IndyCar drivers get real-world lessons with virtual iRacing crashes

By Apr 18, 2020, 6:21 PM EDT
0 Comments

VIRTUAL MOTEGI, Japan — There will come a day when real world racing returns and drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series apply their techniques to the real race car. But when that day arrives, hopefully soon, iRacing could continue to play a key role as a valuable learning tool.

The best example is from Saturday’s Firestone 175, the fourth race of IndyCar’s iRacing Challenge at virtual Twin Ring Motegi.

The high-speed oval was last used by the NTT IndyCar Series in 2010. The last IndyCar race at Motegi was held on the road course in 2011 because the oval was damaged from an earthquake that created the huge Tsunami that devastated much of the coast of Japan. During that earthquake, a nuclear powerplant was damaged at Fukushima, leaking radiation into the area.

RESULTS: Click here to see where everyone finished at Twin Ring Motegi

WHAT DRIVERS SAID: Postrace reaction from Motegi

Saturday’s Firestone 175 on the virtual oval was a tremendous reminder of how fast and how tricky the oval was at Motegi. In many ways, it’s similar to NASCAR’s Darlington Raceway because Turns 1 and two have a completely different radius than Turns 3 and 4. making it egg-shaped.

During Saturday’s race, rookie Oliver Askew was involved in multiple incidents with veteran drivers. The 23-year-old from Jupiter, Florida, is in his rookie season in IndyCar and is the reigning Indy Lights Series champion.

The only two oval races on the Indy Lights schedule in 2019 were the Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and at Gateway. Askew won both last year, including a win from the pole at Gateway.

Saturday’s virtual race was the first time Askew raced against IndyCar competition on a high-banked oval.

Will Power — Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Team Penske driver Will Power sent the Arrow McLaren Racing SP rookie a rather snarky text message afterward. Askew was part of Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin’s virtual crash and also had an incident with Power, damaging his car.

Because this was iRacing, however, there were no real-world consequences, other than some red-hot tempers.

“I had three of the clapping signs with a little sign like this,” Power said, using the “OK” sign sarcastically, in describing the text he sent Askew. “’Took out the two leaders with a few laps to go. Huge lack of respect for the drivers who worked hard to be there racing for the win at the end, which you will be at some point.’

“That’s what I sent to Askew.”

Askew later apologized for the crash on Twitter.

The beauty of virtual racing is nobody gets hurt in a spectacular crash. If that had happened in a real race, however, the incidents could have had huge consequences.

That is why the iRacing platform can be used as a teaching tool for younger drivers in the series to learn what they can do and can’t do on a race track in an actual race.

“It is a great tool for those young guys to understand how you should race a superspeedway, sort of respect, you’re supposed to hold your lane, not weaving around,” Power said in response to a question from NBCSports.com. “The fact that came to me is you do get called out if you’re driving like an idiot and other people comment on it. You get pulled back straight into line. I thought that was a really good thing.

“What I think is great about this is I just noticed when we’re racing in Michigan last weekend, which is kind of a pack race, if you were driving like an idiot, you would be called out. Like we all hear each other’s radios. You can talk to each other. It actually brought people into line. People slowly gained more respect. I thought that was really interesting.

“I kind of thought it would be interesting if we could do that for real in the car.”

Five-time NTT IndyCar Series driver Scott Dixon is one of the most respected drivers in the garage area. Though he ran into the back of race winner Simon Pagenaud after finishing second at the checkered flag, Dixon said he didn’t realize the race was over.

That triggered a spectacular crash that also involved Helio Castroneves where both cars went airborne.

Again, in the virtual world, these incidents don’t have physical consequences.

Scott Dixon — Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Dixon, though, believes young drivers can learn some valuable lessons through virtual racing.

“If Texas is the first race, you hope we don’t get there and people start to race like they do on iRacing because the consequences are going to be pretty bad,” Dixon told NBCSports.com. “I agree with Will. There’s plenty of people that get called out. I think in oval racing especially, a lot of the time you have to learn the hard way. It’s one of those things you can take a lot of risks, but eventually it’s going to catch up with you. Hopefully this maybe does lend a little bit in that direction that it will help you down the road.

“Again, I think once you get around the guys that understand it a lot more, it flows pretty well.”

Pagenaud won in the virtual racing series for the second straight week, both on ovals. Last weekend, he won on the virtual Michigan International Speedway. This week, without having to make the 16-hour flight to Japan, the defending Indianapolis 500 winner won at the simulated Twin Ring Motegi.

“I totally agree with them,” Pagenaud told NBCSports.com when posed the same question as Power and Dixon. “We haven’t raced on an oval yet. I don’t think some of the drivers, the new drivers especially, know how to behave yet. Some of them, like Filipe Nasr is a great driver but never had a chance to be on the track with others.

“It’s actually interesting what Will said. I agree with him. We all talking to each other during the race. It helps, calms the emotions down sometimes. There might be something to learn from that.

“Like Scott said, I hope some of the behavior we see won’t happen in real life because it’s way different of a consequence.

“So far so good.”

Pagenaud avoided any such potential for an incident with Askew by letting the driver by after the rookie made his final pit stop.

“He came out of the pits on new tires right next to me,” Pagenaud said. “We had a bit of a battle as well. Kind of touched a little bit. I let him by because I could see he was very aggressive and on new tires.

“My hope was that I was going to use his draft to get back to Scott and Will. Then he wiped them out. After that it was hard with Will. So much understeer, I chose the outside lane which probably wasn’t smart.

“I thought that was Dixon’s win right there. We managed to come out of it and get another very strong result for Team Penske.”

There was also a point late in the race when the two Team Penske drivers running up front banged sidepods with each other in a battle for the win.

What would the response have been in real life from Team Penske President Tim Cindric or team and IndyCar owner Roger Penske?

“It’s okay because we won the race as a team,” Pagenaud said. “Otherwise…”

Power was unaware of the damage from the contact.

“Pagenaud was glued to my side pod,” Power said. “What’s going on? He told me I had damage. I didn’t know I had damage. He’s like, ‘Dude, you’ve got damage.’

“That’s what lost us the race basically. We couldn’t battle for the win anymore. I was missing half a front wing; I was pushing a lot obviously. Literally I couldn’t battle for the win because of that reason.

“I was happy to hang on for third. That showed how much of a gap we’d pulled on the whole field that I could just nurse it home and have another third place. Real consistent for me week in and week out.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500 

Strong rebounds for Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi amid some disappointments in the Indy 500

By May 28, 2023, 10:00 PM EDT
0 Comments

INDIANAPOLIS – Alex Palou had not turned a wheel wrong the entire Month of May at the Indy 500 until Rinus VeeKay turned a wheel into the Chip Ganassi Racing pole-sitter leaving pit road on Lap 94.

“There is nothing I could have done there,” Palou told NBC Sports. “It’s OK, when it is my fault or the team’s fault because everybody makes mistakes. But when there is nothing, you could have done differently there, it feels bad and feels bad for the team.”

Marcus Ericsson was a master at utilizing the “Tail of the Dragon” move that breaks the draft of the car behind him in the closing laps to win last year’s Indianapolis 500. On Sunday, however, the last of three red flags in the final 16 laps of the race had the popular driver from Sweden breathing fire after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden beat him at his own game on the final lap to win the Indianapolis 500.

Despite the two disappointments, team owner Chip Ganassi was seen on pit road fist-bumping a member on his four-car team in this year’s Indianapolis 500 after his drivers finished second, fourth, sixth and seventh in the tightly contested race.

Those are pretty good results, but at the Indianapolis 500, there is just one winner and 32 losers.

“There is only one winner, but it was a hell of a show,” three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and Chip Ganassi Racing consultant Dario Franchitti told NBC Sports. “Alex was very fast, and he got absolutely caught out in somebody else’s wreck. There was nothing he could have done, but he and the 10 car, great recovery.

“Great recovery by all four cars because at half distance, we were not looking very good.”

After 92 laps, the first caution flew for Sting Ray Robb of Dale Coyne Racing hitting the Turn 1 wall.

During pit stops on Lap 94, Palou had left his stall when the second-place car driven by VeeKay ran into him, putting Palou’s Honda into the wall. The car sustained a damaged front wing, but the Chip Ganassi crew was able to get him back in the race on the lead lap but in 28th position.

Palou ultimately would fight his way to a fourth-place finish in a race the popular Spaniard could have won. His displeasure with VeeKay, whom he sarcastically called “a legend” on his team radio after the incident, was evident.

“The benefit of being on pole is you can drive straight and avoid crashes, and he was able to crash us on the side on pit lane, which is pretty tough to do, but he managed it,” Palou told NBC Sports. “Hopefully next year we are not beside him. Hopefully, next year we have a little better luck.”

Palou started on the pole and led 36 laps, just three fewer than race leader Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren Racing.

“We started really well, was managing the fuel as we wanted, our car was pretty good,” Palou said. “Our car wasn’t great, we dropped to P4 or P5, but we still had some good stuff.

“On the pit stop, the 21 (VeeKay) managed to clip us. Nothing we could have done there. It was not my team’s fault or my fault.

“We had to drop to the end. I’m happy we made it back to P4. We needed 50 more laps to make it happen, but it could have been a lot worse after that contact.

“I learned a lot, running up front at the beginning and in mid-pack and then the back. I learned a lot.

“It feels amazing when you win it and not so good when things go wrong. We were a bit lucky with so many restarts at the end to make it back to P4 so I’m happy with that.”

Palou said the front wing had to be changed and the toe-in was a bit off, but he still had a fast car.

In fact, his Honda was the best car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month. His pole-winning four lap average speed of 234.217 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a record for this fabled race.

Palou looked good throughout the race, before he had to scratch and claw and race his way back to the top-five after he restarted 28th.

In the Indianapolis 500, however, the best car doesn’t always win.

“It’s two years in a row that we were leading the race at the beginning and had to drop to last,” Palou said. “Maybe next year, we will start in the middle of the field and go on to win the race.

“I know he didn’t do it on purpose. It’s better to let that pass someday.”

Palou said the wild racing at the end was because the downforce package used in Sunday’s race means the drivers have to be aggressive. The front two cars can battle for the victory, but cars back in fourth or fifth place can’t help determine the outcome of the race.

That is when the “Tail of the Dragon” comes into the play.

Franchitti helped celebrate Ericsson’s win in 2022 with his “Tail of the Dragon” zigzag move – something he never had to do in any of his three Indianapolis 500 victories because they all finished under caution.

In 2023, however, IndyCar Race Control wants to make every attempt to finish the race under green, without going past the scheduled distance like NASCAR’s overtime rule.

Instead of extra laps, they stop the race with a red flag, to create a potential green-flag finish condition.

“You do what you have to do to win within the rules, and it’s within the rules, so you do it,” Franchitti said. “The race is 200 laps and there is a balance.

“Marcus did a great job on that restart and so did Josef. It was just the timing of who was where and that was it.

“If you knew it was going to go red, you would have hung back on the lap before.

“Brilliant job by the whole Ganassi organization because it wasn’t looking very good at half-distance.

“Full marks to Josef Newgarden and Team Penske.”

Franchitti is highly impressed by how well Ericsson works with CGR engineer Brad Goldberg and how close this combination came to winning the Indianapolis 500 two-years-in-a-row.

It would have been the first back-to-back Indy 500 winner since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.

“Oh, he’s a badass,” Franchitti said Ericsson. “He proved it last year. He is so calm all day. What more do you need? As a driver, he’s fast and so calm.”

Ericsson is typically in good spirits and jovial.

He was stern and direct on pit road after the race.

“I did everything right, I did an awesome restart, caught Josef off-guard and pulled away,” Ericsson said on pit lane. “It’s hard to pull away a full lap and he got me back.

“I’m mostly disappointed with the way he ended. I don’t think it was fair and safe to do that restart straight out of the pits on cold tires for everyone.

“To me, it was not a good way to end that race.

“Congrats to Josef. He didn’t do anything wrong. He is a worthy champion, but it shouldn’t have ended like that.”

Palou also didn’t understand the last restart, which was a one-start showdown.

“I know that we want to finish under green,” Palou said. “Maybe the last restart I did, I didn’t understand. It didn’t benefit the CGR team.

“I’m not very supportive of the last one, but anyway.”

Dixon called the red flags “a bit sketchy.”

“The red flags have become a theme to the end of the race, but sometimes they can catch you out,” Dixon said. “I know Marcus is frustrated with it.

“All we ask for is consistency. I think they will do better next time.

“It’s a tough race. People will do anything they can to win it and with how these reds fall, you have to be in the right place at the right time. The problem is when they throw a Red or don’t throw a Red dictates how the race will end.

“It’s a bloody hard race to win. Congrats to Josef Newgarden and to Team Penske.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500