We’re only three weeks away from the season openers for the Verizon IndyCar Series and the entire Mazda Road to Indy program at St. Petersburg, FL. IndyCar has been testing down at Phoenix, and is experimenting with a windscreen solution to the cockpit intrusion problem, a very different solution than Formula 1’s halo system. The Mazda Road to Indy grids are starting to fill, but only very slowly. We’re hoping for a late surge of team and driver announcements in the coming weeks.
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Show notes and links
IndyCar
- Aero screen test with Dixon, discussion on our thoughts around this.
- Phoenix testing – combined results & discussion.
- Fittipaldi and Clamen De Melo confirmed for final full season seat with Coyne.
- Vasser and Sullivan back Bourdais.
- Danica confirmed for Ed Carpenter Racing for the Indy 500. Impact?
MRTI
Three weeks out and car counts and team counts are still very low
- USF2000
- Healthiest with six teams and 14 drivers.
- Where are Cape Motorsport and Arms Up?
- Pro Mazda
- Six teams and 10 drivers.
- Pelfry with only one confirmed. Will they have a full complement of three cars by St. Pete?
- Indy Lights
- Only four teams and seven drivers.
- Three open slots at Belardi and one at Juncos.
- Where are Carlin and Pelfry?
Windscreen… a true story: The Swedes sold Amtrak the plans for the tilt train (now Acela). When it came to testing the windscreen, Amtrak followed the instructions and air-canon fired a chicken at the cockpit. The chicken went through the plexi and embedded itself into the bulkhead behind the driver’s seat. They repeated the test and it broke the drivers seat and smashed into the bulkhead. The Swedes were called. They came and witnessed the trial again. Their engineer apologized for the false instructions. He took out his pen, inserted this instruction and left back to Sweden, “First un-freeze the… Read more »
I would assume being out of the car for over 5 years she would get to be in the rookie test.
Danica will probably have the same affect as Alonso did but instead of bringing in a more racing fans she’ll bring in the Danica Patrick diehard fans who left Indycar when she did and turned off the Daytona 500 last weekend the second she was involved in a crash.
1% chance she runs Indy after 2018.