In the absence of a month and a half to dispute the Indianapolis 500 miles, preparations for the big race are already in full swing. An important two-day general test will take place next week on the oval, in which the 26 cars contesting the full season will take part, plus six additional vehicles. If you are not very bad at math, you will have seen that those two numbers they add 32, to one of the 33 cars that populate the grid year after year of the Indy 500 since 1947. Well, those 32 are all the confirmed participants so far, and it doesn’t look like number 33 is going to come easily… And it’s not for lack of interest.
At the moment, the six extra cars and their occupants belong to four teams expanding their lineup, plus a lineup that only competes in Indianapolis. Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Autosport, McLaren SP and Ed Carpenter Racing will prepare extra cars for Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ed Carpenterrespectively, while Dreyer & Reinbold will compete with two vehicles for Santino Ferrucci and Sage Karam. The confirmation of the 32nd car came exactly two months ago, and since then no one else has been added to the list, despite there being several teams and/or drivers willing to do so.
There is a real possibility that a 33rd competitor will not materialize, a tradition that gave meaning to the simple fact of being on the grid, for which several riders gave their lives and that generated historic moments in the event. Not to mention a public relations disaster for a championship that has always managed to reach that number, even in its darkest days in the mid-2000s, albeit back then through financial help from Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). Own Roger Penskeowner of the IMS and the IndyCar Series, has recognized the importance of a full grid, but is unwilling to let that car come out of his pocket directly or indirectly, despite calls from various voices in the paddock.
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«IndyCar should do a show focused on the Indy 500 (…) The road to 33 would be fascinating; the shit that’s going on right now could fill an entire season.”
This edition presents a series of very specific added difficulties that are turning the simple fact of ‘filling’ the grill into a chimera, and it is necessary to put them in context. The main cause, according to many directly involved in the matter, is the lack of qualified personnel to form a guarantee team, paradoxically caused by the good health of American motorsports. The continuous growth of the full-time IndyCar grid, as well as the expansion of IMSA brands and competitors that promises to go further in the coming years, has generated a almost total absence of available mechanics and engineers for tasks as essential as preparing the cars or performing the pit stops.
With regard to single-seaters and sportscars, this sector had already suffered before due to the number of employees and workers that the different national NASCAR categories have accumulated in the last two decades. To this has been added the usual shortage of adequate relief in an increasingly aging guild, and a raw internal competition to hire employees in which not only the teams participate, but also the technical partners of IndyCar and even brands outside (for now) the championship, as in the case of Toyota. And if all this wasn’t enough, test programs for new hybrid engines 2024 also require additional staff.
The brains and hands required to run an IndyCar are more in demand than ever.
These factors have stopping several teams from participating or contributing additional cars; Dale Coyne Racing officials cited it as the direct cause for not fielding a third car as in previous years, and AJ Foyt Racing ruled out fielding their fourth car for the same reason. At the same time, newly expanded teams such as Rahal Letterman Lanigan or Meyer Shank Racing are at the limit of their capabilities, and Team Penske, recently reduced to three cars, will not field a fourth as before, having allocated a significant part of its training to the endurance project with Porsche. The meetings that the championship officials have held at the Texas and Long Beach events with the teams to unlock these positions have not been very successful.
Another aspect that has been holding everything back is the availability of parts and chassis. The current complicated global situation, with the shortage of raw materials for the components and the sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, has led to significant cost overruns at the logistics level, as well as delays in assembly lines and transport, which have hindered a lot Dallara’s ability to service new chassis orders. For this reason, the championship teams are being highly apprehensive about renting their extra chassis to other potential competitors, given the possibility of having to resort to them in the event of an accident in Indianapolis.
But beyond that, there are the contractual complications about the ‘ceiling’ of engines of each brand. Several years ago, Honda and Chevrolet made a de facto commitment to the sport to supply a maximum of 18 engine rentals for the Indy 500, with two units guaranteed per entrant. Based on this delicate harmony, in recent years it has been possible to recover ‘Bump Day’, the tradition of discarding competitors in the qualifying weekend, with two eliminated in the last edition and up to three ‘bumped’ in 2019, having 36 registered, the highest number since 2011. Currently, Honda has already committed 17 of its rentals for the 15 of Chevroletand this is where the additional problems lie.
Although several existing and potential interested teams had sought Honda’s 18th engine, the Japanese brand had flatly refused unless the proposal was “something special” and “quality”. This proposal came from Katherine Leggewhich had reached a pre-agreement with the team Vasser Sullivan Racing (former partners of Dale Coyne) to race his chassis and some of his staff. However, this initiative has ended up collapsing due to the greater commitments of the team with Toyota in the GT World Challenge America, as well as the insufficient results of their GTs in the IMSA contest in the first tests of the year.
Similarly, Chevrolet has also pointed to the “quality” of the proposals as a key element for its rentals. A 16th engine contract is in the hands of Paretta Autosport, the women’s team that competed last year with Simona de Silvestro, and which has a good chunk of budget and staffing but no chassis available after ending its one-year partnership with Penske’s diversity program. In turn, this team harbors aspirations to compete full-time from 2023 and considers that they cannot risk entering the Indy 500 again with an uncompetitive caras happened to them in 2021.
Simona de Silvestro was the 33rd driver last year, at the expense of Charlie Kimball and RC Enerson.
In the same boat is Cusick Motorsports, a joint venture by Stefan Wilson and owner Don Cusick, who are also looking to contest a full season, and who can’t afford another Indy 500 with last year’s rushed preparation if they don’t want to lose the confidence of their investors. cusick has the full budget for the Indy 500, but ‘only’ that. With no option to repeat the partnership with Andretti Autosport, and with no Honda teams available, they have begun to evaluate options with Chevrolet engine teams, but have had no luck finding an available chassis or seat either. In fact, both Paretta and Cusick could choose to give up the Indy 500 to contest some races in the second half of the season.
The next piece of gibberish involves the modest team Top Gun Racing, whose car was one of two eliminated last year at Bump Day (renamed ‘Last Row Shootout’ in recent years). That participation was paid for by the family of the RC Enerson pilot, but a series of disagreements since then has separated both parties. The team retains possession of the two chassis, but the Enersons have reclaimed their ownership through the courts. Its use is out of the question today, and although Top Gun assures that a couple of million would be enough to unblock the situation, there are few volunteers to drive a car that was already very inefficient aerodynamically last year.
Other potential options that have fallen in recent weeks are those of Zach Veachwho had also landed a contract with Chevrolet and a team willing to field him until he suddenly lost his main sponsorship, and that of a James Hinchcliffe that he had reached a pre-agreement with Coyne to drive a third car with the 18th Honda rental and combine it from the cockpit with his new television work, but without the financing materializing on time. Now, after the meetings of the last two races and the multiple negotiations, everything points to two people in particular: Ricardo Juncos and Elton Julian.
Ben Hanley drove the DragonSpeed car in his last Indy 500 appearance two years ago.
Despite absorbing Carlin’s assets last winter, the owner of Hollinger Racing Junks He had also flatly refused the possibility of fielding a second chassis, due to his previous bad experience in 2017 and the need to consolidate his new program full-time. In recent days, the Argentine has backed down slightly, securing in RACER what «We don’t want to do this at the last minute (…), but if there is no other option, we will make it happen». And this is where Julian, owner of the DragonSpeed team, comes into play, which would be the key to unlocking this situation, according to the aforementioned media.
The American team, which started a partial IndyCar program in 2019 that it planned to expand in 2020, had to completely give up the championship because of the pandemic to protect your resistance equipment. Despite this, the lack of a 33rd car for the Indy 500 that year (sound familiar?) made IndyCar itself help them financially to ensure their presence just two weeks before the test. DragonSpeed promised to return to the championship when the tide went out, and both the team on social media and Julian have been keen to help again. In this situation, your contribution would come in the form of rental agreement for the second Juncos chassis and engineas long as DragonSpeed paid for them.
A few dates ago, Roger Penske spoke in relation to this issue: «It will be what it has to be, there will be a race. There is no difference commercially if there are 33 cars or not. From a historical point of view it has some impact, but having the excitement of races like last year is what we have to focus on. We would like there to be 33 cars, we want there to beand we will do all the realistic and reasonable things that can be done to make it happen.”
Now, not only does the wind seem to be blowing favorably towards a full eleventh row, but the category is actively working on put together the various loose ends in pursuit of a possible 34th entry to keep Bump Day this year. Events such as the eliminations of James Hinchcliffe (2018) and Fernando Alonso (2019), or the near-disaster of Will Power last year, invite us to think that it would be worth it. Be that as it may, before all that, you have to reach 33 first, and time is running out. In a month official training starts. TIC Tac.
Photos: IndyCar Media