2012 IndyCar Series

[Juen-Jen Wang]

IndyCar's Iowa race:

 

[morsify]

Bourdais qualified 4th at Toronto in a Dragon (which is barely on budget) and Rubens qualified 20th in a KV. Sure, he qualified just slightly behind Kanaan and Viso qualified last. But shouldn't 19 years of F1 experience mean a little more than 20th on the indycar grid in a Chevy engine?

Honestly, I sound harsher than I actually mean. I think Rubens is doing a decent job but just slightly disappointing.

I agree, but to be fair i believe it rained Saturday, so he did not get much practice time to learn the track, and then he moved from 20th to 5th in the race, until the last lap spin which knocked him back.

I still hope there's more to come form Rubens yet.

 

[Chronus]

Bourdais qualified 4th at Toronto in a Dragon (which is barely on budget) and Rubens qualified 20th in a KV. Sure, he qualified just slightly behind Kanaan and Viso qualified last. But shouldn't 19 years of F1 experience mean a little more than 20th on the indycar grid in a Chevy engine?

No. For starters, Bourdais drove Champ/CART cars for almost 5 years, had 9 or 10 races with Indy in 2011. So, while his F1 experience is little more than a season (25 or so races), is Indy/Champ car experience gives him the benefit of experience with these cars even when the car is not good.

As I said, the transition from F1 to Indy is big. Btw, I never said Indy cars were inferior, that's your assumption and not mine.

Remember, F1 is considered the top of the world by having such a wide variety of teams and how they build and engineer their cars. But IndyCar has always had the argument that they had the most diverse group of tarmac tracks. (ovals, street courses, airport courses, and permanent facilities with drastic elevation changes)

Personally, I have always preferred CHAMP cars to Indy, given the fact that almost all of its races were held in road/street courses. That would be an advantage to any F1 pilot, true, but throw in airport-based races and things become less certain.

With ovals, there is even less of an advantage form former F1 drivers.

Rubens himself said the biggest issue is learning the tracks, he will do better if he decides to stick around but anyone who thinks he will get a podium or win is probably underestimating the field as well as the challenges of these tracks. Argue all you want about how the cars in Indy are inferior to F1 or whatever, but the tracks really do them in

Rubens himself said the cars are greatly different from F1 cars. Add to that a number of tracks to learn and also a different behaviour by drivers.

And again: never said Indy cars were inferior to F1.

All in all, we shall see. Already at Toronto he peaked at 5th, went to pits, returned, pile up in the last 2 laps and he ended up lower than that.

He is good, he needs time. Imo.

 

[Kol Bailey]

I don't know. Obviously Rubens isn't as good as Nigel. (In my opinion). Rubens will be up there. He's not at the best team. So keep that in mind.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...KKXghwvkdz8jjlxow&sig2=MkfAV2RkYnfXxTt-bUdphQ

Looks like Coloni are interested in fielding a team for IndyCar... I hope this happens, could definitely boost international interest in the series

 

[Robert Wiesenmüller]

It would be nice indeed. Maybe a chance for Luca Filippi too?

 

[Chronus]

I was hoping for this - or Road Atlanta. When will we know for sure, any idea?

 

[Eric Estes]

They will not be replacing the race this year.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

It would be nice indeed. Maybe a chance for Luca Filippi too?

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking too... btw here's a better article where Coloni seems to be more than "just interested" in being in IndyCar

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-coloni-gp2-team-evaluating-indycar-options/

I think this would seriously help IndyCar globally. It's nice to see IndyCar start to rebound more and more but we'll see if they confirm their entry

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

 

[Thilo Falkenberg]

Nasty accident of Bourdais and Newgarden.

in Sonoma. I bet the accident wouldn't have been that bad if there was either more room for runoff or these new high-impact walls F1 uses on street courses. The tyre wall seemed to take away a too big space in the runoff in this accident.

 

[Christopher Aponte]

I don't know if anyone has caught this. But it seems like last year, they have a small issue with the rail road track that crosses the track on the front straight.

The result: some dukes of hazard airtime and some expensive repair
They have put a temporal chicane in order to slow down the cars

before chicane

after chicane

 

[Chronus]

Yep, saw that at Speed. They've been trying to solve it with specific patches. Lets see how it goes with Indy.

 

[CorvusCoraxUK]

Looks like fun, wish I could watch it here

The commentators are terrible though... 290MPH? Rear wheels a few inches off the ground = "a full two feet off the ground with all four tyres"

 

[Chronus]

lol

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

Rear wheels a few inches off the ground = "a full two feet off the ground with all four tyres"

Maybe they added all four together?

 

[Chronus]

Just watched a piece about Sam Schmidt and Simeon Pagenaud.

This is what motorsports is all about.

 

[Chronus]

Maybe they added all four together?

Actually, they showed several incidents on NBC Sports and a couple of cars had their front tires jumping higher than 2 feet.

 

[CorvusCoraxUK]

Hehe fair enough. I managed to find a way to watch it after all, it doesn't look like the chicane is a great solution either!