Q: When will the 2024 IndyCar schedule be released?
Eric
MP: The 2023 schedule was released at the end of September. I’d anticipate a similar late-to-end-of-season timing.
Q: I am a researcher and lecturer in sociology in the UK who is also a lifelong motorsport obsessive — a vanishingly small overlap on the Venn diagram of professions and interests — with a particular interest in what is considered to be “legitimate” within society; be it actions, ideologies or questions to motorsport journalists. Naturally this professional curiosity has merged into my passion for racing, leading me to contemplate over the past few weeks what makes someone or something “legitimate” within racing?
Initially I thought, given the ruthless competitive nature of motorsport it was all just about performance and winning — which it kind of is I guess. For if you win, that approach is legitimate.
However, I think this is too simple, for drives, teams or machines can win through ways which are either tinged with illegitimacy, such as rain-shortened races or lucky caution breaks, or can be deemed completely illegitimate by swathes of fans and other competitors — such as Shank’s win at Daytona this year (the less said about Abu Dhabi 2021 the better). If performance alone is the marker of legitimacy then Carlos Huertas would be considered to be a more legitimate IndyCar driver than, say Callum Illot or Romain Grosjean, by virtue of his win at a soggy Huston in 2014.
My working concept of legitimacy within motorsport revolves around the promise of performance, and then delivering upon it. This way a driver who takes a struggling team or car higher up the grid than would be reasonably expected, like Christian Lundgaard at Barber, is just as legitimate as a driver than those who win regularly or extract the maximum from superior machinery — i.e. the Dixons and Newgardens of this world — because there is an expectation of what would be a “good” performance and a result to judge it by.
In short, I’m curious to see what you think makes a driver, team or car/technology legitimate within racing and what you think constitutes legitimacy within the paddock itself? If any of my fellow readers have any thoughts on this I’d like to see what you think too.
On another note, I’ve written this on May 10th, before a wheel has turned at the Speedway and am declaring that it is going to be Scott Dixon drinking the milk. I also feel that Grosjean will break his duck at the GP.
Will, Cambridge, UK
MP: Consistency is a great legitimizer, Will. It makes Grumpy Cat’s (ED: Carlos Huertas, for the uninitiated) lone win — in a rain-affected timed race at Houston — something that is all but forgotten; there was no follow-up win, much less a podium at a race where there were no caveats.
It’s the thing that’s plagued Alexander Rossi in recent years. He won a bunch during those first few years, was expected to be up front wherever we went, and then that stopped happening and all the heat and fear he brought was diminished. I’m not saying he was solely responsible for all the unremarkable results, but when you go from being a beast to less than a beast while driving for the same team, the paddock tends to place the blame on the driver. It’s here where being a consistent threat placed Rossi on a pedestal, and once he became a less-consistent threat, the paddock’s view changed. You can apply the same thing to a team. RLL comes to mind in recent years, along with Andretti.
Grosjean certainly wanted to break things at the GP.
Q: The question and your answer about Jamie Chadwick in the last Mailbag got me wondering why Indy cars don’t have power steering like F1 cars? I would be excited see a woman winning in IndyCar. It would increase media coverage and the fanbase more than anything else that I can think of, and I’m Trenton, Langhorne, and Robin Miller old. See you at the track in two weeks.
Pete, Tucson, AZ
MP: They’ve never been designed to have power steering. There are some IndyCar drivers who would welcome power steering, but most I’ve spoken with like the fact that they are the hardest to drive and not everybody is capable of rising to the physical challenge. I think of all the hours professional basketball and football players spend in the gym to transform their bodies to excel in their sport. IndyCar is no different. See you soon!
Q: Now that Miami has a world-class racing facility that is likely to go unused for most of the year, what prevents IndyCar from running a race there? Is there some sort of exclusivity clause in place in the F1 contract? Maybe IndyCar could run there in late February or early March, well ahead of F1 but away from any football scheduling. It seems like the kind of place the series would love to use, but then again it dumped COTA, so….
John Card, Visalia, CA
MP: The part where the stadium and track owner is engaged in a long-term contract with F1 is the first reason that comes to mind. The other one is how we did that at COTA and had about three percent of the audience that showed up for F1, so unless there’s a reason for IndyCar to look weak, unloved, and unimportant in Miami, it’s probably not a good idea to try and race there.
Q: How is it decided who will have in car cameras for each race? It seems to be decided before the weekend starts, because whoever is chosen seems to have a camera for the whole weekend.
Do teams pay to have them? Or does NBC choose?
Craig
MP: Chosen by NBC and/or paid for by a team/sponsor if they want one for a specific race.
Q: Every off-season we seem to hear the same story about a certain team in one form or another. New engineers! New crew members added, all well respected in the paddock! New driver, or drivers hired, hungry for glory or redemption! Hope springs eternal, optimism abounds and this is the year for a return to relevance!
I’m speaking of A.J. Foyt Racing. I’ve attended 51 500s and have seen two of AJ’s wins. My son’s initials are A.J. His son’s initials are A.J. Watching the fall to irrelevance has been painful, but the last couple seasons have been numbing.
In your opinion, why can’t they improve? What is holding them back? Is there any road that can lead them to being something other than a backmarker? I mean, Pederson has to pull in at the drop of the green to fix a radio? Never heard what happened to Santino in the pits to lose him five laps. Every week it’s something new. It’s just so sad to see the 14 “Started 26th, finished 25th” every week. The kid, like him or not, is quick. Give him a car with some speed and reliability and he has the ability to work it into the top 20 consistently, maybe get lucky and grab some top 15s It would be nice to see the 14 return to being competitive for A.J.; he ain’t getting any younger.
Dave, Nashville
MP: Truth is, the team does a good job of making itself look bigger than it is. They’ve been in seriously dire financial straights for a while now, and that always conspires against finding success. They are more talented than they’ve been in a while on the team and engineering side, but executing at a high level is the real mark of quality and that’s not a place the team visits on a frequent basis. Let’s hope they have speed on the big oval and the unsightly stuff from the previous races is forgotten.