INDYCAR CHOOSING BETWEEN OLD AND BOLD

A brawl is brewing in Indycar racing as its heavy hitters warm up for an internal battle the design of an all-new car for the 2027 season.

The choices are between mild and mind-blowingly wild.

Major league team owners such as Chip Ganassi, Dale Coyne, Bobby Rahal, Michael Shank and others look set to butt heads over what the category’s first all-new car in well over a decade will look like.

And the clock is ticking.

But staying out of the verbal fisticuffs at the moment is the biggest dog in the pound - Penske Racing.

Roger Penske, the most successful team owner in motor racing history, owns his own Indycar team, which includes Aussie driver Will Power and Kiwi Scott McLaughlin, but he’s also the owner of the entire IndyCar series.

Oh, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well.

So, while Penske has a dog that could be involved in the hunt, it’s best - politically at least - to leave it on the leash until a final go-or-whoa decision about IndyCar’s car of the future has to be made.

According to reports out of the US, revealed by Racer magazine’s Indycar insider Marshall Pruett,  Penske Entertainment had a Zoom conference call with some – but not all – the team owners back in October to show off the first renderings of the proposed new car slated for a 2027 debut.

Although Indycar has yet to make the drawings public, it has been said that the car looks, umm, underwhelming.

A bit like, if you will, the offspring of the current Dallara DW12 and a contemporary F2 racer after a one-night stand. The rear wing, say those who have seen the rendering, is basically what the FIA F2 racer currently uses.

Some, including Ganassi, were more than happy to stay walkin’ on the mild side while others, including Dale Coyne, reckon the time has come to up the appearance ante and go crazzzzzzzy.

So there is a development stand-off that needs to be resolved sooner rather than later because, although 2027 may seem like a long way away, in car development terms it’s really just around the corner.

Dallara may be a behemoth in race car engineering and design, its expertise being showcased across the globe in WEC, IMSA and even F1, but even it has its limitations and the development clock stops for no-one and no team.

In IndyCar terms this is more important than other categories because the US open wheeler series is basically a one-car-suits-all deal, with the same carbon-fibre tub, suspension pick-up points and bodywork.

Everyone basically gets the same gear and it’s up to them how to best utilise it.

The current Indycar steed, the revered DW12 will have been around, by the time the new car is introduced, for 15 years. So a decade and a half out of one chassis

But have no doubt, this one chassis has helped produce some of the best open wheeler racing you’ll ever see and, for a team owner looking at the balance sheet, be incredibly cost effective.

So for 2027, say some, why change?

Ok, let’s have a new tub and upgraded bodywork, but to keep costs down let’s leave all the hidden bits such as suspension mounting points and other mechanical bits and pieces that no-one really sees anyway and save some bucks.

“The number one priority isn’t to see how inexpensively we can do it, but cost is going to be a consideration as things get developed more narrowly,” Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles told Racer.

“Dallara is on point to develop the chassis with lots of other supplier partners, and it is very much work in progress. So from my perspective, we were looking for a referendum the first time we put renderings of the car forward. We wanted feedback. And it continues to be. It is changing. It will change.”

According to Pruett, one of the team owners on the Zoom call went all-in for a massive change of direction.

He reported that a photo of the awesome Adrian Newey penned Red Bull X1 open-wheel concept was posted as a “What if?” example of what could be envisioned for the IndyCar future.

 “Let’s make a car that people talk about outside of IndyCar,” said Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Michael Shank.

“Let’s up the game. Let’s turn up it a notch with something that really brings people back to IndyCar. Design-wise, let’s get it out there, visually, because we’re all in the same car. Let’s make a car that’s appealing.”

Some have a different view of the whole thing, including championship heavyweight Chip Ganassi, who just wants a race car that is a race car and isn’t particularly concerned about aesthetics.

"Look, nothing is written in stone here, nothing is locked in,” Ganassi told Racer.

“You have to make the car, engineering-wise, do what you need it to do first when it comes to safety, maintenance, race on road courses, ovals, all the above. And then you say, ‘Okay, now let’s work on what it looks like.’ You don’t say, ‘Work on what it looks like first, and then make it do all the things you need it to do.’

“You need to build a car with function over form. Form follows function. When these guys start saying, ‘It needs to look this way and look that way, you’re putting form before function, and that’s where we disagree.”

It sounds like it's just one big happy IndyCar family right now. Oh, and the clock is still ticking . . .