2025 IndyCar News / Misc

Has Fox announced yet who the announcers will be on their coverage? They'd be dumb not to hire Bell and Hinchcliffe.
 
Kiante said:
Rinus is out at ECR:
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I felt like he usually got as much out of the car as ECR were capable of. He’s shown he can even be a race winner when he has the right stuff. Hopefully he lands one of the remaining seats because he’s still very young and has yet to maximize his potential. I think in a way he stayed loyal to ECR for too long because they gave him his first shot, but they’ve just been surpassed as a unit by other teams for a couple of years.

I would guess there’s a pay driver stepping in, that car had blank sidepods most of the year and at some point there were even rumors ECR would close down. Or maybe Ed pulls a rabbit out of his ass and this is where Rossi ends up?
 
A chartered entry is guaranteed a starting position on the grid at all NTT INDYCAR SERIES races, excluding the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. An entry also must be chartered to qualify for the annual NTT INDYCAR SERIES Leaders Circle program – an annual award program that compensates the 22 top finishers in the prior year’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship. The terms of the initial, long-term charter agreements are committed through the end of 2031.
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Excellent. Keep the 500 qualifying the same.
 
donthaveanickname said:
I hope they don't decrease the field all the way down to 22 eventually. No way they're gonna get 11 Indy-only entries.
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I think it’ll be 25, so you won’t be able to run without a charter. It doesn’t sound like something that’ll happen until they jettison the current chassis though, so it shouldn’t be much of a concern for a little while.
 
Had to look up Heartland Food Products and I see it's Splenda. So I learned something today. Always good to see a company join Indycar and hope it helps Ed Carpenter Racing.
 
Believed financial injection at ECR…$40M 🐇🐇🐇

RACER understands he met with multiple teams last season and is said to have made one or more offers to either purchase or invest in teams. The fit or timing for the other IndyCar owners wasn’t right, but with ECR, everything fell into place. The rumored investment is said to be in the low eight-figure range and also comes with the funding for multiple seasons to cover the annual operating costs for both cars. A quality budget for a two-car team in 2025 would fall in the $20 million range; some spend slightly more or less in the paddock, but it’s a solid number to hit per season with the new hybrid-powered cars.
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I can already hear the downers screaming about the team not being able to find sponsors and Gelov having to do it himself. Well, duh; sometimes an investor gets in explicitly for the space on a rolling billboard.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Rossi secures a new home and Rasmussen deserves a full-time shot after putting that car in the Leaders Circle at the end of the year. Hopefully all of this can help ECR get back into podium contention sooner than later. Huge week for this squad.

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Excellent duo, I would have been curious to see the oval program with Rinus and Alexander together, ngl.
 
Good news for Ed Carpenter Racing. I read where Ed will only do the Indy 500 next year so that's good. Now VeeKay has to find a ride.
 
Holy Moly ! Michael Andretti sells his portion and is out
of Andretti Global .

 
Hotrod said:
Holy Moly ! Michael Andretti sells his portion and is out
of Andretti Global .

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Some of the potential backstory to this move - per Jenna Fryer - is fascinating…though I’m sure Towriss also generally wanted to start seeing better returns on his nine-figure investment and take charge of the F1 project:

The transition was first reported by Sportico, a publication owned by Roger Penske’s son. Andretti and Penske have been at odds the entire season with Andretti complaining at the March season-opening race that Penske was not spending enough to properly market the series and if he wasn’t willing to pump in the needed cash, he said Penske should sell IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.


The comments infuriated Penske, and his leadership group slowly began dealing more directly with Towriss instead of Andretti. The amplification of the resentment between Andretti and Penske grew as the season went on and in late August, Andretti leadership noted there was a clear conflict of interest when Penske driver Josef Newgarden was not penalized for various maneuvers while winning at Gateway outside St. Louis.
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apnews.com

Michael Andretti hands over control of race team to business partner. Formula 1 plans in limbo

Michael Andretti has restructured Andretti Global to give co-owner Dan Towriss control of the organization.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
Kiante said:
Excellent duo, I would have been curious to see the oval program with Rinus and Alexander together, ngl.
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I hope Rinus doesn't lose out in a full-time ride next year. His car didn't really feature any sponsors for most of 2024 and the announcement he'd leave ECR came awfully late.
I like that they're finally running two full-time drivers next year. Ed was holding his team back quite a bit by insisting on running all of the oval races when he clearly wasn't competitive most of the time.
Signing Rossi is quite huge for this team. Rasmussen had more lows than highs in 2024 but as a rookie he still showed some promise, especially at the 500.
 
Some testing on the cards at Barber tomorrow - 2022 F2 champ Felipe Drugovich (CGR) and Jamie Chadwick (Andretti) will be running as part of the program that gives free test days for driver evaluations and Indy NXT drivers.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Sounds like the 2026 Dallas (Arlington) street race will be officially announced next Tuesday.
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Yay another street race that probably won’t be around in 3-5 years. The CART/IndyCar landfill is littered with them. They need to be at TMS and pronto, IMHO.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
Yay another street race that probably won’t be around in 3-5 years. The CART/IndyCar landfill is littered with them. They need to be at TMS and pronto, IMHO.
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Well, Texas needs to want them for that to work.

I think you can do a lot worse than partnering with one of the most valuable and famous sporting franchises in the world. NTT is supposedly bankrolling a decent chunk of it too, their U.S. HQ being in DFW. If it’s in late March, fills one of the glaring holes in the calendar, and has strong corporate support I can’t be too upset by it.
 
donthaveanickname said:
Tbh, if they were to run the 1984 F1 layout (I'm aware they won't) it could be fun to watch.
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I think they actually kicked around both the idea of that (the Cotton Bowl will also be renovated by the time the race would roll around) and the Addison Airport that the event later moved to when it became a Trans-Am headliner. But it sounds like AT&T Stadium is where it’ll end up now.

I think there’s actually a non-zero chance they managed to convince Jerry Jones that IndyCar is F1, but hey! If it works it works.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Well, Texas needs to want them for that to work.

I think you can do a lot worse than partnering with one of the most valuable and famous sporting franchises in the world. NTT is supposedly bankrolling a decent chunk of it too, their U.S. HQ being in DFW. If it’s in late March, fills one of the glaring holes in the calendar, and has strong corporate support I can’t be too upset by it.
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I’m always jealous of your even keeled and well informed responses in the Indy Car threads ha ha, this is all well put, im usually emotional and first thought post kind of member. I just wish the series raced at 1-2 more ovals a year with not such big a gap in the start to the season, it’s a huge disservice that the first oval of the year is The 500. TMS slotted in so perfectly as an appetizer for the fans and casuals to May. It’s a shame we’re probably not getting TMS back anytime soon.
 
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