Honda issues statement after Ganassi comments - MotorSportsTalk

The president of Honda Performance Development issued a statement Saturday following sharp comments from Chip Ganassi, whose Honda-powered team faces an uphill climb in tomorrow’s IZOD IndyCar Series season opener.

“Honda shares Chip’s commitment to winning, as is evidenced by our 196 IndyCar victories, many of which were achieved in partnership with Chip and his team,” said HPD president Art St. Cyr. “We are pleased with Takuma Sato’s front-row start and a strong qualifying performance by rookie Tristan Vautier in his inaugural race. But Honda is always looking to improve, and continues to work tirelessly to give all of our IndyCar Series teams the opportunity to win.”

Ganassi and the rest of the Honda squads have been unable to fully match the speed of the Chevrolet-powered entries so far this weekend. His drivers, Dario Franchitti, Charlie Kimball, and Scott Dixon, qualified 10th, 14th, and 20th respectively on Saturday for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg — and afterwards, Ganassi criticized his engine supplier.

“They said for years and years and years they want competition,” Ganassi told the Associated Press.”Now they’ve got competition and they are not talking about winning. I feel like they want to sit around and hold hands and sing. I want to win.”

Outside of Sato and Franchitti, rookie Tristan Vautier (sixth) was the only other Honda-powered driver to qualify within the Top 10 starting positions.

To be clear, Honda doesn’t appear to be facing the same hopeless situation that Lotus found itself in last season, and the entire field as a whole is relatively tight. But because of the closeness in competition, any sort of drop-off in performance — even just one or two tenths of a second — becomes magnified, and with Chevy and Honda continuously working to improve on their motors, gaps can be tough to erase.

With that in mind, the overall pace of the Honda teams throughout the 110-lap race (Noon ET, NBC Sports Network) will definitely be a key storyline for Sunday.

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”