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IndyCar

Indy 500: Honda Ruins The Fernando Alonso Party

When Fernando Alonso decided to race in the Indy 500 this year, he singlehandedly bridged the yawning chasm that exists between IndyCar and Formula One. Previously, the relationship between the two sports could best be described as a festering wound.

Alonso Changes The Subject

Tony George built a road course inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway so Formula One would have a place to call home in America, but the Europeans were never comfortable there. The drivers dissed the circuit, describing it as “Mickey Mouse.” Bernie Ecclestone called Indianapolis a “cow town.” As soon as the original contract expired, Formula walked away and never looked back.

Alonso changed all that. He created a level of excitement that ignite passion in all motor racing fans. During the broadcast, the announcers focused on Alonso and where he was in the field. Alonso was the featured story leading up to the race and during most of it, until his engine failed late in the race.

Honda Disappoints

Honda, it seems, has lost the plot. Its Formula One engine program is in shambles. Jenson Button, who took Alonso’s seat in the McLaren Honda at Monaco, qualified well but started from the pit lane, thanks to a 15 spot grid penalty after yet another blown Honda engine forced the team to change the power unit. At Indy, the #2 story all month leading up to race day was how many Honda engines failed in practice and in qualifying.

Alonso barely got to the starting line for the second day of qualifying after his Honda engine puked up its guts. The mechanics did a spectacular job of swapping in a fresh engine in just 90 minutes, but it was an ominous sign. During the race itself, three Honda powered race cars suffered engine failure, including former Indy 500 winners Ryan Hunter-Reay. The engine in the back of Alonso’s car went up in smoke near the end of the race when things were just starting to get interesting.

Manufacturers build race engines to burnish their reputation for power and reliability. That’s how motor racing began and it is no less true today. Honda, quite frankly, is now an international embarrassment. Its reputation, so carefully crafted over decades, is in danger of being destroyed. It should either figure out how to build engines that don’t turn into expensive junk or quit while it still has a shred of dignity left. Yes, Hachigō-san, we are talking to you. Honda is losing face around the world due to its failed race engine program. Time to step up or step away.

The Indy 500 Follows The Script

The race itself was predictable in that the eventual winner was unpredictable. Here is my personal take on the racing. I have not watched an Indy 500 race live in 30 years. The racing is too much like NASCAR for my tastes. Too many caution flags. Too many laps behind the pace car. The racing, when there is any, is fascinating, though — a chess game played at 220 miles per hour. Pit strategy is critical, as is the ability to restart successfully once the green flag waves. Alonso actually lead quite a few laps under green, but got shuffled backward during the multiple race restarts.

This year’s race had one scarifying moment. Polesitter Scott Dixon was collected by another car after it spun and went flying upside down and backwards into a barrier. It’s the kind of thing no racer could have walked away from alive just 10 years ago, but the incredible safety improvements made to the cars and the barriers around the track meant Dixon not only survived, he was walking around giving interviews just a 10 minutes later.

That is awesome news, but the broadcasters continued to replay the incident all throughout the rest of the race. Fans and sporting officials may claim no one wants to see wrecks during the racing, but whoever was in charge of replays obviously sees it differently. Advertisers apparently love them. NASCAR also focuses on wrecks, replaying them endlessly during the race and in promotions for upcoming events. Clearly, that’s what fans want to see, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

Sato Takes The Checkered Flag

In the end, Takuma Sato, a former Formula One driver whose nickname was “Crash,” forced his way to the front thanks to some forceful driving and luck. He became the first Japanese driver to win at Indianapolis. Last year’s winner, Alexander Rossi, drove in Formula One for a year before getting the boot from his team. Ex-F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya was in the field.

“I’ll Be Back.”

Alonso said after the race that he would definitely like to race at Indy again but denied he intends to switch to the series full time. “Obviously, if I come back here, at least I know how everything is. It will not be the first time I do restarts, pitstops, all these kinds of things. So it will be an easier, let’s say, adaptation. Let’s see what happens in the following years. I need to keep pursuing this challenge, because winning the Indy 500 is not completed.”

“I’m obviously disappointed not to finish the race because every race you compete, you want to be at the chequered flag,” he added. “Today it was not possible. It was a great experience, the last two weeks. I came here to prove myself, to challenge myself. I know that I can be as quick as anyone in an F1 car, I didn’t know if I can be as quick as anyone in an IndyCar. It was nice to have this competitive feeling, leading the Indy 500.”

“With a trouble-free race, Ryan [Hunter-Reay], Alexander [Rossi] and myself would be half a lap in front of everyone,” he said. “That is the nature of this race. Even with some unlucky moments of yellow flags, we were in the mix. I think I had a little bit in the pocket before the engine blew up.”

A Win For Race Fans Everywhere

It must have been a delight for Alonso to be in a competitive race car again after spending the last 2 years in the underpowered, unreliable McLaren. Now if he could just find a ride in a race car that isn’t powered by a Honda engine, his once illustrious career could get going again. One thing he showed by competing at Indianapolis, he still knows the fast way around a race track, no matter what car he is driving.

Fernando Alonso was definitely the number one story at this year’s Indy 500. His participation has sparked a resurgence in fan interest in open wheel racing not only in America but around the world. Along with all the other feats he has accomplished behind the wheel, he has become an international goodwill ambassador for motor sports.

Photo credit: Motorsport.com

May 29, 2017 7 comments

Fernando Alonso: Why I Am Driving The Indy 500

written by Steve Hanley

Excitement is building in the world of motor racing as Memorial Day approaches. That’s the weekend when both Monaco and Indianapolis will hold their annual races, both of which draw huge interest from the motorsports community. This year, Formula One driver and two time world champion Fernando Alonso is passing up the race in Monaco to drive in the Indy 500, a move that has excited fans of both sports.

Alonso’s Career Has Ups And Downs

Alonso, now 35, is approaching the age when staying at the top level of competition gets increasingly difficult. Long considered one of the world’s top racing drivers, his career has languished during the past decade as he repeatedly found himself driving for noncompetitive teams. Every Formula One driver dreams of racing for Ferrari but Alonso’s time came after the departure of Michael Schumacher and the brain trust of Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne, and Jean Todt that made Ferrari the most dominant team in Formula One racing for many years.

Sebastien Vettel and Red Bull than surged to the forefront of the sport for four years before Mercedes took over as the team to beat starting in 2015. That’s the year Fernando decided to leave Ferrari and rejoin McLaren. It was also the year McLaren decided to renew its relationship with Honda, a move that has proved disastrous for McLaren, Honda, and Alonso.

May 20, 2017 4 comments

Interactive 3D View Of The IndyCar Racer Fernando Alonso Will Drive At Indianapolis

written by Steve Hanley

When Formula One driver and double world champion Fernando Alonso announced last month that he would skip the Monaco grand prix to drive in the Indianapolis 500, it ignited a storm of interest from racing fans around the world. “Fernando Alonso” and “Indianapolis” have surged to the top of Google’s search analytics. At the request of Motorsport.com, Sketchfab created this awesome 3D interactive model of the car Alonso will drive at the Brickyard. Click on the image to rotate the model in three dimensions while learning about the chassis, the engine, the gearbox, and other details of the car.

Mclaren Honda Andretti by Motorsport.tv on Sketchfab

Fernando Alonso Is Realistic About His Chances

Alonso is realistic about his chances in the famed Indianapolis 500. “I think I have a lower percentage than some of my opponents do,” he said after the Spanish grand prix in Barcelona last weekend. “I don’t have the experience of oval racing, I don’t have experience of fighting in traffic or last lap techniques or the little tricks. But, at the same time, the level of sophistication we have in F1 is higher than IndyCar.

“So together with McLaren, we will go there with some people, a group of engineers, helping Andretti’s team and maybe thanks to this different approach, the more scientific approach, I will have something extra. I have a lower [chance of winning], but it is true that it is a race that anyone can win. There is a luck factor, yellow flags, and safety cars. But even if it is 1 per cent better, it is worth trying.”

Formula One Technology May Give Alonso A Boost

What sorts of things is Fernando Alonso bringing with him from the world of Formula One? It started with passing the rookie driving test. “I told the engineers to put me a reference lap from last year [on the steering wheel] that was 210 mph,” he says. “So for the first phase I tried to be two or three tenths slower than that reference lap. In the next I tried to be two or three tenths quicker than that reference lap, and then I tried to be around one second quicker than that reference lap.”

Formula One and Indianapolis have had a long and often hostile relationship. In 1965, British Formula One driver Jim Clark drove a rear engine Lotus to victory in field dominated by much larger and more powerful front engine cars and changed racing at Indianapolis forever. Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone once dismissed Indianapolis as a “cow town.” Michael Andretti, who heads the highly successful Andretti Racing operation today, once drove for McLaren, the team Alonso drives for today.

The high banked curves at either end of the Indianapolis oval are vestigial reminders of a bygone era when the conventional wisdom in racing was that it was impossible for a tire to exceed 1 G of lateral loading. At last weekend’s race in Spain, the drivers were subjected to more than 5 Gs of lateral force in several corners.

Today, knowing how to use the banking to increase speed is an essential skill for any oval racer — a skill that Alonso clearly lacks. “Definitely it’s a good test for me to drive there. I will learn many things. In terms of technology and sophistication, F1 is in another level. So most of my chances will be to use that sophistication that we are used to driving with here, implementing there. I need to keep it secret!”

A Lesson For Formula One?

The fuss over Fernando Alonso driving in the Indy 500 should be a huge hint to Formula One. For too long, the sport has emphasized the cars over the drivers. But the fans identify strongly with drivers. New commercial rights holder Liberty Media is taking steps to bring the drivers out of the shadows and make them more accessible to the fans, which is a very smart marketing move.

IndyCar now uses a twin turbocharged V-6 engine. There are rumors that Formula One will transition to a twin turbocharged V-6 engines in 2020. That raises the intriguing possibility that the two racing series could harmonize their rules packages so drivers and teams could compete in both series. Perhaps there could even be a real world championship series at the end of each season.? I know….too much to hope for. All motor racing formats are struggling to keep fan interest in a world crammed with digital entertainment options. More competition between the two series would be good for both.

Source: Motorsport.com

May 15, 2017 0 comment

Fernando Alonso Will Skip Monaco To Race In Indianapolis 500

written by Steve Hanley

Remember when racing drivers used to compete in many racing series? Formula One driver Jim Clark drove a Lotus 38 to victory at the Indy 500 in 1965 and changed the racing world forever. Overnight, the front engine beasts that had dominated Indianapolis Motor Speedway for decades were swept into history’s dust bin and the era of rear engine race cars began. Clark was the first non-American driver to win the Indy 500 since 1916. He remains the only driver in history to win the Indy 500 and Formula One World Championship in the same year. Clark actually chose to skip Monaco to compete at Indy.

Now, more than 50 years later, another Formula One driving champion is skipping the Monaco grand prix to race in the Indianapolis 500. Fernando Alonso won the driver’s title in 2005. Since then, he has struggled mightily with uncompetitive cars, first at Ferrari and lately at McLaren.

Now he says will skip this year’s Formula One race in Monaco. Instead, he will drive a sixth car for Andretti Motorsport, the team the won the Indy 500 in 2014 and again last year. According to reports in Racer, Jenson Button will take Alonso’s seat in Monaco. Button is taking a one year sabbatical while he and the team figure out what his role will be going forward, if any.

History Repeats Itself

The are many stormy crosscurrents linking Indianapolis and Formula One. In 2000, Indianapolis speedway head Tony George defied his board of directors to sign a deal with Formula One. A road course connecting parts of the famous high speed oval was added to the infield. More than 300,000 people came the first year but that wasn’t enough to please the muckety mucks of Formula One.

Bernie Ecclestone called Indianapolis a “cow town.” (He had no such complaints about Baku in Azerbaijan, however.) The drivers complained bitterly that the infield section Tony George built was “Mickey Mouse.” Then came 2005. During qualifying, a Michelin rear tire on Ralf Schumacher’s race car exploded at the apex of the last turn — the fastest corner on the track. At the time, Michelin and Bridgestone were engaged in a fierce struggle for supremacy in motor racing.

The decision was made to keep all the Michelin shod cars in the pits while Michael Schumacher took the start in his Ferrari. Only his teammate and 4 other Ferrari powered cars raced that day while angry fans jeered and threw debris on the track. The wounds from that fiasco never healed and the last Formula One race at Indianapolis took place in 2007. Tony George’s expensive bet on a road course within the historic oval track was a costly failure.

The Andrettis and Formula One

There is even more history between the Andrettis and Formula One. Mario Andretti was world champion in 1978 driving for Lotus. His son, Michael, was signed by McLaren to partner with Ayrton Senna in 1993. The season was a disaster for the younger Andretti, who was commuting back and forth from America via the Concorde SST. The team resented his decision not to live in Europe full time. Years later, his son Marco claimed that McLaren boss Ron Dennis sabotaged Michael’s chances with the team.

Now Alonso, another McLaren driver, is about to skip the most glamorous race of the Formula One season to drive for the Andretti team at Indianapolis, the same cow town Formula One spurned a decade ago. Racer says the deal to let Alonso drive in the Indy 500 was brokered between McLaren chief Zak Brown and IndyCar head Mark Miles. It is significant that neither Tony George nor Ron Dennis is still active in motor racing. It also doesn’t hurt that Bernie Ecclestone has finally been put out to pasture.

Will You Be Watching The Indy 500 This Year?

Alonso in an Andretti car at Indy. The ironies are too delicious to ignore. I think I will be watching Indy for the first time in many years just to see if Fernando in a competitive car still has what it takes to carve his way through a grid full of his peers.

Source: Road & Track Photo credit: Wikipedia

April 12, 2017 0 comment

Velocity RPB Concept Should be the Future of F1 (w/ Video)

written by Jo Borrás

Since the deaths of veteran Justin Wilson in IndyCar and the promising young talent Jules Bianchi in Formula 1, open-wheel race car series have been looking at a number of ways to enhance driver safety without ruining the look and feel of their race cars. Formula 1 seems to have chosen the “Halo” concept, for now, but did they rush to that decision without considering other, better options? One look at the brilliant Velocity RPB closed cockpit racing car concept from Chris Beatty will tell you: Yes. Yes, they did.

“As a fan of high-powered single seater open wheel racing cars I wanted to create a design that removed the heavy reliance on over the (wing-generated downforce) and, instead, focus on mechanical grip with a degree of ground effect generated from the under body,” says Beatty, in his description of the project. “Current top tier racing cars have become so overly refined they’ve lost what a lot of us fell in love with them for in the first place, that interaction between man (or woman) and machine. That perception of taming the beast.”

“A lot of recent race car concept design and speculation has been around taking the current F1 car (or 2017 spec) and re-styling it by shifting around the dimensions and then sticking a load of plastic aero paraphernalia all over the surface combined with other gimmicks that tick all the ‘futuristic look’ boxes,” continues Beatty. “To me, this is just a development exercise of what already exists, and does not provide a significant change in design philosophy. I wanted to produce a car that would be a game changer both visually and in the way it interacts with the driver and the race track. At the same time, I also wanted it to look like it could conceivably roll out of a Silverstone garage on a cold spring morning for an initial shakedown test within the next two years.”

If you ask me (you didn’t), Beatty has absolutely nailed it. His Velocity RPB concept is absolutely the kind of race car I’d like to spend my hard-earned money to watch tear up a track on race day.

Is the Velocity RPM perfect? No. I’d like to see a front wing, albeit a simple one. I’d like to see a bit more height on the rollover bar to give it a bit more Jordan 191. Beyond that, though? I mean- wow.

Velocity RPB Enclosed Cockpit Formula Car Concept

Source | Images: behance.net.

November 2, 2016 5 comments

IndyCar Will Debut New Bodywork And Aero Package In 2018

written by Steve Hanley

IndyCar is different from Formula One in one particular aspect. All the cars are built by Dallara and all the bodywork is manufactured to specifications dictated by the racing series. In Formula One, each team builds their own chassis and designs its own bodywork. In Formula One, the car with the best aerodynamic package leads from start to finish. Often, the race winner can be predicted weeks or even months in advance. The IndyCar approach makes for exciting racing with multiple lead changes from beginning to end. It also makes the cost of fielding a competitive race team a fraction of what Formula One teams spend.

IndyCar bodywork will look to earlier time

IndyCar wants to revive the look of the cars pf the CART and Champ Car era

IndyCar does have different aero packages for road courses and oval tracks, but the basic look of the cars has been the same since 1997. The first major change in bodywork since then will debut at the start of the 2018 racing season. The new design will be used for a minimum of three seasons. Underneath will be the same proven Dallara DW12 chassis and the teams will still have a choice of 2.2 liter V-6 twin turbo engines supplied by either Honda or Chevrolet.

Spurred on by IndyCar president of competition Jay Frye, new body work designed by head of aerodynamic development Tino Belli will mark a complete departure from the look of the cars for the past two decades. Gone is the air intake over the driver’s head. Air for the engines will now be supplied by two air intakes integrated into the sidepods. “The whole [overhead] airbox thing is really left over from a normally aspirated engine, which we had had for so long,” Belli says.

October 28, 2016 1 comment

What’s the Difference Between F1, IndyCar, Formula E, and WRC?

written by Jo Borrás

How are the cars from Formula 1 and IndyCar different? How are they the same? How do they compare to the all-electric Formula E racers and how do those stack up to GP2 cars, IndyLights, or even championship go-karts? If you’ve ever had thoughts like that, the massive data-dump from Reddit user and racing enthusiast “mrwunwun”, above, should just about make your day.

We last spoke about the differences between Formula 1 and IndyCar teams back in May. It was Indy500/Monaco GP time, and Steve Hanley’s article went into detail about the massive difference in the teams’ budgets and investments in aerodynamic development. Even so, the article took some heat in the comments for being more talk, less tech.

Thanks to the massive amount of data up there in the spreadsheet? This article will, hopefully, be able to avoid similar claims of wordiness. INB4 someone says we didn’t write “enough” this time.

Source | Image: Reddit user MrWunWun.

October 18, 2016 0 comment

The Difference Between IndyCar And Formula 1: Money, Lots Of It!

written by Steve Hanley

As they do every year, both IndyCar and Formula One are having their premier races of the year this weekend. IndyCar is in Indianapolis, where it all began in 1911. Formula One is on the streets of Monaco, which hosted its first race in 1929. Both series feature open wheel, open cockpit race cars. So what’s the difference?

Differences Between F1 and Indy

Both use V-6 internal combustion engines. IndyCar engines are 2.2 liter units that run on E85 ethanol. In contrast, the 1.6 liter Formula One’s advanced hybrid power units engines run on unleaded fuel blends based on the chemicals found in pump gas.

IndyCars have a top speed of 240 mph in race ad qualifying trim. Formula One cars top can out at about 225 mph, but rarely see speeds above 200 mph.

A Formula One car can sprint to 60 mph is a shade over 2 seconds. An IndyCar needs 3 seconds. The IndyCar weighs 1545 pounds. A Formula One car is a little lighter at 1415 pounds.

Here’s the most crucial difference, though: Money.

An IndyCar complete with chassis, engine, transmission, brakes, and tires costs about $3,000,000. A top tier Formula One car can cost as much as 50 times more. Formula One teams never disclose their actual costs, but numbers north of $200,000,000 have been bandied about in the sport for years.

If that surprises you, what should be even more surprising is that the teams have been complaining loud and long about how expensive Formula One is for decades. The teams are now forbidden to test their cars more than a few days a year to cut costs. Time spent in the wind tunnel is severely restricted to cut costs. And yet costs go up and up and up every year.

What makes a Formula One car so expensive? IndyCar uses parts that are basically off the shelf components — you can get your engine from either Honda or Chevrolet. The chassis are all made by Dallara and are all the same.

There are different aerodynamic packages for different tracks — low downforce for places like Indianapolis where top speed is critical, high downforce for road courses. But they are the same for everybody. For IndyCar, the emphasis is on the drivers, not the cars.

Formula One is just the opposite. It is all about the cars. From the team’s perspective, drivers are just components to be rented. The one item that drives up costs more than anything is aerodynamics. Formula One cars are basically inverted airplanes.

The shape of the car is designed to suck the car down onto the track surface. At top speed, as much as 5,000 lbs of downforce can be added to the cars. It is often said that if you could get a Formula One car upside down in a tunnel at speed, it would stick to the ceiling.

Teams spend cubic dollars to improve aerodynamic downforce. Since their time in wind tunnels is restricted by the rules, they use computational flow dynamics software to simulate real world testing. Each team chews through petabytes of data every year looking for any advantage that might make their car a tenth of a second per lap faster on track.

Three years ago, Formula One elected to “green” its public image. Even though it puts millions of pounds of carbon emissions into the atmosphere each year flying to races around the world — each team brings up to 600 tons of equipment to each race, including elaborate mobile hospitality suites for sponsors and local muckety mucks — the decision was made to adopt an all new hybrid powertrain to fool the public into thinking the sport is actually concerned about global warming.

The engines are good for about 750 horsepower. Another 150 horsepower or so comes from an electric motor powered by a battery, regenerative braking, and a device that makes electricity from the heat of the engine. The combination requires insanely complex computer software to manage the whole process. Now in its third season, the new powertrain is rumored to have cost Mercedes Benz a half billion dollars to develop. So much for saving money!

So what’s behind the difference between IndyCar and Formula One?

There is a megalomaniacal focus on the car, the car, the car in F1. Often, the attitude of race organizers seems to be “the fans be damned!”, and it shows. Formula One viewer ratings have been plummeting in recent years, but the sport continues its single minded march to oblivion, leaving dollar bills swirling in its wake.

So, a Formula 1 car costs 50 times more than an IndyCar. Is the racing 50 times better because of it? In my opinion: No, it is not. Not by a long shot.

Image Source: Jalopnik. Editorial comments by Steve Hanley.

May 28, 2016 26 comments

IndyCar 2016: St. Petersburg Results – FINAL

written by Jo Borrás

It was a bad day in St. Petersburg for a lot of fantasy racing players as pole-sitter and heavy favorite Will Power was forced to sit out the Grand Prix due to a concussion, leaving Oriol Servia to drive the number 12 Penske car in the inaugural race of the 2016 IndyCar season. Even if he hadn’t fallen ill, however, it wouldn’t have mattered- because Juan Pablo Montoya delivered a master class in racing to take the win.

Juan Pablo Montoya Wins in St. Pete

Juan Pablo Montoya - IndyCar St. Petersburg Results

“I feel like we can get a lot of wins this year,” said Montoya, a two-time Indy 500 winner who lost the 2015 Drivers’ Championship to Scott Dixon on a technicality. “It’s nice to start the year with a win. To be honest with you, when you’re in Team Penske, there’s always that pressure that you got to win races. You have to win. You’re in the best car, you got to win races.”

Talk like that from a driver like Montoya must be pretty intimidating to his rivals. Perhaps even more so to his teammates, and fellow Penske drivers will have to come to terms with the fact that Montoya was driving faster than they were in a car with only three brakes (one of the rears reportedly went “cold” in the middle of the race) and a steering problem. “The steering dropped to the left,” said Montoya, after the race. “Every time I braked, I went straight. Something broke there, but that’s okay.”

“That’s OK,” is probably the most terrifying thing Montoya’s rivals will hear all month. “You look at my last three laps, I took it easy. I used the ‘push to pass’ to make up some time because I had like seven left with three laps to go. Just abuse it on the straight.”

That’s right, kids. Montoya had seven “push to pass” runs in his back pocket- you know, in case Pagenaud got close enough to make a run on him.

Further back, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato put in solid performances for the Honda teams that were overshadowed in qualifying. “It’s always physical here. This is one of those tracks that really takes it out of you,” said Hunter-Reay. “This is a good way to start the season. We got everything out of the car today. It was really nice to get by Helio at the end for the podium. That was a small, tiny little victory for us.”

Surprise of the Race: Conor Daly

Another bright spot for Honda was the surprising brilliance of rookie driver Conor Daly, who led a full 15 laps of today’s race in an under-funded Dale Coyne Honda that, frankly, nothing much was expected of. “It was nice to be up there. We got the Coyne strategy going,” said Daly. “The car was fantastic on (Firestone red tires), and I just kept learning the whole race … to follow Montoya? You don’t get a much better instructor than that.”

You can check out the rest of the official results of the 2016 IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, below, then let us know what you thought of the action in today’s race in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

INDYCAR 2016: ST. PETERSBURG RESULTS – FINAL
Car No.	Driver	Engine	Grid Pos.
2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Chevrolet	1
22	Simon Pagenaud	Chevrolet	2
28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Honda	3
3	Helio Castroneves	Chevrolet	4
7	Mikhail Aleshin	Honda	5
14	Takuma Sato	Honda	6
9	Scott Dixon	Chevrolet	7
26	Carlos Munoz	Honda	8
10	Tony Kanaan	Chevrolet	9
83	Charlie Kimball	Chevrolet	10
41	Jack Hawksworth	Honda	11
98	Alexander Rossi ®	Honda	12
18	Conor Daly ®	Honda	13
16	Spencer Pigot ®	Honda	14
27	Marco Andretti	Honda	15
15	Graham Rahal	Honda	16
8	Max Chilton ®	Chevrolet	17
12	Oriol Servia	Chevrolet	18
5	James Hinchliffe	Honda	19
19	Luca Filippi	Honda	20
11	Sebastien Bourdais	Chevrolet	DNF
21	Josef Newgarden	Chevrolet	DNF

Sources | Images: IndyCar, Tampa Bay Times.

March 13, 2016 1 comment

IndyCar 2016: St. Petersburg Qualifying – RESULTS

written by Jo Borrás

Penske racing driver and 2014 IndyCar series champion Will Power put a stamp of authority on his 2016 campaign earlier today by recovering from an early morning shunt in practice and a stomach bug to score a record sixth St. Pete pole. It was a powerful statement from the Australian driver- but the biggest statement of all was made by the rest of his team Penske teammates.

Together, the four Penske drivers laid down the law and let the rest of the field know that the 2016 title was theirs to lose by taking tho top. Four. Spots.

That’s right, kids. The Penske Chevy drivers put their ethanol-fueled IndyCars in P1, P2, P3, and P4, each of them breaking the previous one-lap record time along the way. “What a great run today for the Verizon (Penske) Chevy team,” said Power. “It’s an awesome feeling to be able to put the new-look Verizon car on pole again here at St. Pete.”

As bad as the news of Penske’s dominance might have been for the rest of the field, there was more bad news to come for the Honda teams that normally do well here, as the 5th spot was taken by 2015 series Champion Scott Dixon … in another Chevy-powered race car. “Good to see Chevy (sweep) the top five,” said Dixon, who has three second-place finishes in St. Pete. “Sad to see the first four being Penskes. That’s the way it is.”

You can see the rest of the season-opening qualifying results for the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, below, and catch the race tomorrow at 12:30 PM EST on ABC.

INDYCAR 2016: ST. PETERSBURG QUALIFYING – RESULTS
Car No.	Driver	Engine	Grid Pos.
1	Will Power	Chevrolet	1
22	Simon Pagenaud	Chevrolet	2
3	Helio Castroneves	Chevrolet	3
2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Chevrolet	4
9	Scott Dixon	Chevrolet	5
28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Honda	6
15	Graham Rahal	Honda	7
11	Sebastien Bourdais	Chevrolet	8
5	James Hinchliffe	Honda	9
41	Jack Hawksworth	Honda	10
14	Takuma Sato	Honda	11
21	Josef Newgarden	Chevrolet	12
26	Carlos Munoz	Honda	13
83	Charlie Kimball	Chevrolet	14
27	Marco Andretti	Honda	15
19	Luca Filippi	Honda	16
8	Max Chilton ®	Chevrolet	17
7	Mikail Aleshin	Honda	18
98	Alexander Rossi ®	Honda	19
10	Tony Kanaan	Chevrolet	20
18	Conor Daly	Honda	21
16	Spencer Pigot ®	Honda	22

Source | Images: Indycar.

March 12, 2016 0 comment

IndyCar 2015 Season Schedule Released

written by Jo Borrás

IndyCar has released its 2015 season schedule, announcing two new races in Brazil and New Orleans and, of course, the return of the “Dual in Detroit” which features back-to-back races on the beautiful Belle Isle circuit.

The addition of the race in Brazil takes the series one step closer to its historic heyday. Back then, the CART IndyCar series raced in Australia, South America, and Japan, making it a truly international sport and a genuine rival to Formula 1 that attracted WDCs and, at one point, even tempted Ferrari to jump from F1’s ship.

Could Formula 1’s recent money troubles– coupled with IndyCar’s renewed emphasis on media-friendly sustainable energy and growing popularity- actually help IndyCar gain back its position as a genuine F1 rival? Check out IndyCar’s official news release, below, then let us know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

INDYCAR Unveils a Diverse, 17-race Schedule for 2015

Two new races and the 99th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race highlight the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series schedule announced today.

The 17-race campaign begins Sunday, March 8, on the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet road course in the Brazil capital of Brasilia and concludes Sunday, Aug. 30, at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., which will mark the first time since Mexico City in 2007 that an Indy car champion will be crowned at a road course. Both races will be televised by NBCSN.

The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg kicks off the North American schedule for the fifth year in a row on Sunday, March 29. “The World’s Fastest Spring Break Party” on the 1.8-mile St. Petersburg (Fla.) street circuit will mark the debut of aerodynamic body kits supplied by Chevrolet and Honda to their respective teams. ABC will televise the race at 3 p.m. (ET).

The most diverse schedule in motorsports includes events on technically challenging road and street courses, short ovals and superspeedways that is sure to deliver another exciting year of competition. In 2014, Will Power of Team Penske earned his first Verizon IndyCar Series championship in a season that featured a record-tying 11 different race winners. The Verizon IndyCar Series champion has been determined in the final race the past nine seasons.

ABC will telecast six events, including both days of Indianapolis 500 qualifications and the 500 Mile Race, while NBCSN will telecast 13 events. All races will be broadcast by the IMS Radio Network through its affiliates, including SiriusXM Satellite Radio, the INDYCAR 15 app and www.indycar.com.

“The Verizon IndyCar Series calendar represents another step forward in our strategy to grow the series,” said Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Co., the parent of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “There were several factors that led to the positive momentum we experienced in 2014 and we will continue to execute on those initiatives – continuity in our broadcast schedule, strategic growth of our schedule and improvements to how we promote our events. The continued support from our television partners at ABC and NBCSN, and the ongoing collaboration with promoters, teams and sponsor partners gives us a lot of confidence about our future.”

The Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana on Sunday, April 12 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN) at NOLA Motorsports Park near New Orleans is the other new venue on the schedule followed by the 41st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach (April 19, NBCSN) and a return to scenic Barber Motorsports Park (April 26, NBCSN).

The Month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will kick off with the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis (May 9, ABC) and will be followed by Indy 500 qualifications (May16-17, ABC). NBCSN will telecast Carb Day activities May 22 that include the final practice session and the Freedom 100 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires race. The month culminates May 24 with the Indianapolis 500.

The Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix returns as a doubleheader event (May 30-31, ABC) and is followed by the night race at Texas Motor Speedway (June 6, NBCSN). The race on streets of Toronto has moved (June 14, NBCSN) to accommodate the Pan American Games, and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Aug. 2, NBCSN) retains its familiar date.

Pocono Raceway moves from early July to be the lead-in race (Aug. 23, NBCSN) to the championship finale and part of a four-race oval swing at Auto Club Speedway (June 27, NBCSN), the Milwaukee Mile (July 12, NBCSN) and Iowa Speedway (July 18, NBCSN).

“Returning to Pocono in 2015 is great news,” said Tony Kanaan, 2004 Verizon IndyCar Series champion who won the 2014 season finale at Auto Club Speedway. “The ‘Tricky Triangle’ is a very challenging racetrack for us and it provides great racing and excitement for the fans. Continuity is the key word to rebuild our fan base for that region and INDYCAR and Pocono are working very hard and thankfully making it happen. I’m obviously happy to be able to return in 2015 and finish the strong race we had in 2014.”

Source | Images: IndyCar.

October 30, 2014 0 comment

IndyCar 2015: Chevy Aero PKG Caught Testing

written by Jo Borrás

We love IndyCar here at Gas 2, and that has as much to do with the series’ emphasis on clean, renewable ethanol biofuels as it does with 240+ MPH wheel-to-wheel racing speeds and some of the closest competition this side of- well, anything! And, with the 2014 season over, news about the 2015 season of IndyCar racing is starting to slowly emerge, and the most exciting news of 2015 is bound to be the appearance of visually distinct aerodynamic packages for Chevy and Honda-powered teams.

Last week, a sharp-eyed observer caught this (somewhat blurry) look at a Chevy-powered Penske undergoing road course testing at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

@marshallpruett rumor has Penske at COTA with this…watcha think? pic.twitter.com/4Msp8qJA8H

— John Sabol (@JohnJohnSabol) October 14, 2014

Veracity of the photo was proven by IndyCar commentator Marshall Pruett …

@JohnJohnSabol Yep.

— Marshall Pruett (@marshallpruett) October 14, 2014

… and which was followed up by still more “spy photos”.

@JohnJohnSabol @marshallpruett @jonathanlparker @jonathon_klein Here's a few more close ups. Shot from a mile away. pic.twitter.com/IKAIBQwwEL

— Vance Facundo (@vfacundo) October 15, 2014

The move to unique aero PKGs for Chevy and Honda teams will bring a new dynamic to the series, which has relied on spec chassis for the last few “recovery” years, and should, also, make the series more exciting for casual fans who will more easily be able to tell what engine is powering their favorite drivers. Whether or not one PKG will give a team a huge advantage on any given track remains to be seen.

You can check out the pictures from the Tweets above, below, which I’ve “pulled” in case they get deleted from Twitter down the road. Enjoy!

IndyCar 2015: Chevy Aero PKG Caught Testing at COTA

Sources | Images: @JohnJohnSabol, @marshallpruett, @vfacundo

October 19, 2014 0 comment

IndyCar 2015: CFH Chooses Chevy Power

written by Jo Borrás

It’s official: the newly-formed Carpenter-Fisher-Hartman unified IndyCar team will tackle the 2015 season of IndyCar racing with Chevrolet’s 675 HP ethanol power unit and aero kits urging them onward. Which, really, shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.

That’s not to say that Chevy builds a better IndyCar engine than Honda does – although I’m not not saying that – but rather it’s to say that, given both Fisher’s and Carpenter’s long history with Chevy racing engines, it was expected. Remember that Carpenter’s team had a stellar year- winning 3 races and starting from the pole at the Indy 500 in 2014 compared to Sarah Fisher’s Honda-powered goose egg (0). Next, recall that Fisher was driving a Chevy-engined car when she became the first woman to score an IndyCar pole position at Kentucky in 2002. If you do both those things, then the Chevy move was obvious.

“Team Chevy has delivered for ECR over the past three years,” said Carpenter, in the team’s official release. “I know our new combination of CFH Racing and Chevrolet will continue to put us in a great position moving forward. I started my IndyCar career with the Bow Tie (Chevy) and … we’ve been able to get some results along the way with the wins and the Indy poles. With the new development of CFH Racing and all the hard work that’s going on to bring our two teams into this new team, this is really exciting.”

With the addition of Josef Newgarden to Carpenter’s arsenal, he may be able to pull off a bit more than “just” 3 wins next season. Stay tuned to see how that all plays out next year!

Source: CFH Racing, via Motorsport.

September 19, 2014 0 comment

IndyCar 2014: Fontana, Will Power, and TK is Magic

written by Jo Borrás

“It’s 15 years of hard work. I was crying as I crossed the line,” said a triumphant Will Power last night, as he was being crowned the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Drivers’ Champion. After finishing second in the points three times in the past, Power finally pulled it all together and finished the year 62 points ahead of his runner-up Penske team mate and three-time Indy 500 winner, Helio Castroneves. “It’s surreal. It’s just a fantastic way to finish the season. I can’t believe I’m the champion.”

Power’s championship capped off a season of dominance for Team Penske Racing, whose 3 drivers finished the year in 1st, 2nd, and 4th. That’s in both the overall AND Verizon P1 standings, by the way, in addition to having started last night’s season finale at Fontana in P1 and P2.

“Will, obviously, did a terrific job,” said Roger Penske, himself. “We couldn’t ask for anything more. We got what we wanted, the championship … he’s got the (drivers’ championship) monkey off his back now.”

While the season went to Power, though, the race belonged to the Target Chip Ganassi team and former IndyCar series champion Tony Kanaan. Kanaan put in a flawless drive at Fontana, finishing the nearly caution-free race in grand style and scoring his first (and only) IndyCar victory for 2014.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Kanaan, after claiming his first victory since the 2013 Indy 500. “We had a team meeting this afternoon and Chip (Ganassi) said, ‘If you win you can brag about it for seven months.’.”

TK’s off-season bragging rights are assured, then.

You can check out the official Verizon race infographic highlighting the why’s and hows of Kanaan’s Fontana victory, below, and see a small sample of Motorsport’s excellent photos of the 2014 MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana at the bottom of the page. If you like that, definitely head over to their page and see the rest of their 122-strong gallery.

Finally, thanks for sticking with us through Gas 2’s first full season of IndyCar racing coverage. I loved watching this incredibly efficient, unthinkably fast biofuel racing series all year, and look forward to 2015! See you then!!

Sources | More Photos: IndyCar, Motorsport, and Robert Laberge/Jeff Gross – Getty Images, via Jalopnik.

August 31, 2014 0 comment