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In the garage: Teams And Drivers Must Wing It At St Pete

Scott Dixon displays his speed in turn 10, too. Take note of aero kits and the differences between the Honda and Chevrolet kits. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Several years of relative stability in tracks and teams created a familiarity (some would argue staleness) around INDYCAR that is being disrupted by the aerody-namic changes for 2015.

For the first time since 2012, when the Dallara DW-12 was first introduced, there is a gap of knowledge in every garage about how to maximize the strengths and weaknesses of the chassis at speed.

“You have to figure out how to make two cars run well,” said Josef Newgarden of Carpenter/Fisher/Hartman Racing.

If early indicators hold true Newgarden will be one of the beneficiaries of the learning curve. He has been impressively fast in practices driving the CFH Chev-rolet at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

“Probably looks straightforward,” he said, “but there’s a lot of work that everyone is doing to get the most out of the aero kits. It all depends on the team and driver, but it has changed how you drive the cars.”

Aerodynamic improvements to the front and rear wing endplates, the side-pods, engine cover, rear-wheel guards, front and rear wing flaps and front wing main planes have already yielded pre-season practice speeds a second faster than last year over the same course.

That is a noticeable speed increase, derived from the additional downforce with lessened drag created by the unique wing configurations.

“They’re very efficient packages and Chevrolet and Honda have spent millions of dollars into making the best aerodynamic pieces that they can. They are quite impressive,” said Newgarden.

“The cars do things better than before,” he said. “They brake better. You can go deeper in corners—50-75 feet deeper— and carry more speed through a corner. The rear end is a little more secure. Everything on the car is a lot more refined and it’s just faster.”

“It’s not all about aerodynamics, it’s about making the engine work well with that too,” he continued.

“I think it’s both,” said Team Penske’s Will Power of his Chevrolet power mounted to its street course aero package. “I think Chevy is better with the engine and the aero right now. It’s hard to say which is more. I think they did a very good job with the aero kit, Chevy did.”

The engine improvements that Power refers to include a more efficient air intake into the V-6 engine’s turbocharger and a modified (shorter) tailpipe than last year’s cars.

There’s another important factor that must be addressed as well: the tires.

“Tire degradation seems to be big,” said Graham Rahal of Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan Racing. “Guys are going a second to a second and a half faster on new tires, but that gain is going away in like only 15 or 20 laps of running.”

“This car (a Honda) has got a lot of aero up top but it works the tire very, very hard. You can certainly brake later, and you can brake a little bit harder, but the peak (brake) pressure increases quite a bit. So the tire is working a lot harder under more load and we’re seeing that additional wear.”

The aero-driven knowledge gap is multiplied for teams with several drivers, each of whom has a different driving style and set-up preference.

Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya acknowledged that the challenges are great when a major change in formula occurs and four cars and drivers have to adapt. “We all drive so different, but It’s not so much the driving as the feeling that we want out of the car is so different.”

“You look at us driving,” he said. “It looks pretty similar but what we want the feel to be is very different. To get that feel, we achieve it in very different ways.”

Ultimately it is the product on the track on race weekend that pays the bills and brings fans out of their seats.

Newgarden’s summation of the changes and their potential to boost INDYCAR back into the mainstream of sports entertainment was succinct: “I think after this first race we’ll know if the racing is better or worse.”

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