
Q: I wanted to give Steve from the April 26th Mailbag a little more information about the pace car crash in Turn 1 at Long Beach. I was flagging at Turns 2&3 that weekend but knew a few of the people at Turn 1, and happened to be there for part of the incident. We never heard anything official, but were also under the opinion that something failed on the car and the driver turned it the way he did to a) scrub speed before impact and b) hit with the drivers’ side to lessen the impact to the passenger.
I’ve been flagging Long Beach since 2008, and it is not uncommon for incidents to occur during the VIP rides. In fact in 2008, one of the sedan pace cars hit the tires at T6 and did a slow roll (everyone was fine). And it isn’t just Long Beach: the first Nashville GP, Mario hit the wall in my turn with the two-seater during one of the VIP sessions and they had to tow the car. While it still doesn’t happen often, it probably happens more than fans realize. That’s why the corner marshals are usually on station for these sessions – just in case. My dad has a great story about a certain Ferrari F1 car that broke in half in his turn at Laguna during some lunch-time hot laps…
Anonymous Marshal
MP: Thanks for the intel.
Q: Just wondering why Andretti didn’t change half its team’s strategy to cover Team Penske at Barber?
Gary Stover, Bellefonte, PA
MP: Because it wasn’t clear it would be the right strategy at the time of the caution. If there’d been a second caution on Grosjean’s final stint, he’s likely able to go flat out to the finish and fend off McLaughlin. Also, the same question could be asked of every two-stop team.