The RACER Mailbag, April 30

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week. 

Q: Where would you put Alex Palou at this point in his career versus the all-time greats? Winning three championships in his first five seasons must be up there with anybody, yes?

Randy, Milwaukee

MARSHALL PRUETT: There are only five human beings in the 100-plus years of IndyCar history to win more championships than Alex Palou. Let that sink in for a moment. And then consider he’s rocketed up that all-time list in five seasons; the guy arrived at Dale Coyne Racing in 2020, became a champ as a sophomore, pooped the bed as a junior with the self-induced contractual distractions, then settled in and has added back-to-back titles.

He has 13 wins so far; next on his list to overtake with between 14-17 wins are Tom Sneva, Simon Pagenaud, Juan Pablo Montoya, Alex Zanardi, Dan Wheldon, Tony Kanaan, Jimmy Murphy, and Danny Sullivan. It’s another ‘let that sink in’ scenario.

He reminds me of peak Dario Franchitti and Jimmie Johnson. Just clinical. Makes the best of a great supporting cast, and he’s taken the Franchitti School of Winning IndyCar Championships course to heart. Murders the field, including teammate Scott Dixon — the modern master of Franchitti’s formula — with cold point-scoring efficiency through podium appearances. He manages risk-vs-reward better than any of his rivals, which is reinforced by standing on the podium 34 times so far in 84 races. That’s 40 percent, which is ridiculous.

Palou won't be mistaken for IndyCar’s 'fastest' driver with just six poles, but there’s no trophy, ring, and million-dollar prize given to the annual king of IndyCar lap times. He’s IndyCar’s 'Mr. Sunday' because that’s where he does his best work.

Crazily enough, he’s done all of this without a single oval win. He’s been on pole at the 500, and been on the podium on other ovals, so the talent is there and he’ll get some wins. His Indy record is something to admire; on debut with Coyne it didn’t go well, finishing 28th, but since then, it’s been a second, a ninth, a fourth, and a fifth. Four straight top 10 finishes at the Indy 500 answers whether he’s got what it takes to become an all-around great.

Once he starts to solve that oval victory puzzle, we’ll have a reason to debate where he belongs in the bigger conversation about all-time talents, but it would be premature to go there before he’s aced the oval side of IndyCar’s multi-discipline challenge.

Q: I see the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) is now being shown live in America on the RACER Network. I know most of your audience is mainly U.S. motorsport-focused (and F1 these days) but I highly recommend they check it out. The first round at Donington was brilliant! Brands Hatch Indy course next.

As much as I love the series, I do think it is stuck a bit in the past from a media standpoint so I hope this deal means you can bring your wonderful reporting skills to the sport and share this great sport to a fresh new audience.

Dan Mayhew, UK

MP: The BTCC was what drew me to the SPEED Channel in the 1990s. Once the channel turned into an endless rotation of Pinks! (SPEED’s equivalent of Ridiculousness), it lost some charm, but there was a decent volume of unique international racing to be found. Can’t wait to see how the RACER Network might evolve.

If the Franchitti School of Winning IndyCar Championships had an app, you just know that Palou would be on that thing constantly. Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Q: After reading all the complaints and thoughts about early-season viewing of IndyCar, both good and bad, I have one suggestion. FOX did a great job of pimping the series. The ads for the three drivers were entertaining, funny and would have made me watch, even if I weren’t a lifelong IndyCar fan. But they promised speed and made the racing look fast, frenetic and dangerous. The first three races delivered little of that. I suggest that IndyCar add an oval in the first two or three rounds. I know those tracks are harder to find and apparently harder to draw fans to than a street course, but other than creating accidents (normally) street courses are notorious for offering less passing.

You recently mentioned Phoenix again, and I’m not pushing any one oval, but let’s find something that allows side-by-side racing and passing and shows off the speed of IndyCars earlier than the Indy 500. I know this would have to be a West Coast or Southern track, but let’s get it done Mr. Penske and crew.

PS From a scheduling standpoint this past Sunday, April 27 would have been a great date for a race (Barber?) instead of packing so much into early May. Oh, and F1 is in Miami on the same day as Barber. Horrible timing for viewership!

Mark, Milwaukee

MP: If the mostly boring start to the season has proven anything, it’s that Penske Entertainment needs to take a finer look at how it structures its IndyCar seasons. There’s more scrutiny placed today on providing entertaining races than I can previously recall, and that’s where being intentional in laying out the calendar to include one or more ovals prior to Indy would be wise.

It’s not always as easy as it sounds; Penske doesn’t own any ovals other than IMS, and therefore needs to rely on the interest of others to hold a pre-500 event or two on an oval.

Circling back to your point, with all of the FOX hype, which was built upon the anticipation of many compelling seasons leading into 2025, a more deliberate schedule with early races that hold a higher likelihood of matching the hype would be a wise move.

As for your final point, we’ll get a good look at how both series fare on network TV without going head-to-head. IndyCar goes first on FOX and shortly after the checkered flag, F1 fires off on ABC. Not sure how that’s horrible.

Q: Kyle Larson is a multi-discipline racer. Any chance he could come to IndyCar full-time?

David Tucker

MP: That would be amazing, but I can’t see it happening. Never heard Kyle say he wanted to do all the road and street racing, and the huge drop in salary and overall earning potential in moving from NASCAR to IndyCar makes this is a non-starter unless he somehow falls out of Cup racing.

Q: I just reviewed the NASCAR Talladega race results and shook my head with little wonder at why my interest has declined. The points system they use to decide a champion is just ridiculous. Austin Cindric wins and gets 48 points. Kyle Larson finishes second and gets 54 points. Third-placed William Byron gets 43.

I’ve written before that winning should be twice as good as finishing second and three times better than third. The whole Stage 1,2,and 3 stuff is a crock, along with that so-called playoff.

I believe a huge allure for the Indy 500 is the prestige and emphasis on winning. I can recall visions of Scott Goodyear, and last year Pato, being in tears over finishing second, which was, in effect, besting 31 other competitors. That’s how much winning at Indy meant. Ever since I was a young boy, I watched in the stands as the old sprint cars raced around the quarter mile dirt track for that checkered flag. No-one clapped for the guy who finished second, or what David Pearson used to refer to as “losing”.

I’m not a fan of IndyCar’s points system either, as it doesn’t award winning enough. But it’s certainly nowhere near as convoluted as NASCAR’s.

My three cents (inflation)

James Herbert Harrison, Overland Park, KS

MP: Only aspect of IndyCar’s points system I don’t like is the awarding of a point to anybody who leads the race, which rewards those who aren’t always worthy. The rest makes sense.

Q: Just learned that McLaren is pulling out of Formula E to focus on its Hypercar. Is this a sign of some instability in the series, and could we expect some engine manufacturers from that series switch over to IndyCar like Maserati?

Alistair, Springfield, MO

MP: McLaren’s moving the budget from an electrified open-wheel series to help pay for an electrified sports car series. Those FE manufacturers have had the option to join IndyCar for years, but haven’t. The international marketing and sales benefits of FE would, I imagine, outweigh a regional series like IndyCar, but if a manufacturer wanted to go all-in on U.S.-based promotions through racing in an open-wheel championship, IndyCar’s the only place to do business.

Q: I assume RLL is starting from ground zero to rebuild the car for Sato – or were they able to save the tub? Either way I guess it’s a complete rebuild. Hope they can find the speed again.

Don Weidig

MP: Per RLL president Jay Frye, the tub that looked OK when we were staring at it in the garage on Thursday was indeed revealed to be damaged beyond immediate repair after it was fully stripped on Friday at the shop. Brand-new car, with a tub that’s toast. Time to build another car.

Definitely not the way you want to see a brand-new tub returning to the garage. Paul Hurley/IMS Photo

Q: In studying the saga of IndyCar’s races, I cannot see the rhythm or reason for having all these different tire compounds. It seems to make no sense for Firestone or any other tire company from a consumer marketing standpoint. Even in the old days, when they did sell ‘regular’ tires and snow tires, teams at Indy strived to run the entire 500 miles on a single set of tires, which would be a marketing badge of honor for the winning brand.

I believe the racing would be far superior if the teams were supplied a supply of the same tire and let them race. This scenario of having one required tire that only has grip for a few laps is silly and goes against the whole idea of what motor racing is all about.

The teams would still have the whole fuel strategy thing to deal with (another topic for another day) but let the teams, cars, and drivers show their prowess with speed on the racetrack, which would make the competition more interesting. What do you think?

William Sanders, Cape Girardeau, MO MP: There’s no more than two tire compounds — hard and soft, or primary and alternate, or whatever you prefer to use as descriptors — at any race. And the two-compound approach has been used in IndyCar for three decades dating back to the 2000s with Champ Car, so I’m struggling to see what’s new or different here that needs immediate killing.

If we’re lucky, a normal race this weekend at Barber, with a couple of cautions to create restart dramas, should put an end to the ‘change everything’ vibe that’s dominated the Mailbag since St. Pete. And if that doesn’t happen, and F1 in Miami murders IndyCar in the TV ratings, I might need to let ChatGPT handle the next few Mailbags…

Q: Need some help here (actually, more than you can provide). I think I understand the ‘Larson replacement driver rule’ where TK can refresh when the track is open for practice on opening day in May. However, other drivers completed their refresher course and ROP programs. I’m confused why TK didn’t get to turn laps, but not as confused as to why Rush recorded ‘I think I’m going bald’.

Dave, NW Indiana

MP: Open Test was all about getting Kyle uninterrupted time in a car he hadn’t driven in almost a year while working in a tight two-day timeframe. The format didn’t allow a car changeover for Tony with belts, pedals, and the rest of the tailoring in a manner that made it easy or obvious to attempt at the test without taking track time away from Larson. Lots more free time in May, so that’s where Tony will slot in.

On Rush and its worst song from the 1970s, that’s simple: drugs. The same terrible decision-making was on display with the two horrendous rap segments in Roll The Bones. Strip them from the song, and it’s all but perfect.

Q: This is my first time watching the Indy Open Test. Although not its purpose, does the group running give any hints to how easy or difficult it is to race inside the field?

Atilla Veyssal, Madison, WI

MP: Yes, of course, but the greater insights came from drivers after the test. Kyle Kirkwood offered the most succinct insights: “This test may not be representative of what it’s like in May, because the track grip was so low, but it was very hard to follow cars.”

Q: Not sure if this is a Mailbag question, but I will be going to the 500 for quali weekend as well as the race. So to make it easy, what should a Bay Area IndyCar fan do in Indianapolis for the 10 days? Where am I going to see drivers outside the track? What events happen that I might not know of? Where should I go grab lunch?

Any information would be helpful. Maybe I’ll see you at the track.

Dan Michaelian, Chester, CA

MP: Hi, Dan. We get variations of this question in the weeks leading into May every year, so rather than write the same thing over and over again, look for a dedicated ‘What To Do In Indy’ story here on RACER.com in early May.

Q: I generally prefer dealing with event tickets digitally, but I have a couple of concerns about doing so with IMS. I’m wondering if you might have any perspective. My primary concerns are that I simply don’t see the series nor the Speedway as that good with digital matters. Secondly, the website indicates that an email is required to access digital tickets, and further, to expect the email 10 days prior to the event. That would not leave much time to resolve potential problems.

To be clear, I am comfortable with the process once I receive the tickets and can get them in my Apple Wallet app. It is the delivery that concerns me.

Jack

MP: Ten days is considered an insufficient amount of time to handle a ticket problem? I’d agree if it was two or three days, but 10? Hard to get on board with that assessment.

In the limited experiences I’ve had with digital tickets, which have all been outside of racing, the process has been similar to what you describe and generally smooth to navigate.

If you have specifics on something IMS/IndyCar has failed you with its digital ticketing in the past, please share and I’ll send it onto Doug Boles, who always wants to learn about and resolve problems.

Q: Was Michael Andretti compensated or bought out? Or just terminated sans compensation? Are the 500 Speedway chassis used at other ovals or just for the 500?

Isaac Stephenson

MP: We understand he was bought out, but it’s not like they disclosed such things in the press release or speak to the financial details today, right?

There are 12 teams entered in the Indy 500 with 34 cars. They all choose to use their cars in different ways, so there’s no single answer to the question.

Q: I don’t like to whine, and especially about WEC/IMSA after essentially fulfilling everyone’s Gran Turismo fantasies of the last 30 years through LMH/LMDh, but…

How badly are the FIA messing up the BoP? Yes, the way they’re calculating it changed (for no real pressing reason). But when they did the math for Qatar, and then ran the race, it was pretty clear that the goal of lap time convergence had been missed and they were sitting on a Ferrari with a significant performance edge over most of the field. Yet for Imola, what happened? They gave the Ferrari a bunch more power, and a little more weight.

In contrast, the Toyota got less power, less stint energy and a modest reduction in weight that left it 20kg heavier than the Ferrari (that’s enough extra ragu to feed the paddock). And that’s just a car using the same LMH rules. And the result was another Ferrari walkover.

Now, I am not an engineer employed by the FIA, but to me, if we’re trying to get all the cars towards the same ideal lap time, giving the fastest car a bunch more power and keeping its weight and available energy in the middle of the group won’t be converging any lap times. Either the FIA needs to accept that it should be more aggressively nerfing certain cars relative to the competition for this ideal lap time, or go back to last year’s methods which at least opened up superior tire degradation and energy management as competitive strategies for cars they weren’t going to allow competitive peak pace.

Also, IndyCar in 2025 is feeling a lot like F1 in the late ‘90s. Palou is emphatically doing a Michael Schumacher on the competition.

Duncan, Ottawa

MP: Hard to argue against any of your points, Duncan.

They’re both multiple winners on the IMS road course, for starters. Sutton/Getty Images

Q: Do you have any updates on what (if any) plans IndyCar Series/Penske Entertainment has to build a younger fanbase?

As a new father, it has become painfully obvious how little IndyCar is doing to attract young fans/children. A simple ‘IndyCar Lego’ Google search reveals dozens of F1 licensed products available on Lego’s website (with some products designed for kids as young as two years old).

It’s a similar situation with Hot Wheels. You can buy a 1:64 scale Hot Wheels car of eight different F1 teams that can race on the ‘iconic orange track’. A lot has been documented about the lack of a video game, but this feels like a huge gap that is a no-brainer to fix. I love IndyCar and I would love to share it with my daughter, but it feels like the series is going out of its way to make that as difficult as possible.

Patrick, Columbus, OH

MP: It’s doing the same thing it has been doing with annual increases in social media content via TikTok, Instagram, and other apps that are youth-first.

As for things you can buy that might increase the connectivity with younger fans via things you can purchase, F1 and NASCAR, and even IMSA to a smaller volume, have lots of readily available Legos and Hot Wheels and so on.

IndyCar has been active with a new line of trading cards that debuted in 2024, and collecting those have been popular among diehard fans. But yet again, keep in mind that many of these commercially-available items first come from the Legos and Hot Wheels of the world who reach out to a series or team and seek to license or collaborate on whatever it is that hits the market.

IndyCar doesn’t have a line of Hot Wheels because, so far, Hot Wheels hasn’t made it happen. If and when they see an opportunity to make money with IndyCar Hot Wheels, I’m sure a deal will be done.

Q: So I always hear complaints from drivers and teams about the lack of testing. I was looking forward to the Indy Open test and eagerly tuned in to watch… all the cars sitting on pit lane. 90 minutes into the test, only install laps had been turned. What’s the point of having track time if you aren’t going to use your maximum allotted (limited) testing time?

Vincent Martinez, South Pasadena, CA

MP: We lost two hours and 45 minutes to a failure of internet connectivity on pit lane, so the teams/officials/drivers couldn’t communicate with each other. Had nothing to do with willfully sitting and doing nothing.

Q: I’m watching the Open Test at Indianapolis via stream, and it feels great that the best month of the year is almost here! To get into the 500 spirit, what is your personal ranking of the 10 best Indianapolis 500s of all time? And if you had to pick a winner for 2025 on gut feeling only before any official practice sessions begun, who would that be?

Pete, Rochester, NY

MP: Rather than cite some of the well-known all-time great 500s, I’ll go with the ones that really resonated with me, and most are from my early days as a racecar mechanic. I’ve watched tons of 500s that were before my time, so I’ll stick with what I watched live, beginning with 1986 with Bobby Rahal and the Jim Trueman story. The power of love.

Al Unser and Mario Andretti in 1987; Mario’s ownership of the race until harmonics felled his Chevy engine and Big Al in the year-old March show car taking the improbable victory to become a four-timer.

I wanted to reach through the TV and punch Emerson Fittipaldi for the contact with Little Al in 1989. Not sure I’ve been angrier at the finish of a 500, and ‘best’ doesn’t always have to be centered on joy. It was high drama.

The thrill of Little Al’s 1992 dash to the finish line with Scott Goodyear is certainly one that had me jumping up and down like so many others. And I’ll stop at five, and this one I witnessed on pit lane as one of the 32 other entries to get mauled by JPM. Others might rank the 2000 race among the most boring, and I wouldn’t argue from an entertainment standpoint. But to be there all month and see a driver, and a team operate at a level so far above everyone else, in cars that were so tightly controlled, was just astonishing. Montoya made everyone, including his teammate Jimmy Vasser, look like they were wasting their time.

I’ve picked Scott Dixon to get his second 500 win for at least a decade, so there’s no reason to step off that train now. Just as I hate that Mario has that lone 1969 win when he should easily be a three-timer, the same goes for Dixie and his 2008 win.

Q: After seeing so many comments last week about the problem of IndyCar competing with other major Sunday sports events for TV ratings, I think I have a solution. Granted, a couple of others have suggested that the races be run in the mornings, but I don’t think that would help ratings because so many Americans go to Church on Sunday mornings.

However… Why not run the races at midnight? Hear me out.

There would be no other major sporting events still on the air, plus all the popular TV shows would have concluded and I for one believe that IndyCar could more than hold its own against Jimmy Fallon, Colbert and Kimmel. It could become the standalone Midnight Madness Racing Series where the name alone conjures up an air of excitement. Ratings? You betcha!

I have already written several sincere letters to Roger Penske suggesting this very thing and they all remain unanswered. So typical of the head-in-the-sand arrogant attitude of The Captain.

Would love to pick your brain over a couple of beers regarding this innovative concept.

J.P. Davis

MP: We could also run the races on the moon, in Atlantis, and Tatooine. Every ‘let’s radically change IndyCar’ idea I’ve heard comes from a place of running away from its problems. It was once the top form of racing in the country. It, like many other things that were once on top and has fallen behind a new leading product, can get back to the top.

And yes, some creative thinking and actions will be required to rediscover all of its former glory, but turning IndyCar into a joke — a sideshow — by running races at 9am or midnight, or in some manner that makes it look weak and strange, doesn’t sit with me as the way to go.

And my view could be completely wrong. But having seen what’s taking place with the UFL, which is a ratings and attendance failure, with its alternate take on the NFL, which airs on Saturdays, just tells me that if IndyCar is going to become bigger and better, it needs to dig in and be present at the times and places where it’s expected to be. Sponsors aren’t paying the same money to be seen in the hours where infomercials air. A million-plus people aren’t changing their lives to watch domestic races at midnight. Just ain’t happening.

Work harder to avoid the big clashes with gigantic sporting rivals if possible — that’s a smart approach to amplify — but do not turn into the Midnight Racing League, watch all of the sponsors leave, and FOX, and have at least half the teams go out of business.

I wouldn’t paint Roger’s failures to respond as arrogant. It’s a series-killing idea. Now, about those beers… great idea.

Q: So I’m watching the Indy 500 Open Test on YouTube, pretty much all day so far, and as I watch Marco run laps, I’ve come to the shocking horror that his father Michael might not be at the race. Being a lifelong Andretti fan, it’s been sad not seeing an Andretti prominent at the races this year but the prospect of Michael not being at the track in May is depressing.

Please tell me Michael will at least be lurking about somewhere?

David Dirnberger, Sterling Heights, MI

MP: Michael rocked up in St. Pete, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he appears at the 500.

Q: Wally from MN asked last week about ragged green flag starts. This has been bugging me for years. It’s 2×2 for all but one race. Why can’t a major racing series get this right? Almost every race start is like Long Beach’s was. It’s certainly not an outlier.

The consistently bad starts makes the series look bad. Is this simply not a priority of race control or PE? Shouldn’t it be? Seems simple to me to fix. Get it wrong twice and that driver(s) is penalized. Not that long ago out of line starts were waved off. This is just another indictment of race control as I see it. Your opinion?

Mike DeQuardo, now residing in Sheboygan and your volunteer 3 Sheeps tour guide.

MP: I’ve become desensitized to the Long-Beach-starts-are-always-terrible thing. Just been that way for so long, across most series, that I expect them to be terrible. But you, and others who continue to call it out, are right. Since consistency is what we ask for from referees in all other sports where judging is an active component of the game, IndyCar’s race control should be held to the same high standards for its starts. Can’t wait for the 3 Sheeps visit…

Q: How does the month of May affect the annual engine allotment? Are Indy days on a separate calendar/count? Or is all the running just part of the season long allotment? Secondly, the boost gets turned up for Fast Friday and Qualifying. Do they race with the boost turned up, or is it for qualifying only?

John, Ann Arbor, MI

MP: It doesn’t affect the allotment. The 500 has been written into the rules as a special deal where the full-time teams get to use a fresh, zero-mile engine in each car for the race. That ensures the 27 who are going for the championship aren’t going into the most important race of the year with a high-mileage engine that’s more likely to pop than one with no meaningful miles.

Those fresh motors will get run on Carb Day, and could even go in for running before then for the post-qualifying Monday practice session. Indy-only teams get a single motor for the event.

Indy is factored into the engine allocations. James Black/IMS Photo

Q: The new IMS Museum is beautiful. World-class. Cars are now displayed as works of art. The kids’ area was packed with happy kids. The only negative was one of my favorite parts of the ‘old’ museum was the rotating special exhibit area where they featured a driver, team or family. The four-time exhibit was very disappointing. They have access to all 16 winning cars and room to display them in that area. I hope next year the area will more resemble what was done in the past. Overall, a must see. I highly recommend it.

Joe Mullins

MP: I can’t wait to have the time to take a look inside. It’s on my to-do list for the first week of 500 practice.

Q: That was a big hit for Takuma Sato in Thursday’s high-boost practice session.

I know that Takuma did seem somewhat nonplussed in his post-crash interview, but is there any recall for drivers to meet with medical staff within the next day or two after a hard crash to ensure that no further cognitive symptoms have developed or is that still in the hands of the driver/team to request further care?

PP

MP: IndyCar and its IndyCar Medical staff set a threshold of 85Gs for impacts, as measured through the accelerometers in the radio earbuds worn by the drivers, which tell the series whether automatic IMPACT concussion testing needs to be triggered.

I believe the crash registered in the mid-90s with Gs for the car and below the threshold for Taku. He’s done this long enough to know to reach out for additional support. But, as a one-off driver who isn’t based in Indy, follow ups might be done elsewhere if he experiences any concussion symptoms.

Q: During the Indy 500 open test, Hinch described the onboard tools as just fine tuning tools and on race day your base setup is what you have to work with. He then mentioned the hybrid as being a dynamic tool with configuration changes available during a race. Could you elaborate if the hybrid is configurable beyond just energy collection & distribution capabilities?

Douglas Sharp

MP: Drivers can use assigned knobs or rotary dials on their steering wheels to adjust the amount of regeneration. If they have a small amount of drafting, they can dial down the aggressiveness of the regen on the straights to match, or if they have a huge draft, they can dial up the regen.

But there’s no adjusting on the deployment side on the fly; once the deploy button is hit, it’s a full hit of the extra power until it’s stopped or the battery is depleted. But there’s a new allowance for qualifying where teams can select a smaller hit of power over a longer period — a more sustained contribution instead of the standard full hit — which some tried at the test in the high-boost session.

Q: A few years ago there was a definite buzz around Colton Herta; young, cool and fast. A winner, which he proved often on track. He drew attention. Now it is Palou, and perhaps a few others, who excite. Herta seems quite ordinary these days. Even if he should get enough points for a superlicence what, other than being American, would recommend him to any F1 team, even Cadillac?

If he should slot into F1with American F1’s Cadillac for 2026 do you see him shining against any of the new, exciting crop of rookies (Hadjar, Bearman, Antonelli, Bortoletto) Has his time passed and reality – a decent driver, but not F1 standard – set in?

A. Jenkins, Ontario, Canada

MP: Lots of dismissive assumptions here. What would Colton Herta, at 25, with 100 IndyCar races of experience, and nine wins and 14 poles, have over all the F1 rookies with none of that mileage or diverse experience? Plenty. Not sure how heavily this was reported at the time, but after his McLaren TPC run, Herta received multiple contract offers from F1 teams, contingent upon clearing the superlicense hurdle. Those offered don’t get made unless his pace jumped out as remarkable to the most jaded and hardened team principals in the sport.

CHRIS MEDLAND: If Colton does get the necessary points then he will have had to have a good season, which I think would automatically mean you looked at him a little more positively, but also his driving style and adaptability would be two of the reasons he might interest Cadillac. Marshall will know better than me due to having seen him up close so often, but he’s shown he can be as quick as anyone when the car is right there, and he has tested F1 cars before, so it will be about whether any team feels he can make that transition to Pirelli tires and F1 complexity successfully.

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t expect Colton to shine, but I think that level would be unfair to expect of pretty much any rookie. I believe he’d need a bit more time to adapt than the others you mention because of the schooling they had in F2 and within F1 set-ups for a number of years, but I would also predict he would deliver some standout qualifying laps that would show his potential.

The real answer to how good he could be would be found in how quickly he did turn that into consistent race performances, in my opinion. That’s always an unknown, but some drivers just click with the machinery better than others, which is why talents always deserve a chance to show what they can do in an FP1 or test.

I typed ‘Colton Herta F1’ into the photo archive search box just to see what would happen and it came up with this British MSA Formula shot from 2015, so let's run with it. The kid in the middle looks fast, too. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images

Q: “Talk good or bad, as long as you keep talking about me”. ‘Fear articles’ about 2026 look like this. I mean, what F1 is doing is not new. It existed before – it was called Le Mans Prototype 1 Hybrid. Power split, total power, fuel per lap, it’s all similar. OK, F1 cars are more draggy. But absolutely nothing indicates this is the end of the world being promoted by some media.

F1 even has an advantage with the ICE having standard parts and everyone building a V6. Engines will not have drastic different performances.

The only real problem I see (since they announced these regs) is the lack of harvesting in the front wheels. I don’t remember anyone in WEC’s 8MJ class managing that with a single harvesting point, let alone doing that with rear wheels only. F1 just have to add it, and problem solved. No reason to be afraid of Audi’s experience. They aren’t going anywhere for a while in the chassis department.

“Oh, but top speeds”. Yeah, they’ll be lower. So what? It’s better for racing if that’s the case.

Are these articles coming from F1 itself then? I mean, sure, journalists can say they are quoting engineers. But in the end it looks like F1 told them to say these things and you, the journalists, should do a better job looking at this stuff instead of taking their words at face value.

William Mazeo

CM: I can tell you these articles are not coming from F1 itself, William – or certainly not where I’m concerned! As you can imagine there are plenty of off-record chats had in the paddock, and I’ve never had F1 wanting to push that narrative, or even discuss it.

It’s generally team bosses and drivers who give the opinions and information that you see me pass on, and engineers sometimes as well, but they’re generally more guarded about what they say other than the stuff they are finding difficult – they don’t want to tell anyone about advantages they have found, for example.

I can only speak for myself (and I’ll admit you’re prodding at a pressure point of mine by collectively lumping journalists and media together when there are so many different ones who all work in different ways, and have different expertise). In my case, I am not a technical expert so I rely on asking teams for information or for their opinions, and they are the ones at the coalface actually working with the regulations and developing the cars. No journalist is a team member running CFD simulations or designing a car and learning how the regulations can be interpreted, and none can be expected to do that either, so you can only deal in the information exchange that you get out of a team that is doing that work.

Don’t forget the FIA itself – as regulator – has full-time employees who deal with how the teams are understanding and exploiting the regulations, and often close loopholes and issue clarifications. It’s not as simple as just reading the regs and knowing exactly what that will translate into, even for the extremely smart people writing them and working to them.

Where you’re spot-on is that you sometimes have to treat some of the comments with a pinch of salt depending on who might be complaining, and another source of annoyance of mine is when negative questions get asked that don’t actually have real substance behind them. Sometimes you see that then leads to a topic being spoken about – basically in the form of one of the ‘fear articles’ you describe – and then later dismissed from elsewhere, and two stories come out of it just because a negative question was asked in the first place.

I hope you’d agree that we haven’t been depicting the new regulations as the end of the world at all on RACER, and have remained fairly neutral on the topic. That’s not by accident, but I only tend to get stuck into the hypotheticals when there are multiple opinions voiced so that it’s a more balanced piece, or if there is a clear and frank statement made.

The impression I get is that these rules were written with a focus on the power unit and then the aerodynamics were reverse-engineered around that. That meant compromises taking the whole package into account weren’t made, but that good progress has been achieved through technical working groups – including experiments carried out by teams – to improve the situation, even if more work still needs to be done. I think there’s a bit of general frustration that so many aspects of the rules could still evolve and change this late, but as you point out, teams will always complain about things they don’t like. If the end product is still good for fans, then nobody outside of the engineering groups will really care.

Q:  Can you comment and expand upon Katherine Legge talking about her experience running the Xfinity series? This is a quote verbatim from her in a very recent interview: “Being a woman racing in NASCAR, it comes with an incredible sense of pride. It comes with a level of scrutiny and harassment. The hate mail, the death threats and the inappropriate sexual comments that I have received are just disturbing. They’re unacceptable.”

Alfredo Giachino, San Diego, CA

KELLY CRANDALL: It started after Katherine Legge made her Cup Series debut in March, and that ended with an incident that collected Daniel Suarez. Unfortunately, there is a very ugly section of the NASCAR fan base that spews ignorant things on the internet. Those trolls felt further emboldened after Legge was put into a different car to the one that she had qualified at Rockingham Speedway, which ended with her being spun by William Sawalich and collecting Kasey Kahne. The comments that were sent her way after the Rockingham race are the ones that Katherine is referring to in that interview. There has been online hate because she is a woman, and because she has had on-track incidents.

THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, 29 April 2015

Q: Two topics a buddy and I were discussing while watching racing this weekend. First – with all the discussion (criticism) in the Mailbag and elsewhere about IndyCar ownership going back to CART & IRL, we were wondering about back in the day when AAA was in control and then Mr. Hulman started USAC when AAA bailed after the Le Mans tragedy, we couldn’t recall any discussion of “ownership” relative to either AAA or USAC, just that they were “sanctioning bodies.” So did anyone actually “own” USAC and if not, how was/is it funded?

Secondly, we argued about who were the best drivers that never won a championship. We settled easily on Stirling Moss for F1, debated Junior Johnson and Mark Martin for NASCAR and settled on Martin due to depth of field in his era. For IndyCar, Helio immediately came up based mainly on his Indy 500 wins plus his overall record but while we’re both about your age and have followed IndyCar since grade school, neither of us paid much attention to who was series champ… only interest being who got to use the No.1. So anyone you can think of from back in the day that could top Helio as best to not win the championship?


Bob, Peoria

ROBIN MILLER: I imagine Hulman & Company technically owned USAC but a cut of the Indy 500 was thought to keep USAC afloat. When the IRL threw USAC out as its sanctioning body in 1997, I’m not sure what that did to the relationship. As for the best Indy driver to never win the title, Bill Vukovich, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Lloyd Ruby and Johnny Thomson immediately come to mind, along with Castroneves.