Welcome to the racer’s mail bag. Any questions from the racer writer are: mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters containing questions are likely to be published. Any questions received every Monday after 3pm will be saved the following week.
Q: This means you can’t actually build a new chassis without knowing what kind of engine it is in. IndyCar does not have an engine agreed to in 2027. There are no new Ergo, ’27 cars. But this is, Please don’t Get: Does Pensuke expect what will happen for an extra 12 months?
A new manufacturer? Didn’t the train leave the station? Ford and Hyundai (Genesis) have prototyped them. Stellantis is heading towards NASCAR, but now Toyota must have automated the “The answer is still “no.”
Is it branded by someone else’s plan, mainly leaving behind something made by Honda’s Ilmall? This concept appears to have worked well enough to seduce RAM on NASCAR tracks. Leave the decision to entrust the ERS or negotiate the ERS. Without dramatic changes, I’m worried that the Marshall Pruet gap year solution will be the answer by default.
Al, Boston, MA
Marshall Pruett: Could be another option for 2028. I have been working on the next piece of Indo-Karl Formara for about eight months, and parked it and rewritten it to triple three times as a major change in my plan appeared. I wanted to put it out last week, but my goal is to have it done by the end of the month.
Q: During practice on Road America 1 on Friday, I noticed some cars heading for Turn 5. The tire noise was absolutely owned by the extremely high-pitched sound parallel to the lockup. It has never been mentioned in the broadcast. You can only assume that it is a hybrid, but do you have any insight into that? Instant full leggan?
Mike, Lake Elkhart, Wisconsin
MP: Probably. It’s hard to say without being there to hear it.
Q: I can’t help but feel that Indycar is left behind in the new F1 film and the newly announced sequel to Thunder. What do you think about this? We saw how the big screen helped NASCAR become even more popular. I can only imagine an arm shot for IndyCar. There’s so much history around the 500, so many potential storylines over decades, and it’s agitating.
Jeff
MP: IndyCar/Indy There are several cool documentaries with 500 elements, but I don’t know anything about the modern or current ones that are under development, like F1 exists in Formula 1. The F1 film also starts with a bunch of IMSA. Porsche performed an incredible private screening of the film at Watkins Glen before the six-hour race. But yes, your point is that there are so many things to choose from from the Indy and IndyCar worlds. Perhaps Driveton’s legacy was to kill interest in returning to the series.
Q: Can you give me an introduction to the IndyCar Hybrid System? In other words, when and when can it be unfolded? How/Do you need to deploy it as a weapon?
What do teams and drivers think about it compared to previous push-to-pass options?
David
MP: He made his debut in a competition 51 weeks ago. I’ve written at least 10,000 words since then, so the search feature on Racer.com is my first recommendation. (try Part 1 and Part 2 First, we look inside the Indycar Going Hybrid. -ed.))
It is used as well as other performance-enhancing technologies as the team believes it is the second push-to-pass system and is necessary for the rules.
Q: Thank you for answering my question about the Buick Indy Engine program about a year ago. I’m really grateful.
My wife and I had the privilege of taking a tour of the Petersen Automotive Museum last summer. At Vault I came across my favourite open-wheel race car of all time: the ’99 season national racer Eagle 997. It was one of the few Eagles old enough to see it race and by looking first hand and studying quickly, I was grateful for the design of the car and the Mavericks Dunguarney and the company were truly/more than that.
I know it’s hard to say, but your estimation is how good were those particular chassis? Obviously, the AAR knew what they were doing and I always felt that it was possible, but between the Toyota engines and Goodyear tires at the time, it seemed like a perfect storm of all the wrong ingredients. I know that Robby Gordon did reasonably well with Eagle just by running Firestones, but if, for example, a cart team with Firestones and Ford or Honda engines ran one, would it have been a consistent competitor for point finishes? Or was it specially designed to accommodate a Toyota engine?
Drew, Birmingham, Alabama
MP: It was clearly potential, but having a limited number of models on the field while playing against the 20ish Reynards made me suffer the same things that Lola and Penske were experiencing at that point. When faced with such a chassis development onslaught, there is no way to compete.
I think it was the forefront of Honda and Firestone, and both were far better options. It is unknown whether it may have matched with Leyanard.
All the American racers Toyotaigle 997s supported by Alex Baron here certainly saw that part, but their uniqueness made it interesting, but that was also the responsibility. David Taylor
Q: Who were the surprises and disappointments of the 2025 season?
Pedro
MP: McLaren moves to the top of Chevrolet Camp. Pensuke is in a state of confusion. Coyne and Veekay, who make up a lot of teams, look stupid. Kirkwood. Palou. Honda is undefeated. Shank and Rosenk Vistroking. Erickson was troubled by another brutal season. Foster looks better than most rookies in recent years. The RLL is faster, but not good in the championship.
Q: If you start a new team and have to choose between Colton Helta or Kyle Kirkwood, which one would you take?
Brian Henris, Fort Mill, South Carolina
MP: Kirkwood. He is second in the championship and Colton is tenth. If I asked the same question a year ago, it would have been the opposite answer. If I ask next year, it could be different again. All you can do is go to today’s output, and in his fourth season, Kirk appears to have found something new and different. Colton had more adversity, but with good days, but not so many. Kirk has a hot hand in 2025 so that’s an obvious choice.
Q: Wow – I say I was expecting a snoozer at Road America, considering how some of the other IndyCar races went this year, but that was one of the better road races IndyCar has been performing for a long time. Even if Paloo wins there was everything that made the race great. My first reaction was probably that the heat and condition contributed to a tense race in the car so that the driver could actually drive the machine. And hopefully, that’s good among some of the racers later this year, especially Midohio, Laguna Seca and Portland. The car slipped, but it didn’t punish aggressive driving.
Other snap judgments: MSR/Rosenqvist is there. Palou is special this year. The cartoon anvil either moved from Andretti and 28 cars to the New Garden or gave birth to a child stuck to Jones.
After all, it’s a mailbag so I think you need a question… So, do you think the weather conditions helped make Road America as good as that? And if so, would it hope for us to enjoy as summer heats up?
Tacommon Gomery
MP: The heat was a factor, but the tires were mostly rising for the challenge, so neither compound had any high degradation. The attention and timing of those attention is important as they can open up multiple strategic options that lead to the diverse fate they saw on Sunday.
Q: Santino Ferrucci returned to third place and produced results! I hated him as a driver, but now the beer squeals at the end of the race and he beat me.
So… what if you put him in Pensuke instead of Marca?
It’s not Stephen Johansson
MP: I know Willpower thinks Santino is high. But don’t discount Marca. He is still very young, 23 and inexperienced, with 45 IndyCar races to his credit. Most of them – 34 – were with coins. If you’re talking about learning on the Hightier team, he’s having a half season with Meyer Shank and half season with Foyt. It’s hell to sit in 12th place in the championship and be just 10 points behind Ferucci.
He needs another season at Voyt to clear up a string of mistakes that limit his ability to achieve better results. Purely, a case that requires time to reach many of his possibilities. As mentioned before, he’s 10 points behind Ferucci and is shy of Pensuke’s McLaughlin just 16 points. Something impressive.
If Ferucci rides him, is Power still thinking of him? Joe Skibinski/IMS Photo
Q: I have been saying since early in the year that I am not sure about the weight of a hybrid. At least, in itself, was the cause of a relatively boring start to the IndyCar season. I felt this way because of one simple fact. Last year’s hybrid races weren’t like those. I’m sure I’m more than that in the wake of the season’s most entertaining road race, featuring the victory of Alex Palou, with three races removed from the Indy 500 right now.
The real problem that caused the season’s slow start wasn’t the insurmountable obstacle that hybrid weights have been made recently, but the teams were unable to fully grasp the best ways to set up a car with hybrid weights. Ganassi first wrapped his brain around, leading to a boring start to the season, with others catching up and returning to series form even when Paloo won.
Back to this form, it’s no coincidence that it started with the first truly exciting race at the Indy 500. Currently, most fields have that setup do Let them attack in ways they couldn’t do before, and we go back to what we expect from IndyCar – and it’s right when we enter a more consistent scheduling period on top of that.
I couldn’t make it happy to see it return to this form.
FormulaFox
MP: The only problem with the theory is that the team and the driver said the opposite. The team raced on road courses, street courses and ovals in 2024 with hybrid weight. I spent the money I worked on the R&D program, the simulator program and learned more in the track tests I completed.
Teams make engineering advancements every season, so that’s the norm. But they didn’t just unlock the secrets of some new hybrid heavy-emitting setups together. The 500 was very good, but the same weight-related issues and limitations were spoken by the drivers after the race. The passing opportunities that come from attention and reopening have brought the same entertainment to 500 Detroit. Same as WWTR. Same as Road America.
The new Detroit layout was a wealth of mistakes (seven in 2023, eight in 24, five relatively tamed earlier this month). The WWTR had four precautions to add to the restart/pass/excitement dynamics. This also introduced the first big race/fuel strategy strategy finish of the year as the leader peeled off in search of a splash to reach the checkered flag.
There was a similar reboot/pass/passing/excitement/multi-tactical event last weekend, but there was another new twist in Firestone primary and alternatives, which was very well and durable, allowing the driver to push harder at medium corners like Turn 5 and the Canadian Corner. I’d like to put everything down to improving the hybrid setup, but a clean race at Midohio can easily bring back boring races.
Q: Why wasn’t Marcus given a penalty for running a hose/gun at his last stop?
Jim Barenger
MP: Indycar decided this year to remove such things from the penalty list. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Q: What mileage does the IndyCar not conserving fuel in Road America mean?
MP: My quick math says that Palou probably has about 3.6 mpg in his last stint. 16 laps x 4.048 mile track = 64.768 mile. You need to divide it by 18.5 gallons = 3.5 mpg, but he also did a cooldown wrap so let’s go for 3.6.
It didn’t look like he was really saving fuel in the final stint given him lap time compared to Rosenqvist.
Q: Dixon is a fuel-saving master and I’m sure he’s given Palou a lot of those tricks, but it appears that Honda has a great mileage (and certainly better than Chevy) in Road America. But the only way to really know is to make the mileage smarter when the Indycar that powered the Honda pushes.
Either way, it was yet another masterclass by Parow and Wansar.
thought?
Jeff Smith, Penn State University
MP: There is a characteristic I saw in the best drivers, and its ability to become a chameleon behind the steering wheel. It starts from the orbit and is caused by intelligence. Wheldon, Franchitti, Dixon, Montoya, de Ferran, and more.
They absorb and adapt to each other, and learn what they have witnessed and learned from each other via data and video, depending on the time. Written about Dixon and how he hone his natural talent in road racing, he was brought to a new level, learned a lot from Franchitti, leveled up again, using his chameleon-like abilities, adopted from his environment and deployed in a favorable way, becoming the best of his generation.
Palou did the same, Dixon as his main source of experiential education. He also got Francitti as an in-house advisor. Do you save fuel? Understood. Race management? Understood. Brutal consistency and efficiency? Understood. and so on. Not that Dixon wasn’t good enough in all areas where Wheldon and Franchitti helped improve the game, but he amplified his abilities by injecting his best attributes into his attributes. And now Palou has taken Baton from Dixon and become the master of IndyCar’s latest master.
Also, yes, Honda is known for being the head of the fuel mileage department, and lifting early at the end of a long straight is where a ton of fuel savings is achieved. One of Dixon’s special skills is to cut down the loss of lap time from the throttle, as it is either passing through the next corner and engaging the car or not set to optimally carve the corner. This is another area where Palou (and other drivers) mimics Dixie with fuel savings and lap time profits.
Q: Some stupid seasonal questions for you.
1. I really enjoy Santino fighting against a bigger team. How will Marylene Sexton’s misfortune pass have on the funds for his ride next year?
2. What do you feel about keeping him on his pensuke?
3. Will Connor win another season with Juncos Hollinger?
Tony
MP: I’m still TBD for the first question. I hope her daughters want to continue, but with funerals about to take place, for now, we are focusing on the Marine and Sexton family rather than future funding. I’m sure these conversations will take place at the right time, but there’s some urgency as the end of the season is here at two months.
As for power, a smart move by Penske is to keep him for another year, maintain consistency when the team is in turmoil, and give Marcus another season to mature as a driver. Whether you dislike power or not, I can’t find the sense of stacking up big driver changes in addition to leadership changes.
Put another way, I’ve seen the team struggle after divorced three important, longtime leaders, so if anyone thinks the best follow-up is to divorce a longtime leader at the fourth key, I’d be worried.
Q: Questions about the gateway. In the race, I have seen signs in the race that show forever displaying a 3-2-1 before a straight end or turn. There was a countdown sign on the fence outside the gateway. What does this use to refer to it so that it appears to have already been off turn 2 in front of the sign?
John M. Lee
MP: Sounds like a brake distance marker, but it’s difficult to answer without a reference image.
Q: How does RLL get out of that slump? Does the team need a third investor to inject more money into the manipulation, just like what’s going on with the ECR?
Foster shows the flash, and Tom Sellek’s mustache certainly make him at least 0.2 seconds faster everywhere.
James
MP: They have a lot of talent in the engineering and performance aspects, but it is also a group where many people are either new or new roles. It’s coming out of the slump with more time and races, and, importantly, in a complete offseason with all the smart people, an R&D programme as a unit.
Foster has a real gem and we don’t know what his contractual situation is, but the team will need to step up in 2026 to make sure he is starting to look for an upgrade without Lundgaard.
Q: Are tire tests planned before the Iowa race? Are you optimistic that the surface will be better than last year?
Joe
MP: I’ll test there to start this week. The surface should be very slippery, like after last year’s iteration. This is when you need to make tires that are not rocks that do not deteriorate.
Q: How much will Fox TV ratings be a factor in Honda’s future decisions?
Billy
MP: It certainly can’t hurt. The bigger question is how tired and not there Honda is from Pensuke Entertainment, and how Honda might want to try something new or not want to do it with NASCAR.
Q: How do four cars “Pensk” compared to 2, 3, and 12?
Mark, Milford, Ohio
MP: Like these three and 14 cars, Pensuke, and the biggest development is the specifications of the car build. Assembling a car the same way as Penske Cars is where true consistency and reproducibility have occurred.
More similarities than the eyes can see? Matt Fraver/IMS Photos
Q: Updates to Tim Cindric and what he’s doing? I think Fox should hire him. He gives us great information that we don’t normally get, like Jon Beekhuis did before. Do they need Pensuke’s approval?
David Tucker
MP: Tim is on this week or this week’s call list. Penske doesn’t own Fox, so no, Fox can hire the person they want.
Q: After reading the comments about Dennis Hauger, why is the F2 driver “better” than the NXT driver? Is that a car they drive in F2? Technology? competition?
Vincent Martinez, South Pasadena, California
MP: As the owner/practitioner of the IndyCar team, the depth and culture of overall driver development by most F2 teams, far surpassing the NXT counterparts. F2 is like MIT and Stanford, while NXT is like a state or community college when it comes to curriculum and education in all aspects of the racing field.
In other words, Hauger has a more advanced career development, training, nutrition, technical and engineering and mental aspects thanks to an intensive program that lets the drivers pass. There are some NXT teams that do the same thing – and Retti is the gold standard, and while Ganassi has brought this to new teams, the IndyCar team hasn’t said in recent years that they’ve received as much complete NXT drivers as rookies as F2 drivers they’ve signed or tested.
Q: Two questions from the Gateway Race:
Are you surprised that the red flag was not called in the crash at Foster/New Garden? There is nothing found in the INDYCAR rulebook regarding weights for event conditions (section 7.1.4 explains the steps after red is called, but does not lead to that). I was surprised that there was a foam block that I needed to replace
Secondly, with the exception of one pit cycle, the undercut was effective. How do teams determine if undercuts or overcuts are better on a particular track? The tyre deg and previous races are the only factors I can think of. Certainly, I have not seen practices, so I have missed out on even more valuable insights.
Atira Vesal of Madison, Wiscon
MP: I wasn’t. It wasn’t behind in the race so there was a lot of damage to resolve, but the AMR safety team handled it quickly. 20 laps were lost in the 260 lap race. That’s impressive to me.
Teams should look at historical trends to see if overcut/undercut is the most effective and read the race during playback.
Q: The general consensus is that Indy NXT cars are between the F3 and F2 from a performance standpoint. Dennis Hauger is the F3 champion and won multiple F2 races per season with the midfield team. It’s not really shocking that he led something like 60% of all laps this season, but it also makes it difficult to judge his performance. And how realistic is it for him to get a full-time IndyCar drive next year?
Will, Indy
MP: With lap times recorded, it is hard to tell whether driver talent is a challenge in every series to finish the results. In those, he was the best of all NXT drivers this season, judged by his speed and finish. As a rookie. If quality seats are open where the team is about to hire, it is very realistic for him to get a drive, and it depends on how much money he can raise if he is with a team that needs to be paid.
Dennis Hauger has moved from strength to strength in the Indy NXT, but taking the next step will be as complicated as ever. James Black/IMS Photo
Q: I understand that it’s a Pensuke (not a CGR) Indycar, but do anyone other than me feel that the 2025 Will Power’s Dallara colouring is abandoning the powerful Jimmy Vasser 1996 target vibe? With its main red and yellow stripes running along the length of the car, it was difficult to notice similarities with the famous “lightning stripe” scheme. Oh, and it won’t hurt car number 12 either!
Richard Thug, Riverside, California
MP: People, do you feel different from Richard?
Q: Full disclosure, I am the No. 1 fan of RLL. Why didn’t Graham Rahal switch the motor to Sato’s oval chassis? Isn’t that legal? The RLL oval packaging failed for at least 5 years. Do they typically rebound on the final road course?
Where is my Team RLL Test Driver VIP? He can’t do anything worse than us. Where is the FBI research? What is the requirement that Cindric be fired? Can Team RLL bring him back home? Team RLL declined after losing Sindrick and Scott R. Graham has the skills, but how long does it take him to get bored of making moves?
William Forest, Lima, Ohio
MP: Rules prevent teams/drivers from using each other’s engines. They are assigned by IndyCar. There’s no reason a team won’t go well in any of the remaining races. Participating in the race. We are not anywhere. How do you know the conditions for Cindric being fired? The team already has a president. Is RLL responsible for you to feel competitive again? He told us he would race through the end of the contract.
Q: How can IndyCar officials track tire usage during the race to ensure that everyone uses both tires at the required time?
Craig Mashburn
MP: Firestone does live tracking.
In F1, who decides how hard/soft the compound in lace becomes? Will it be Pirelli? fia? Multiple entities? And how long before these decisions are made before the weekend race?
Todd, Indianapolis, Indiana
Chris Medland: This is a decision Pirelli has acquired based on car data from the team. Pirelli also uses historical data as he has all the knowledge of how tires responded to various trucks in the past.
More pre-decisions have been made in the past, but recently tire suppliers have tried to call later to increase their choice flexibility, notifying teams for about a month from the event (such as just two weeks after Monaco this year). The team wants to warn them about preparation and simulation, but Pirelli also needs to do so for logistical reasons.
Rick Mears rewrites IndyCar’s record books in multiple qualifying rounds, including the 1982 Penske PC10 Indy. David Husson/Getty Images
The final words
June 24, 2015, from Robin Miller’s mail bag
Q: It’s clear that Will Power is, at least, the second best talent on the IndyCar grid today (I’m not a particularly fan, but I can’t deny his talent). Certainly he drives the best IndyCar team of all time, which helps, but the evidence lies in his qualifying control. In the last two races, he saw that he put Rick Mears (the hero of my childhood race) on the best pole positions ever, and how do you compare the two? I was only 40 years old and was interested in the 12-year-old IndyCar race in 1987.
Rick was my hero, but he raced a few years after I followed the sport. But I remember seeing Rick do well with the ellipse. I vaguely remember this being due to manipulating his feet in a big crash, affecting his ability to pedal cars around the roads and streets. Before that crash, how good was Rick on those circuits? Was most of his poles oophyll? I’m interested in your perspective on comparing Rick’s Oval and Road Course skills with Willie P
Brady Hauxhurst
RM: It’s hard to compare, but there are some statistics that will help you put Rick’s career in perspective. Before shattering his legs at Sanair in 1984, Mears was an exceptional road racer. He won the first 28 road/street courses six times, starting with Team Pensuke. Bernie Ecclestone flew him to Paul Ricardo in the spring of 1980 and tested the Brabham F1 car, and he was soon within 30 seconds of world champion Nelson Piquet. He then tested Brabham again on Riverside, faster than Piquet. Ecclestone offers him a deal, but Rocket chose to stay in the cart, as he likes running eggs and road racing. After the injury, Mears recorded another RC victory at Laguna Seca in 1989, apparently unable to race road races with the same skill. However, he won two more oval races in Indianapolis. Power is not familiar with Rick’s oval tracks, but he’s getting better and better with Mears’ tutoring, and no one has done faster on road and street circuits than Willie P in the past six seasons.
