Yahoo Autos The RACER Mailbag, June 14
Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the high volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.
Q: My son and I will be going to Road America for our first visit next weekend. We have general admission on Saturday and Turn 14 Sunday. Any thoughts on what we should see, do (go karts, disc golf course), areas to watch from, local eateries? We will be camping offsite, but looking forward to a full weekend of racing.
Josh, Louisville, KY
MARSHALL PRUETT: Great choice. It’s one of my favorite events each year. The track has amazing food offerings with brats and cheese curds and all the local specialties. Siebkens is the local destination for all racers, so add that to the list. Great part about the track is the fact that you can walk and see almost every corner. If you’re able, bring light backpacks to carry snacks and drinks, and foldout chairs. It’s a walking track, so tour the inside and the areas outside. Print or download a track map before you go and plan where you want to go. You’ll find lots of people in certain corners, which can be great — Turns 3, 5, 6, and 12 — but don’t limit yourself to those areas. Go explore and have fun.
Q: I’ve been thinking about the Garage 56 Cup car and its potential impact on regular Cup cars. The car has shown some impressive times during testing, even running faster than a few cars in the LMGTE-Am class. It’s got some cool aero mods and is lighter than the Next Gen car. Do you think we might see some of these advancements in regular Cup cars down the road?
Also, I’ve been wondering about the possibility of a NASCAR class at Le Mans. Jim France has been involved in both NASCAR and Le Mans for a long time. What do you think about the chances of a NASCAR class at Le Mans in the future?
Doug
MP: I’d love to see a Cup class at Le Mans. So much of what we see on an annual basis there is predictable that a mini-class for Cup cars would be a blast. I love the extra cars we get for the Indy 500 and Rolex 24; they bring an air of excitement to the events. Make room for four-six Cup cars at Le Mans? And the Rolex 24? That would be a blast.
A lot was learned about the car — doubling downforce was one — that would seemingly play into the formula’s next update, but it’s hard to say if that’s where Cup wants to take its road racing package.
Lots was learned about the Garage 56 package at Le Mans; how much – if any – of it might be transferred back to NASCAR-spec Cup cars remains to be seen. Alexander Trienitz/Motorsport Images
Q: How will the Garage 56 car influence future development of the current Cup Series car? I for one would love to see that car in all the NASCAR road races. Your thoughts?
Steve Coe, Vancouver, WA
MP: It comes back to the question of where NASCAR might want to take its Cup Series formula. At present, the cars are really hard to drive in road course configuration, and that’s the way it should be. Doubling the aero grip would narrow the gap between the greats and the goods behind the wheel, so I’m not sure I’d want to see downforce make things easier. With cost reductions being a major point of the Next Gen formula, I’m also not sure if teams would welcome a big new road racing package derived from G56 they’d need to implement. How’s this: There’s a lot of smart options available to Cup if they want to take on learnings from the G56 program, but I do wonder if most of it will go down as a one-off meant for France.
Q: Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe of the last 14 wins by Andretti Autosport, seven had Bryan Herta as the race strategist (and of course the Indy 500 with Rossi). If that is fact, that is quite a track record by Herta. He seems to have a way with the drivers he works with.
Randy Mizelle, Oak Island, NC
MP: I’ll go with your research here, Randy; chasing stats while dealing with jet lag ain’t happening! Bryan is extremely good, without question. He’s a big-picture guy, a no-nonsense guy, but also has that voice and approach of a therapist who wants what’s best for you. And in classic Bryan Herta form, he doesn’t care one bit about being in the spotlight for the contributions he makes.
Q: More an FYI than a question, but I feel for David Z in last week’s Mailbag. I’m guessing he parked in Lot 1A, 1B or the Coke lot. I pasted below a part of a note I sent to Doug Boles, so it won’t be the first time he’s heard about it:
‘The traffic getting to and leaving lot 1B was incredibly slow — it took us almost 3 hours after the end of the race to get from lot 1B to the 38th Street exit to I465. In previous years prior to the pandemic, we’d be halfway home to Chicago by then. It is my belief that a lot of this is on account of Indiana State Police and their lack of coordination. As an example of this, while existing the lot, they had us split from 2 lanes to 4 and then back to 2 all within the distance from Georgetown Rd to Moller Rd, and in turn created a needless chokepoint. Also, at multiple intersections (30th and an entrance to the Coke Lot, 30th and Moller, Moller and 34th), every single police officer was either in their car or looking at their phones instead of actively directing traffic. Next year we will not be renewing the 1B parking pass, and I hope you revisit your arrangement with ISP and ensure a coordinated approach to traffic management next year.’
The worst part is, we took two first-timers who were ready to have us add some tickets to our renewal for next year. When we asked a couple of days later, they politely declined after getting back to the Chicago suburbs at 11:30 at night (in a typical year it’s 7:30-ish).
Andrew
MP: It was the craziest/busiest 500 I’ve experienced in a long while. I’m hoping your friends enjoyed what went on within the facility, at least. Our daily lives have become so centered around convenience — food, medicine, and groceries can all be brought to our front door in an hour or less — that the idea of going to an event where hours upon hours being lost to traffic and congestion just no longer fits with what’s considered acceptable. I don’t know what the answer is at this point, but if the getting there and the leaving there part is something that leads to a decline in attendance, IMS will need to get creative with the county and state in order to address the issue.
Q: Really saddened to hear that Conor Daly is out at ECR. I’ve been a fan since 2008 when he and Josef Newgarden raced and won in Formula Ford in England. He’s had lots of ups and downs, kept at it, but seemingly never found the right situation to be able to break through. If IndyCar is done with him, I’ll root for him in NASCAR, IMSA, or wherever.
This seems somewhat like what happened to Zach Veach. Does a team typically have the option to retain the sponsorship that a driver brings but fire the driver? This seems rare relative to the number of paying drivers over the years (and a bit dirty to do mid-year).
Is ECR in a similar place to Rahal and where Foyt was a few years ago? Is it the equipment or engineering? It seems like ECR hasn’t had a Michael Cannon-type hire that could bring relevant, recent experience to elevate the team.
Is Garage 56 making you a NASCAR guy?
Lee Robie, Loveland, OH
MP: Fortunately, there’s no such adage of, “Once you go Cup, you never go back.” It was quite enjoyable to be part of the G56 team — even just out on the perimeter — and to get to know a lot of the Hendrick Motorsports managers and mechanics and crew members. Same look and same approach as a Penske or Ganassi. Got to meet Mr. Hendrick, who came up and introduced himself and said he enjoyed the videos we were doing for the home team; that was a surreal thing. I’ve done this since I was 16 and I doubt I’ll ever shake the feeling that I’m a nameless race car mechanic who the Rick Hendricks of the world would have no reason to know or speak to… Blows my mind.
Back to the main question: When ECR had an elite road racing talent who gave phenomenal feedback to the engineers, the team won multiple road races with Mike Conway. When ECR had an elite road racing and oval talent who gave phenomenal feedback to the engineers, the team was a contender at almost every race with Josef Newgarden. It does not and has not had a driver who ticks all of those boxes in terms of being elite on roads/streets, ovals, and arms the engineers with race-winning information. They have had drivers who hit one or two of those targets, but not all three, in a good while.
ECR’s version of Cannon, Matt Barnes, is exceptional. Looking to the future, does the team need to widen its engineering focus to be less consumed with the Indy 500 and prioritize the other 16 races on the calendar? Yes, of course. But the team is also in that awkward position of making itself look bigger than it is; the cars are fully dressed in sponsorship, but ECR is not known to be sitting on an abundance of cash in the same way at Penske, Ganassi, McLaren, Meyer Shank, or RLL has in pocket.
That usually leads to prioritizing where engineering R&D funds get spent, and given the option, the team and its owner/driver will default towards going big for the race that matters the most. With more funding, and more engineers to offer Barnes, ECR could tackle the entire calendar with the same vigor it does at the Speedway. But when you’re forced to make compromises, be it with drivers, department sizes, or where you place your engineering emphasis, you’re going to lose out to those who aren’t dealing with such restrictions.
There’s no single answer for why ECR is in a hole, and no simple solution for solving it. Motorsport Images
Q: What in the wide world of sports is going on with this re-ordering procedure under the safety car at Le Mans? There are three safety cars that collect the field for some reason, and the pits are open, then closed, then open again, and sometimes cars have to stop at the end of the pits, and then the GT cars are dropped to the back, then the LMP cars go to the front, then the Hypercars go to the front, then the Hendricks Camaro goes to the front of the GTE field, AND WILL SOMEONE PLEASE PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY.
I clocked the reordering time during the first safety car period at 20 minutes and the safety car period at the four-hour mark at 15 minutes just to reorder the field! I felt bad that the announcers had to get out their slide rules and fill 15 minutes or more with an explanation of the reordering process every time.
Eric Lawrence
MP: It’s the hardest part to watch at the event every year and, get this, there were revised procedures this year to make things better. Three pace cars are normal, and with an 8.5-mile track, the laps behind those cars will always take a long time, but with those obvious items aside, I did spend what felt like an eternity with my friend Andrew Hall — the famed Australian photographer — out at the Arnage corner while the ACO/WEC were lost for 45 minutes trying to reorder the field. It was as bad as I’ve ever seen. Whenever I yell at IMSA for its stupid-long caution/pit procedures at the Rolex 24 each January — and it happens every year — I’ll think back to Le Mans 2023 and be reminded of the asshattery without equal.
Q: How far off from the standard Cup road course car was the Garage 56 car? If they raced the same car at Sonoma on the same day, how would it have fared?
Moonshine Dave, Nashville, TN
MP: I did a four-part video series on the differences with NASCAR VP of design (and Katherine Legge’s former Dragon Racing IndyCar race engineer) Brandon Thomas while we were at Le Mans. Might be worth watching: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Q: I watched the 24 Hours of Le Mans and really enjoyed it. I told my Facebook friends to turn it on if they like cars and/or racing. One of my friends who is trying to get into racing couldn’t watch because he doesn’t have cable or MotorTrend+. I love MotorTrend, but it isn’t the greatest channel to build a fan base in the United States in 2023. Say what you want about NBC and Peacock, but they are a great home for IMSA. I was shocked that NBC/Peacock didn’t have this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Is there any talk of getting WEC races on the new MAX app (like the other Discovery properties) or new TV partner in the future? WEC is getting a lot better and I think people in the U.S. would start watching if it was on a more accessible platform.
John Berger
MP: Well, just imagine if you’d tuned in last year — before the official WEC broadcasters were used — and you had the Eurosport commentary team making you want to punch holes in the TV or stomp your phone/tablet into a thousand pieces. For that, MotorTrend deserves a massive thank you.
The problem we have is in the U.S. is, Le Mans has almost no profile, so the former SPEED Channel, and now MotorTrend, is where it lives because bigger cable outlets see no value in airing a 24-hour race that generates limited ratings. For those of us who know and care, we want the LM24 to get the best coverage, but there’s no business argument to be made at the moment to support such a thing.
Q: Le Mans is over and Colin Braun has another victory to add to his impressive resume. I am of the opinion that he is one of the best drivers in America, and have always wanted to see him have a shot in IndyCar. Were we ever close to seeing him in the sport? And is there still a chance even for a one-off, or has that ship sailed?
Josh M.
MP: He’s been close a few times, with RLL being the most recent. I can only hope MSR considers him for something because if the team is going to drag itself out of IndyCar irrelevance, a top-tier driver like Colin — roads/streets and ovals — with peerless engineering knowledge and input is exactly who they need to help the turnaround. The idea of MSR taking its full-time IMSA duo of Blomqvist and Braun and shifting them to IndyCar would be among the most brilliant things they’ve ever done.
Someone needs to slide an IndyCar contract under that pen. Motorsport Images
Q: Rinus VeeKay is in very interesting career situation. He has potential, but only one victory. I understand he is under contract to Ed Carpenter Racing but let’s say if Alex Palou leaves Chip Ganassi Racing and either moves to Arrow McLaren or moves to F1, could VeeKay end up with a top-notch team like Arrow McLaren or Ganassi? I feel like if he stays with ERC for another season, he might not get another shot to win another IndyCar race. The team he’s driving for now is as bad as Rahal Lanigan Letterman Racing.
Alistair
MP: I’ve heard a lot of names mentioned to fill vacancies at Andretti and Ganassi, but RVK hasn’t been one of them. Is that because it’s all been super top secret and none of those conversations have reached the light of day, or is it because his stock has dropped during ECR’s ugly downward spiral? The knock on Rinus is he isn’t a significant contributor to making the cars faster; he’ll drive the wheels off of whatever he’s given, but isn’t going to make a bad car better with sharp feedback. Whether that’s true or false is immaterial; that’s what I’ve told by big teams when I ask if he’s on their shopping list, and if that’s the belief, it’s a hard one to shake.
On a personal level, I love the kid and really hope he and the team with RHR now in the mix can find some of what they’ve been missing. If they don’t, the whole jettisoning of Conor will have been a waste and RVK’s future beyond ECR will be cloudy.
Q: The G56 car was very cool to watch, but the Corvette GT Am car lapped faster in the race, if I’m not mistaken. From a cost standpoint, which car is cheaper to run? A production-based car modified for racing, like the C8.R, or a pure, purpose-built race car, like the NASCAR Camaro? I realize a one-off is more expensive than a season-long effort, and the economies of scale with the large number of NASCAR chassis produced. But if you were running a season of a spec-car road racing series, which route would be the most cost-effective?
Bary
MP: The G56 Camaro was a ton faster in single-lap pace, but the team, doing the car’s first-ever 24-hour race, was wise to back its pace down a bit for the sake of longevity. The Next Gen Cup car would be the way to go because it’s a purebred creation done in a modular fashion. Going with a production-based car is loaded with constraints and compromises; everything that’s allowed to be upgraded and fortified is upgraded and fortified, whereas a purebred machine is designed to be optimal in every area from the outset.
Q: The Conor Daly/ECR split made me curious about how BitNile was doing, so I took a look at the stock price and recent 8-K filings, and things look really grim. BitNile just did a 1-for-30 reverse stock split last month to keep from being delisted, and Ault Alliance did a whopping 1-for-300 reverse split three days later but the stock continues to decline. Yet they’re still sponsoring both ECR cars? Something’s very fishy here and I would be shocked if BitNile came back in 2024. You must be hearing rumblings?
Ben Malec, Buffalo Grove, IL
MP: I can tell you a lot about bumpsteer and gear ratio choices, but I’ve never understood crypto and just smile when those who do try to explain how it’s real and sustainable. With that known, I just hope the money keeps flowing in to keep the ECR cars going.
Q: Towards the end of the Detroit race, Scott Dixon ran into Will Power. Shortly after, as they were turning, Power turned into Dixon. To me, it was clear from the in car that Power’s move was intentional. I understand that a “no harm, no foul” type of logic is employed there by race control, but is something like that even addressed at all? It seems goofy to me that allowing guys to purposefully play rough is the rule. By the way, yes, I am completely biased in this question as Power is my least favorite driver!
DJ Odom, Anderson, IN
MP: I didn’t see a thing that Power did wrong, nor was it intentional. Dixie carried a bit too much speed into the corner and nerfed Power from behind with his nose. Dixon wouldn’t do it intentionally because it comes with a risk of wing damage, and Power wouldn’t intentionally drive over someone’s nose/wings due to the risk of puncturing a tire. Total nothingburger here.
Q: I had a great time at the Detroit Grand Prix. With all the attention on Flava Flav, it has me wondering if the following celebrities are still involved in IndyCar racing: Vince Neil (who I heard is friends with some drivers), Patrick Dempsey, Frankie Muniz, Jason Priestly, Joe Montana? I left off Gene Simmons and Aerosmith because those seemed to be more financial deals, but you could tell the other celebrities certainly love the sport.
Bob in Detroit
MP: I caught up with Patrick briefly at Le Mans; hadn’t seen him in a few years. He continues to co-own the Dempsey-Proton WEC Porsche GT team, but is no longer driving. Muniz is impressing in ARCA. I’ve interviewed Neil and Montana in recent years, but none of the rest remain in racing. Neil will, however, play during the Nashville weekend.
Q: I am wondering if you are aware of any plans for Newgarden and his team to visit the White House at some point, in celebration of his victory?
K.S., King County, WA
MP: Less than a month out from the win, no, there’s been no mention such a thing being scheduled. With his close friend Mr. Trump in office, Roger Penske/his team made multiple visits to the White House, and I’d hope they’d be just as welcome with Josef with the current administration.
Q: First, Detroit raced better than I thought it would. Watching the first practice on Peacock, I would’ve bet the race was going to be an utter disaster. Kudos to the drivers for fewer messes than I thought, and a decent race.
Second, I’m all for the series making moves to make more money, accommodate more fans, help support promoter finances, and generally strengthen the series from a financial standpoint. If the demand for the race outstripped what Belle Isle could support, then the right move was to move the race.
However, aesthetically, the Detroit race was jarring compared to Belle Isle. At Belle Isle I’d think, “Well look at that nice, pretty park in Detroit!” Then you’d get a nice city skyline shot, and the takeaway was that the city might be better than you hear. But, wow… the track (roads) were what I would expect for a post-industrial Midwestern downtown. There were parts where it looked like the track was running around a prison, although I think it was a parking garage that had people peering out of narrow slits in the building.
The only nice shots were pit lane with the Ren Center looming in the background. But when you compare the track to staples like Long Beach and St. Pete, or F1 racing somewhere like Miami, it was extremely jarring.
Ross Bynum
MP: I hope to see it up close next year and form firsthand opinions, but if we’re going by what was presented on TV, we share the same opinion. I figured GM’s global HQ would factor as a major visual component of the imagery captured by the cameras, but this could have been Anytown USA with a track stuffed deep into the recesses of an anonymous downtown area. I’ve always loved Detroit and came away from the Peacock sessions and race feeling sad for the absolute lack of unique visuals.
The graphics could have said it was Sacramento, Des Moines, or Jacksonville, and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Detroit was a winner by most measures, but it could do with looking a bit more Detroit-y, and less like the Random Urban Indy GP. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Q: What would be the upside and downside if IndyCar made The Beast engine the standard engine — sell them to the teams, the teams could do their own maintenance/ rebuild if they wanted or send them to Ilmor for service. It concerns me that if Chevrolet or Honda pull out or continue to go down the electric hybrid rabbit hole then IndyCar is in a bind. IndyCar is about racing, entertainment, and showbusiness, not about a proving ground for flawed technologies from the manufacturers.
Big Possum, Michigan
MP: It’s not a case of Chevy or Honda going down the hybrid/electric route. The entire auto industry is headed in that direction, so as we do in racing, we adapt and incorporate turbocharging or direct injection or renewable fuel. Being the series that disconnects from the auto industry to adopt a four-decade-old spec engine is where IndyCar dies.
Q: How do Indy drivers maximize launch on a green-flag start? Do they just roll up in second gear and mash the accelerator, or is there some combination of accelerator, brake and clutch needed to optimize RPM’s/ turbo boost and minimize wheel spin?
Steve in NH
MP: They’ll be in the specific gear to match pace car speed and switch to settings that maximize power without putting the rear tires. The stuff that goes on with ECU settings is the most closely guarded in the series.
Q: I was watching your videos from Le Mans and had a question. I was watching the one about the parade where Jimmie Johnson was talking about moving the car back and forth for the celebrations. After the teams run the car in the parade and other things like that, I am curious how the teams ensure the engine is still good for the race. Do they do a teardown of the engine? What is the inspection process like? Did they switch the engine before the race?
Mike, Northern Utah
MP: They used chassis. No 1 for the parade; chassis No. 2 was the race chassis. A fresh motor was installed in No. 2 after the first day or practice and qualifying; it was planned and that was the race motor which had no issues whatsoever. There was a gearbox problem that cropped up Sunday morning — I was standing out at Arnage as Jenson Button crept by with something crunchy happening in the transmission — which was quickly resolved.
Q: During the broadcast of the Detroit race, I heard numerous references to drivers using simulators prior to the new race. How a simulator would be configured for a new street circuit when there would be no data available?
Doug Sharp
MP: Those streets are available for driving and scanning well prior to the race; certain resource-rich teams and the manufacturers will make the effort to do such things at almost every new race these days, no matter which series.
Q: As I write this not much is known about the changes at ECR. Maybe Conor Daly and his sponsor are going to NASCAR. Maybe ECR determined the best way forward for the team was with someone else. It started a conversation and I wondered if you would weigh in.
In Team Penske equipment, does Daly finish in the top 10 in the championship? He could finish behind three CGR cars, two Penske cars, three Arrow McLaren cars and one Andretti car to achieve that.
Ryan, West Michigan
MP: Conor going and his sponsor staying is one heck of a thing. It’s a sponsored driver’s worst fear, and Daly’s just the latest example. You had two things going on, with the team being underwhelming since 2022 and Daly being the one to struggle the most during that time. And then you have the rumblings that were heard in May of relationships being frayed. Take the two, and drastic measures were taken.
What we don’t know is what specifically went wrong to cause the immediate change. The net effect, even if Conor wasn’t the heart of the team’s problems, is he takes a huge reputational hit. Getting dropped, forced out, or whatever we should call it, especially after having a terrible start to the season, is the kind of thing that makes quality teams turn their backs. Unless a driver can bring tons of money.
In a leading car, I do think Daly’s career is altogether different. Problem is, he’s been driving ****boxes for most of his career, so he’s not sitting on a decade of driving for the best programs, having found the best in himself at every turn, thrived with mentoring from a Franchitti or Mears, and leveled up with the influence of a Dixon or Power to learn from in the engineering room. The core talent that was put to great use in junior open-wheel racing is still there, so it’s not too late for him. But who opens the door to a top sear, or opens the bank to make it happen going forward?
Everything about the situation for Conor sucks.
Daly’s best “big team” opportunity was a two-race program in a fifth Andretti car in 2019. Motorsport Images
Q: In 1996, when Arie Luyendyk set the all-time qualifying records at IMS, his speeds went up with each lap. In fact, all four laps set new track records (picture Tom Carnegie saying that four times in a row in your head). However, modern qualifying is the exact opposite. The norm, with few exceptions, is that each lap of the run will be slower than the previous lap. Why is that?
Oh, and bring back the old Indy five bicycle race that used to be run on one of the cars’ off-days. Two laps around the IMS. I’d love to see Kanaan and Castroneves duke it out on the back stretch.
Lee Jackson, Garland, TX
MP: Heavier cars, light downforce, and tires that degrade as a result. Also, keep in mind that are had more power and made more of his lap speed on the straights while today’s cars aren’t a straightline match, but do big things with corner speed, which is where tires are worn at a rapid rate.
Q: With the transition to the hybrid power units coming and the commitment by Chevy and Honda, any chance Ford is looking past its beef with the Tony George era and considering stepping into Indy cars again?
Ron Hampton
MP: That would be a big no.
Q: I was in the Meyer Shank IMSA paddock at Long Beach and I’ve watched a number of your videos on IMSA/IndyCar. I’ve noticed that the halfshafts for both have a copper-like appearance to them. Is this a surface treatment, or the actual color of the alloy? I can think of a number of reasons why this might be the case, but I thought I would ask an expert.
Jonathan and Cleide Morris, Ventura, CA
MP: I believe it’s anodizing.
Q: I read the comment about traffic going out of Indy this year and taking around two hours to get out of the lot, an hour after the race. We have parked in the main gate lot for years and this is the first year we have taken the designated (or suggested) route into the 500. My God, it took us almost three hours to get in the main gate lot, leaving the overpriced hotel at 7:15am. This remined me of the 1980s (I am not sure if that is good or bad). We typically leave with 20 laps to go and beat the traffic out, but this year it took us almost an hour to get to I-65 after leaving with 20 to go. I do not know what they did differently, but I am to the point of not attending and watching it on TV. A Normal Joe cannot afford another night at the overpriced hotels based on the time it takes to get out of the speedway and the 5.5 hour drive home.
DJ
MP: I leave the hotel at 4-4:30am each year, park, and go back to sleep, all to avoid the rush of traffic. I’m also there for many hours after the race, which means I miss the traffic leaving. It’s the biggest sporting event in the world at a facility with nothing but one- or two-lane streets to get in and out; I’ve always expected it to be a pain for ingress and egress. Might be worth planning to catch a nap on your way in and out and avoid the frustrations.
Q: I guess the old adage is true: No good deed goes unpunished. Conor Daly brings BitNile to ECR and in less than two years he gets fired. Can’t prove it, but I would bet that split was not mutual. Hope Conor can find a good home.
John Feeser, Wilmington, NC
MP: Colton Herta represents Gainbridge, the sponsor brought to Andretti Autosport — and IndyCar — by Zach Veach, so we are in familiar territory, unfortunately. It was 100 percent not mutual.
Q: I think this year we’re seeing less smiling in Helio Castroneves’s garage. The team and Helio don’t seem to be meshing and it looks like, as an outsider, that the relationship is cold. Simon Pagenaud seems tighter with the team than Helio. I’m sure the frustrations from the lack of results are impacting everyone.
In the June 7 Mailbag, you mentioned that Tom Blomqvist would be one of the drivers with Pagenaud or Rosenqvist. It seems like once Helio was not named as a driver at Le Mans, a breakup is coming.
Where do you see Helio going? Does he still have the opportunity for a full-time ride in IndyCar? Do you see him on the field for the Rolex 24 with MSR or with someone else?
Last, any idea if TK will run some IMSA races?
Leo Hilzendeger
MP: Helio has reached that inevitable point in a long-tenured driver’s career where latching onto strong and consistent results is a challenge. It happens to all of the greats who keep racing deep into their 40s and early 50s.
And to be fair, it’s not like his teammate Pagenaud has been running away from him on the track; MSR’s had a bad year following last year’s bad year, but it’s usually Helio who is struggling more in each session.
I’d expect MSR to offer him a third car for the Indy 500, and from there, it’s hard to say. IMSA’s GTP class is getting younger every day, which makes Helio’s stock a bit low there as well. Unless it’s a smaller IndyCar team in search of a “name” driver, it might be a full-time GT ride or something in LMP2 for Helio in 2024 unless things change rapidly with his IndyCar results.
Zak Brown’s United Autosports team is headed to IMSA’s LMP2 class with a couple of cars; TK seems like a great fit for the Rolex 24, if he’s interested.
Q: Why would Ed Carpenter get rid of Daly? Easy fix — stop spending money on the most overrated driver in IndyCar history. That driver would be Ed Carpenter.
David Tucker
MP: “Carpenter splits with Carpenter” is a headline that’s unlikely to be written.
It would be a funny headline, though. Motorsport Images
Q: Glad to see that Mercedes seems to have turned a bit of a corner. Let’s see if it continues, but whether it will be in time to make a difference for the season is a question mark.
Alonso saying that Stroll is a future world champion doesn’t square with his performance against Alonso. Is anyone seeing more potential in Stroll beyond what his results indicate?
Don Hopings
CHRIS MEDLAND: On Mercedes, I think this weekend in Canada will be much more of a test. There’s not a track that Red Bull is weak at, but Mercedes performed well in Spain last year too, so it remains to be seen if the updated car is stronger everywhere.
As for the Aston Martin drivers, Alonso’s not stupid when it comes to keeping the guy paying the bills happy! You can’t really play too many games with your teammate when he’s the boss’s son, but then he’s regularly talked up former teammates as he knows it then makes him look even better by association when he beats them.
That said, Stroll is still only 24, and already has 130 race starts to his name. That experience is improving him, and he’s shown real skill in both the wet (think of his pole position in Turkey or front row start after penalties in an uncompetitive Williams at Monza) as well as his first-lap race craft such as in Spain last time out.
He had a target on his back due to his father’s influence but he is a very strong driver in his own right now, even if he was fast-tracked to F1 a bit too quickly in my opinion. There are no question marks over Alonso’s ability and Stroll has been close on quite a few occasions — his Bahrain performance with broken wrists and a broken toe still hugely impresses me — so I’d certainly say he’s capable of race wins in the right car. I can’t say I’d have him as a definite future world champion, though.
Q: Now that F1 is operating under a cost cap, I think it is time for F1 to consider fines for causing a collision. When a driver is judged guilty of colliding with another car, he is assessed a time penalty. The injured party will usually have to repair or replace parts on their car that would otherwise still be usable. That is a direct hit to their bottom line.
Wouldn’t it be fair to require the guilty party to pay some sort of restitution to the injured party? And that restitution would come out of the offender’s cost basis, decreasing what they would otherwise have available within their cost cap.
I don’t suggest that those found guilty would necessarily pay the entire repair cost — that would tempt some teams to pad their damage cost. Just enough of a fine to help cover costs and to make some pain for the offenders.
Bob Mason, Winston Salem, NC
CM: It’s a tough one, Bob, because while I understand the sentiment you’re going for, I don’t want to see drivers told not to race each other hard for fear of being involved in a collision that they end up having to pay financially for, too.
Teams do budget for crash damage, so I don’t think it’s a massive issue at the moment, but the only way I’d see something like this working would be if there was an agreed price for certain components and that a fine would only be imposed in specific cases where there is clear and substantial fault by one team/driver.
Even so, like you say it would become an area where teams would claim they’ve incurred massive damage when in reality they’d patch up a part at low cost and use it again, so I don’t know if we need to add the complexity!
Q: Seems to me that the Hamilton-to-Ferrari rumor has received way more attention than warranted, but there is a piece of it that I wonder about. It does seem credible that John Elkann, who controls the controlling interest of Ferrari, might be getting impatient with the Scuderia’s inability to deliver a championship. This, naturally, calls to mind the mid ’90s move to snatch up Jean Todt and key players of the Le Mans-winning Peugeot team, followed by extracting Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and others from the championship-winning Benetton team.
Which leads to the question: Is such a mega-deal even possible now? There is the cost cap (although a small number of salaries are exempt), and Ferrari no longer has a Marlboro blank check. To say nothing of the fact that everybody equivalent to Schumacher, Todt, Brawn, and Byrne are tied up in long-term contracts.
So, humor me: If Elkann has an itch to scratch, who/what’s out there for him to buy? And does the Le Mans win create more pressure on the F1 team?
Al from Boston
CM: In terms of if such a deal is possible, yes it is because of the exemptions attributed to top execs and driver salaries at the moment, so to poach a driver and maybe a technical director or two would be doable. But as you say, many are in long-term deals, or someone like Hamilton probably not at the right stage in their career to take on such a rebuilding project.
In terms of what’s out there for him to buy, F1 is unique so it would have to be the grid’s most successful personnel, and if we’re honest that still means Adrian Newey. He doesn’t deal with the Red Bull design in full at all, but his influence in that team is massive and you could be sure that if Ferrari got him then it would be able to attract a number of others, too.
But whoever Ferrari went after, it would need Elkann to allow them full autonomy to make it a success. That’s something that appears to have been severely lacking for a number of years and has really been hurting Ferrari’s chances. You only need to look at how separate Red Bull Racing is from Red Bull interference — and Mercedes from Daimler — to see that.
Funny you should ask about Le Mans as I’m writing a column about that win and the F1 team as I type, but no I don’t think it does create more pressure. F1 doesn’t have BOP, and the success of another arm of the company should only really reinforce that there are good people there who know what they are doing, and serve as an overall boost.
If you want to win a bunch of stuff, poaching the people who just won a bunch of stuff somewhere else — as Ferrari did in the mid-’90s — would be a good start. And still theoretically possible, if logistically tricky, to do today. Ercole Colombo/Motorsport Images
Q: I would like to hear what you think about F1 stewards. Guenther Steiner brought up what I would consider to be a strong concept that could, and I repeat could, significantly reduce complaints about that part of the penalty process for F1. I realize that there would potentially be additional costs, but how are stewards taken care of today? I assume that they don’t have to pay for travel and other related expenses, so salaries would be the primary increase that I can see.
Craig Nelson
CM: I’m glad you brought this up, because I felt the summons for Steiner was completely unwarranted and sets a dangerous precedent. The comments were fair and well-reasoned, and did not directly criticize a steward, just the current system.
You’re spot-on about the financial increase. Stewards are volunteers but they have their costs covered, so the only difference would be the salary and benefits aspect. While I’m sure they wouldn’t be cheap if you’re wanting to attract the best possible candidates, that’s not a massive step up in outlay to professionalize it.
That said, when I asked the FIA if there was anything else stewards receive they joked, “A load of grief!” Which to be fair is motivation in itself to want to do the best job possible, even without a salary being involved.
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, June 11, 2014
Q: The book “Black Noon: The Year They Stopped the Indy 500” has recently been published. It is always great to see more Indy-related books being written and this book covers the tragedy that occurred during the 1964 race. Do you have any stories related to that day and about the author, Art Garner?
Denny Z. Dallas, TX
ROBIN MILLER: I never met Art until last month, but he did an amazing job of talking to all the right people and recreating one of the most pivotal and emotion Mays of all time. My dad finally talked my mom into attending the race and, as fate had it, we were sitting just south of the crash and across from Ronnie Duman, who jumped out of his burning car. My mother said she wanted to leave and I begged Dad to stay, so we made it halfway before heading home. And Ronnie, who lost his life at Milwaukee in 1968, had a son, Rick, who was my mechanic on the first midget I ran in USAC in 1975. His sister, Rhonda, was the president of my fan club and I think it had 11 members.
