Indycar News & Rumors.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Who let the dogs out? I mean damn that is ugly as ugly can be. Honestly I figured it would be bad, but not this bad.

What was that about aero kits curing all our ills?

Like I said years ago with this car, there are only so many fixed points on the car and you have to work with that. The key problem is that the car is unbalanced to start, complete with bizarre weight distribution and sloppy aerodynamics and construction.

This what you get when you don't allow competition.

It's not just the fixed points on the car, it's points that Indycar would not allow to be changed, like radiator mounting points...

[Yannick]

Here is a Silly Season recap of news items over the last few weeks:

-Sam Schmidt/Peterson Motorsports (Honda) have signed James Jakes to driver their 2nd full-season entry.
-Sage Karam is confirmed to drive the #8 Ganassi-Chevy in the season opener at St. Pete.

-Andretti Autosport (Honda) are getting closer to an agreement with Simona DeSilvestro for their 4th car. So far, it involves only the season opener at St. Pete. http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/11...at-for-st-pete

-Justin Wilson who has been aiming for the same seat, looks like he might be out of a drive http://www.indystar.com/story/sports...lson/23986709/

All the while, Dale Coyne Racing has tested with 2014 Saturday GP of Houston winner Carlos Huertas and a guy called Rodolfo Gonzalez, whilst Alex Rossi has been linked to a seat with the team before the Xmas holidays.

KV Racing Technology has tested a number of drivers in their 2nd car which may or may not have SH Racing involvement, amongst them Stefano Coletti and Ryan Pheeny who is shipping around his sponsorship for an Indy 500 one-off deal. And team owner Kevin Kalkhoven is reportedly still in negotiations with Sebastian Saavedra and his manager, AFS Racing owner Gary Peterson.

Given the fact that proven race winners Justin Wilson, Ryan Briscoe and Oriol Servia (all three of whom are good on all types of tracks on the schedule) don't have a ride, makes all of this look like the pay drivers are going to have to finance the new aero kits for some of teams. I wonder if this might even be the case for Indy 500 only entries and we wouldn't see these drivers there either.

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Yannick

proven race winners Justin Wilson, Ryan Briscoe and Oriol Servia (all three of whom are good on all types of tracks on the schedule) don't have a ride

That's very sad.

Originally Posted by Yannick

This makes all of this look like the pay drivers are going to have to finance the new aero kits for some of teams.

It's manufacturers paying for the kits. If they didn't want to spend the money, they would have stayed with the spec body. But they preferred the extra spending to have a bigger marketing impact.

[Yannick]

Alex Rossi has signed to drive for Racing Engineering in the GP2 Series for this year.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117845

So he won't be driving the #19 Boy Scouts Of America car for Dale Coyne's team in the Verizon IndyCar Series this year.

Wilson staying with Coyne has just gotten more likely. I guess we'll find out at the aero kit test in Barber Motorsports Park next month.

As we're talking about Coyne: he put Mike Conway part-time into his 2nd car in 2013 after Conway had announced his retirement from oval racing, and Mike won in his first race for the team at Detroit. That opened up the opportunity for Conway's 2014 season, sharing the #20 car with oval driver/team owner Ed Carpenter. Might Dale Coyne bring back Mike Conway for some races, whilst the latter is driving full-time in sportscars?
WEC and the Verizon IndyCar Series do not have date clashes for the following road and street course races: St. Petersburg, NOLA, Long Beach, Barber/Indy Alabama, GP of Indianapolis, Detroit, Mid-Ohio, Sonoma. I don't know about WEC test sessions but according to wikipedia, the WEC has 8 rounds this year. So Conway might well be available for these races. And having Pippa Mann in the car for the ovals and Toronto to share the #19 with Conway might be a possibility. Stranger driver announcements have happened at this time, so this wouldn't surprise me either. Yet, running Justin Wilson for the whole season would be even better for Coyne because that would bring continuity.

[bjohnsonsmith]

IndyCar and USA Today have entered into a joint marketing venture. If this can help boost the series so much the better.

http://www.indycar.com/News/2015/02/...g-relationship

[Nikki Katz]

If Wilson lost his seat then that would be terrible. Are Coyne struggling that much now? I don't really rate Huertas, the win was down to the series' stupid caution rules rather than talent. Gonzales was a backmarker in GP2 and I don't see him faring any better in Indycar. I'm not blown away by Rossi either, though he's probably a better candidate than the other two.

Coletti would be ok for KV I think. He's probably not championship material, but better than Saavedra.

I hope that Ganassi and Andretti keep their 4th cars, it doesn't sound overly hopeful for the full season at the moment though.

[NaBUru38]

I can't believe that newspapers sign these kind of marketing deals.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

I can't believe that newspapers sign these kind of marketing deals.

USA Today leans on the more superficial side of journalism, with sports and life-style content and because of this and like other newspapers of this genre, it has a huge readership.

I can see why they did it, they get to have their logo displayed around the race track and IndyCar gets access to their readership.

[rwintle]

In Toronto, there is an "official newspaper partner" for the event:
http://www.hondaindytoronto.com/more...r-through-2017

Some fans may be dismayed at the disappearance of the Toronto Sun "Sunshine Girls" (their term, not mine) on the grid. The Star is a much more serious newspaper altogether.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

I can't believe that newspapers sign these kind of marketing deals.

It's just a contra deal. Not every paper can sell 100% of it's ad space all the time, so they flog that off to the series and the series puts their name out there.

Mostly how USA Today stays alive is doing deals to sell papers to hotel chains to hand out for free to their loyalty card members who are typically business travelers. When you wake up in the morning the paper is at your door. Kinda like CNN, CNN has appalling viewer numbers but they stay in business by doing deals to buy TV's, install them in airports and other high traffic public areas and play CNN all day.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Teams get road/street and short-oval aero-kits.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117900

[bjohnsonsmith]

Not exactly IndyCar news but it could have implications regarding participating in the 500 and the IndyCar series.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117922

[GTRMagic]

Did anyone else notice the IndyCar backdrop in Will Smith's new movie Focus?

It doesnt seem to paint team owners in a good light, that all of them paid Mr Smith for the fruits of industrial espionage....

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Did anyone else notice the IndyCar backdrop in Will Smith's new movie Focus?

It doesnt seem to paint team owners in a good light, that all of them paid Mr Smith for the fruits of industrial espionage....

I reckon most people will recognise its a fictional movie.

Carlos Munoz did the driving for the film

[bjohnsonsmith]

Coletti gets KV drive.

http://www.indycar.com/News/2015/03/...ing-Technology

[bjohnsonsmith]

Honda Racing/HPD have posted these renderings of their aero-kit, on their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD

[D.R.T.]

I like the Engine cover area.

Plenty of downforce on the car. Will be interesting to see the impact on lap time

[rustyfan]

New TV-deal in place for Sweden. All IndyCar races will be shown on Viasat Motor this year. Not sure if this includes other countries in Scandinavia where Viasat Motor is available (like in Norway, for example), but I would assume so.

[Marcus666]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

New TV-deal in place for Sweden. All IndyCar races will be shown on Viasat Motor this year. Not sure if this includes other countries in Scandinavia where Viasat Motor is available (like in Norway, for example), but I would assume so.

Awesome news! Now I don't have to search for streams every sunday!

[D.R.T.]

If it is fast then I think they will be fairly happy.

[GTRMagic]

So... who exactly asked for these new aerokits??





Jeez...

[MagVanisher]

How much winglets can Honda get in order to stay competitive? But hey, it's better than having the generic Dallara bodykit!

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

How much winglets can Honda get in order to stay competitive? But hey, it's better than having the generic Dallara bodykit!

Ask and you shall receive.

[hotlavaaaa]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

So... who exactly asked for these new aerokits??

Faster and a new and different kind of ugly is better than not as fast and the same old ugly.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by hotlavaaaa

Faster and a new and different kind of ugly is better than not as fast and the same old ugly.

Faster and a new kind of ugly.