NEWTON, Iowa – Across a weekend where IndyCar delivered fewer than 200 on-track passes for positions with a 27-car field racing 500 total laps during a doubleheader weekend that in recent years delivered the series’ best action, Ed Carpenter believes there’s one culprit that stands about above the rest.
IndyCar’s lone drive-owner believes Penske Entertainment decisionmakers have made an expensive mistake detrimental to the series’ typically riveting on-track product in launching its bespoke hybrid system midseason without the proper tire testing to keep its racing exciting.
If he had his way, IndyCar would park the package until the start of 2025 in order to fix the proverbial ‘fly in the ointment.’
“There was a ton of testing done to get the hybrid to where it is today, and they did a great job. It works. It functions. We are a hybrid series, but it’s not impacting the racing, and it’s asking a lot out of the car and the tires,” Carpenter told IndyStar and Motorsport.com Sunday following the end of IndyCar’s Iowa doubleheader less than an hour after the driver of the No. 20 Chevy ended up collected in a massive last-lap crash . “Through all that testing they did, I really don’t know that they did enough tire testing, and we’re testing on the fly now in a lot of these places.
“We’re getting what we asked for.”
IndyCar’s doubleheader weekend 40 minutes outside Des Moines saw zero passes for the lead outside pit exchanges — something last weekend’s Mid-Ohio debut of the Energy Recovery System also delivered . Sunday’s Race 2 that started late-morning local time, as temperatures approached and cleared 90 degrees, saw zero passes of any kind within the top-8 until the first pit sequence began past Lap 90 of 250.
Entering the weekend on the heels of an offseason partial repave of the NASCAR-owned track leading into the Cup series first visit to Iowa Speedway, paddock concerns were widespread the track’s changes, along with the cars’ extra 105 pounds from the hybrid and a last-minute altered tire compound and downforce package, would lead to a far-less exciting weekend of racing.
But the results far exceeded even Carpenter’s pessimistic outlook.
Insider: What I liked (and didn't like) about IndyCar's new hybrid engine at Mid-Ohio
“This was exaggerated because of the new asphalt, but at the same time, get used to this. Get used to this. This is what I tested at Nashville and Milwaukee,” Carpenter said of his experiences over the past five weeks testing at the venues for the final three races of the 2024 season — both of which haven’t been on the schedule since 2016. “The ovals are going to look like this until we figure out how to get the downforce and tire package right and get some weight off of the car.
“I understand why we went hybrid. It’s so we can say we’re a ‘hybrid series.’ But it’s costing us a bunch of money and making the product worse. I don’t see the point. This is the most expensive 100 pounds I’ve ever bolted onto my racecars.”
Earlier this month, Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, told IndyStar his three-car team spent roughly $2.5 million this season on IndyCar-mandated parts upgrades meant to shave weight in certain areas to offset the hybrid, along with the hybrid systems themselves.
“This race (at Iowa Speedway in the future) will improve as the surface degrades again, but to me — and from talking to people — with the weight of the cars now, it’s just so hard to follow, and I think that’s what you’re going to see in subsequent events,” Carpenter said. “It’s very hard to follow, and when you can’t follow closer and aren’t able to get a run to make passes, it’s a challenge and something we’re going to have to figure out as a sport.
“We’ve got too good of a product to take a decisive step backwards in our product by something of our own doing.”
'Combatting the change': How introduction of hybrid will (and won't) change IndyCar in 2024
Though the series has said it plans to bump up the additional horsepower boost the ERS is allowed to deliver in the future — as well as possibly the length of time it takes to drain the Energy Storage System of its charge, should supercapacitor technology evolve — Carpenter added he’s yet to be convinced of the tangible benefits the costly hybrid systems can bring the series.
“I’m probably going to get in trouble for speaking as candidly as I have, but I love this sport. I love our fans,” Carpenter said. “We can fix this. We’re spending a lot of money to make our racing worse.
“Show me the third engine manufacturer that’s coming in. Show me that Honda is leaving. We have too much momentum to make decisions that are just hurting our sport.”
After nearly five years, it's arrived: Explaining IndyCar's new hybrid system
His short-term wish? Take the hybrid systems out of the cars for the closing six-race stretch of this campaign, starting with next weekend’s race on the streets of Toronto.
“I think so, yeah,” Carpenter said, when asked whether pulling the hybrids from the car until extensive offseason testing this fall and winter could take place was his wish. “I just bought two of them this weekend. I don’t know how much it costs. You tell me.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ed Carpenter says IndyCar hybrid switch 'spending a lot of money to make our racing worse'
Most Popular
Comments / 0