2026 IndyCar News / Misc.

Pretty short course but they had tight confines to work with. Some Pennsylvania Ave, some Independence Ave, cut across the National Mall. Should look pretty damn cool at least.




Based on pit road those turn numbers make no sense.
 
Pretty short course but they had tight confines to work with. Some Pennsylvania Ave, some Independence Ave, cut across the National Mall. Should look pretty damn cool at least.





I'm just really skeptical of them being able to pull this off on such a compressed timeline. They'll probably do it, but there's already signs of them scrambling to get the planning issues staffed (and that happens before they actually get stuff done).

But agree, should look pretty dang cool. Man, though - late August in DC is brutal.
 
Those photos depict an "anti-clockwise" racing line - is that the plan? The pit lane orientation looks clockwise.
From what they’ve rendered I think the cars taking the first turn will take the NW-bound lanes on the far side of the street and pit road will be a sharp entry into the nearside SE-bound lanes.

I’m impressed they managed to come up with a layout with only one right-hand turn. That seems like some kind of record low for a street course.
 
From what they’ve rendered I think the cars taking the first turn will take the NW-bound lanes on the far side of the street and pit road will be a sharp entry into the nearside SE-bound lanes.

I’m impressed they managed to come up with a layout with only one right-hand turn. That seems like some kind of record low for a street course.

Got it - so it will be counterclockwise.
 
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it" -George Carlin.
How much trouble is it for an unchartered team to put together a car for a single race? Is finishing 33rd in the I500 profitable?
 
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it" -George Carlin.
There was pretty much no way anybody was going to be able to compete unchartered come 2028 when the Honda and Chevy factory entries bring the number of chartered teams up to the maximum grid capacity of 27. This is just getting there a year earlier, and there really wasn’t any chance of anyone running unchartered over the next season and a half as it’s become very apparent PREMA have no prospects of being sold or invested in right before a massive regulation change.

How much trouble is it for an unchartered team to put together a car for a single race? Is finishing 33rd in the I500 profitable?
It used to be much more of a thing before the full-time field grew to the size it is now. RLL have fielded one-offs in recent years to give Lundgaard and Jüri Vips a taste of INDYCAR. Scotty Mac got his debut in a one-off Penske ride in St. Pete at the end of 2020. MSR and JHR both gradually developed from part-time entries into full-time multi-car entrants. Quite a few teams with extra entries for the 500 have also fielded the same car at the Indy GP over the years. But there wasn’t the same strain on resources then as there is now with 25+ regular entries. Chevy and Honda lose money on each engine lease, and that math won’t get any better when the new engines come on line.
 
There was pretty much no way anybody was going to be able to compete unchartered come 2028 when the Honda and Chevy factory entries bring the number of chartered teams up to the maximum grid capacity of 27. This is just getting there a year earlier, and there really wasn’t any chance of anyone running unchartered over the next season and a half as it’s become very apparent PREMA have no prospects of being sold or invested in right before a massive regulation change.
That's why I wish Toyota would come back, Chevy and Honda telling Indycar we are are only making so many, take it or leave it.
 
That's why I wish Toyota would come back, Chevy and Honda telling Indycar we are are only making so many, take it or leave it.
Toyota coming back would be huge but I don’t think it increases the appetite for more cars outside of Indy. The cap of 27 is mostly imposed by safety concerns and pit lane/paddock capacity. Where it would help the most would probably be getting north of 33 entries at the 500 and reintroducing bumping, since we’re not getting it this year. The current arrangement is just such a strong limiting factor with regard to both the engine themselves and the engine technicians that come with them. Though the economic realities of the sport now also dictate you probably won’t ever see more than 36 or so entries ever again - almost nobody likes to risk all that time and that money to not even make the field anymore.
 
They “caught” a bunch of drivers exploiting a glitch in the P2P software on the restart at Long Beach, so they’ve just thrown their hands up and enabled it for all starts and restarts moving forward.



 
Why would they push the button, knowing it wouldn't "work". Not buying the habit thing. And to think Penske was vilified for the same thing, but now everyone gets a pass. SMH
 
p2p.webp
 
Why would they push the button, knowing it wouldn't "work". Not buying the habit thing. And to think Penske was vilified for the same thing, but now everyone gets a pass. SMH
Cendric must be getting a laugh out of this.
I think the Penske drivers, particularly Josef, should probably feel vindicated given how they were treated at the time. The team itself still bears responsibility given the most logical conclusion reached by those in the paddock was that Penske altered something within the central logger unit and T&S transponder.

The ‘habit’ explanation falls flat for me given how calculated drivers and teams have to be with their P2P usage. Quite often drivers will come home with plenty of P2P in reserve because they had to drive to a fuel number for at least a portion of the race. It isn’t something you would just mindlessly spam at coincidentally one of the most high leverage moments of any race, a restart. It’s something you do 100 times and expect it not to work 99 of them, but the 1 time it works you benefit and simply hope to get away with it. The difference is the cause in how race control left open the ‘signal’ that allows the cars to engage P2P versus a team spoofing that signal with malicious intent.
 
I think Indycar took the easy way out because almost half the field used it and because of the finishing order of the ones who did. Indycar already had a rule in place for this exact thing if it happened, they choose to ignore it.

Rule 14.19.16 and it is the sole responsibility of the Competitors to ensure that Push to Pass is not utilized during any period where prohibited. Any successful utilization of the Push to Pass during such periods, regardless of INDYCAR signal status, is prohibited and subject to penalty per Rule 9.2.2.
 
I think Indycar took the easy way out because almost half the field used it and because of the finishing order of the ones who did. Indycar already had a rule in place for this exact thing if it happened, they choose to ignore it.

Rule 14.19.16 and it is the sole responsibility of the Competitors to ensure that Push to Pass is not utilized during any period where prohibited. Any successful utilization of the Push to Pass during such periods, regardless of INDYCAR signal status, is prohibited and subject to penalty per Rule 9.2.2.
That’s the new verbiage (outlined in red further up) that’s just been added to the rulebook. It previously did not put the onus on the driver not to use it when prohibited.

 
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