Giedo van der Garde pleased with progress - MotorSportsTalk

His Formula One baptism may have been a difficult one, but Giedo van der Garde is pleased with the progress that both he and Caterham have made in the past two races.

In Spain, van der Garde ran strongly before an issue with his left-rear tire forced him to retire, and his good form continued last weekend in Monaco, qualifying a career-best 15th before going on to finish P16 in the race.

“On track I think it’ll be interesting to see where we are after Monaco. I was glad to bring the car home, but after the best Saturday of the year so far we obviously wanted to finish higher up,” the Dutchman said in a team statement. A first lap run-in with Pastor Maldonado forced him to pit early on, and he was the last classified finisher come the checkered flag. Regardless, van der Garde is happy to take the positives out of the weekend.

“Even with that, there were some good signs in the race that we are making decent progress. Personally, for me it was another step in the learning curve, and for the team in general we saw that we’d fixed the rear wing issue we’d found in Barcelona, and had enough pace to get the car into Q2 and to record one of the fastest laps in the race in the early stages.”

van der Garde also believes that the car will be well suited to the Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve, which will host the Canadian Grand Prix next month.

“Montreal is a medium to low downforce track and with the constant updates we’re making to the package we took to Spain, I think we could be ok.”

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.”