The RACER Mailbag, July 9

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week. 

Q: We all know the pressure that Will Power is under at Penske, but it seems as though they are in no hurry to make a decision. Is it possible that Power goes to A.J. Foyt to replace Malukus, and Malukus moves to Penske? This way Power would keep the same engineers and people, but this would show that the team is slowly letting him go instead of letting him leave the organization as a whole. A second question is, could Power stay at Penske to give Malukus more time to develop and let Power have one more year with the team?

Jack Edmonson

MARSHALL PRUETT: The last thing Penske needs to do is throw in a big driver change while it’s trying to turn the ship around with a new team captain in Jonathan Diuguid. But if that’s the direction they take, it will tell me they’ve decided the best course of action, amid their worst season in decades, is to blow things up and see if that jump starts the team with a new and young player in the mix.

It’s not like Power is error-free, but he’s Penske’s most consistent and reliable driver. That’s not an opinion; it’s what the results over the last 18 months tell us. He’s also the only driver to win a championship for Penske this decade. If that’s something to jettison, I don’t know what the team wants from a driver. The smartest move is to fund Malukas at Foyt for one more season and sign Power to a one-year deal with options for more.

Malukas is massively talented and has a clear path to the big team, but makes more mistakes than you’d expect from a Penske-ready driver. And that’s not a criticism; he’s just in need of more mileage to develop into an immediate title contender like Newgarden who joined the team after spending five years working out the kinks and becoming a turnkey champion at Sarah Fisher/Wink Hartman/Ed Carpenter Racing. Newgarden joined Penske in 2017 and won his first championship on debut.

Scott McLaughlin was a different creature upon his arrival at Penske. The only thing he lacked was open-wheel mileage; he landed as a champion many times over and needed just one full season to learn the cars and series before returning in 2022 to win three races and run to fourth in the standings. I can see Malukas showing up in a full Team Penske car in a similar state as Newgarden and being an instant title threat, but in 2027.

Josef debuted for Penske in his sixth IndyCar season and look at what he’s accomplished since then. Malukas has two full seasons with Dale Coyne, a half-season with Shank, and just over a half-season with Foyt, so put them together, and it’s approximately three seasons with four teams if you include the time spent idling with McLaren. Josef had five years with effectively the same team, which is how he built new and strong layers to his foundation year after year.

Malukas could get the nod to step up in 2026, but I’d sure rather see him spend one more season with Foyt, with the same engineers and crew, with that consistency, and stack another layer to his own foundation.

Penske is understood to fund the Malukas car (with support from Penske sponsor Clarience Technologies) and that comes as part of a development program for an upcoming talent. It would be strange to see Penske pay for Power to drive at Foyt when he already has a fully-funded car with a sponsor in Verizon, which loves Power.

Q: I just remembered on Friday’s practice at Road America last year, there was a photographer who was shown on the broadcast celebrating that he got his shot as Romain Grosjean crashed off of Turn 14. Here’s a timestamped link.

I checked the official IndyCar gallery for the race and didn’t see any photos there that looked like a match, do you happen to know who that was?

Mike, California

MP: IndyCar’s ace photo team is usually somewhere between four to six people depending on the event and dozens of other shooters are credentialed from whichever outlets, so the odds were slim on having that shot appear in the series’ gallery. Also, if an official IndyCar photographer was seen cheering like that after a crash, photo boss Chris Owens would have yanked their vest and sent them home.

I can’t see the vest number in the footage, but it wasn’t anyone I recognized. The shooter, I assume, was excited to have captured a crash shot, and yes, it can be a rush of adrenaline when you happen to get those sequences, but hopefully, as a professional who’s been granted exclusive access to ply your trade, you also remember a human being just hit something hard in a fast-moving vehicle and refrain from this kind of behavior.

Q: As I sit around the campfire watching the fireworks, I want to give a shout out to the folks at Mid-Ohio and the fans for taking ownership of the July 4th weekend. Since I’ve been watching IndyCar since the mid 2000s I remember stints at Watkins Glen and Pocono over the 4th but Mid-Ohio has been able to make it work for several years now, and since NASCAR killed off the Firecracker 400 and the Paul Revere 250 has been dead even longer, IndyCar at Mid-Ohio has been the torch bearer for the holiday. What would you say is the reason why they made it work while the other tracks could not?

Mitch from Michigan

MP: I think it’s what you suggest — the willingness to lean in and treat the 4th like it’s an additive part of the event. I still haven’t adjusted to Mid-Ohio being one month earlier than its usual early August stop. The state and location also works well; it’s a popular local venue, Ohio is about as patriotic as it gets, and why not celebrate with other like-minded people at the largest in-town event of the year? 

Q: Just read Toyota was named sponsor for the race in Arlington, Texas next year. With IndyCar finally announcing the new engine formula, and the fact it takes around 18 months to develop, Is it to early to think that Toyota may be coming back to IndyCar?

Arnold Edgar

MP: Toyota’s U.S. headquarters are based in nearby Plano, TX., 40ish minutes from Arlington, so there’s that to consider. Roger Penske has also served as Toyota’s largest dealer in the U.S. for as long as I can remember, which is something else to consider. And with Penske taking over more of the events where his IndyCar Series appears, I haven’t been surprised to see some of the long-standing business relationships come into play within the series.

We also know, because he told us, that Roger has been working to get Toyota back into IndyCar since he bought the series, and came close a few years ago. In my mind, I don’t see the two as being interconnected, which could just be further evidence of my extreme idiocy.

But if bringing Toyota back to the series via event sponsorship — and I’ve heard there might be another race where the brand could be involved next year — is the first step to getting an engine supply agreement back on the table, it would be great for all involved.

And if it’s simply an event sponsorship or two, that would also be a positive.

Q: It is always said that a backup car is slower than a primary at places like Indianapolis, and that a road course chassis will be very slow relative to a superspeedway car (such as with Armstrong this year). What differentiates the two? Is it related to torsion/stiffness in the tub? Why is a certain level of this beneficial or harmful?

Thomas, VA 

MP: Zero to do with torsional rigidity. It’s aerodynamic and mechanical drag. The primary chassis is smoothed and perfected for 11 months leading into May, with every bodywork seam and gap filled and blended, and major rotating parts in the transmissions and uprights polished to death to reduce as much friction as possible. Crash that car, and it’s usually a case of using a spare car and parts that haven’t received the same extreme attention for most of the last year.

So why don’t teams do this for every chassis and every race? Because it would require double or triple the workforce and a huge and unsustainable budget increase. Granted, with the razor-thin margins we’re seeing in qualifying at Indy, I do wonder if the well-funded teams will spend the money to have at least one, if not two fully-optimized spare cars ready to roll during the last two Indy 500s featuring the Dallara DW12.

Q: Any good garage stories on Wyatt Swaim? Never had the pleasure to meet him but was given a piece of garage art he created by Joyce Swaim (below).

As I understand it this was made by Wyatt in the Lincoln Welding garage on Gasoline Alley and then Joyce went to the 3 drivers to obtain the autographs. Any stories you might have would be appreciated and shared with her in his memory!

Nicholas Edwards

MP: Greatly respected within the paddock, no doubt. But other than saying hello to Mr. Swaim a few times over the years, I barely knew him.

Q: Didn’t USAC ban mid-engine sprint cars?  I want to say Mark Donohue ran one at Lime Rock and won… not sure.

Pocono should rebuild one of their infield road courses (there are several!) to IndyCar standards, unless there are better ideas closer to NYC.  It’s been done at the Brickyard, so why not? From that huge grandstand you could see the whole track.

Bill Bailey

MP: I’m the last guy to ask about USAC’s historical regulation changes with short track cars. Love the idea on Pocono. As for why not… who’s going to spend the millions of dollars to get it done?

Q: I have developed a keen interest in Ozark International Raceway after watching videos showcasing sports cars navigating its hilly terrain and blind turns. As a FIA Grade 2 track, it meets the minimum requirements for an IndyCar road course. Is there any consideration being given to including this track in the racing calendar or future years?

Andrew Heid

MP: I’d heard an outreach to IndyCar was made a little while ago, but can’t say if all the other significant aspects like the seven-figure sanction fee, plus infrastructure with big-event grandstands and large marketing and promotions staffing was part of the conversation. 

Q: It’s bad enough when there are cars being balked at Road America during qualifying. But shorter tracks, it’s becoming a plague.  How about if round one of qualifying is divided into three groups, each of eight cars. Round two is two groups, each with six cars.  Then the Fast Six. Round one and two could be trimmed by a few minutes if necessary. Less cars, less balking, more fast laps.  

Mike Talarico, Charlotte, NC 

MP: And we could go to single-car qualifying and drivers would still find a way to complain about temperature or wind or sand or some other cause for their laps being compromised. Life is loaded with choices and consequences. I’d rather have a selection of front-running drivers starting towards the back to create some fun and drama as they charge through the field or try alternate strategies to overcome their poor qualifying runs than have all the speed up front, all the slow out back, and less intermingling from the outset. 

Q: I went and saw the F1 movie and was rightly impressed. Yes, it had some over-the-top sensationalism that one would never see in Formula 1 or an F1 race, but these events are much too devoid of action for Hollywood, anyway..

I believe the film will be a huge boost to the sport, not that much was needed there, and it occurred to me that much of the criticism toward IndyCar’s marketing ineptitude (of which I am guilty as charged) has been a waste of mental energy. I’m personally a fan of all motor racing, but due to my Midwestern upbringing and proximity to Indianapolis, have always favored IndyCar in whatever it was referred to over the years.

I’m a fan of The Captain, regardless of this past year’s team issues, and what he has done for the Speedway and the series. I’m not sure Superman himself could compete with the full global onslaught brought on by Formula 1 since Liberty Media acquired it, no matter what was done at 16th and Georgetown.

I’m getting old and father time has taken its toll on me, so this year I’m checking off some boxes – taking my sons to Long Beach, Indy, and Road America, all of which had stellar crowds. I’m witnessing history with Palou and think we should all take whatever pleasure from the sport of IndyCar we can get.

James Herbert Harrison, Overland Park, KS

MP: Amen. And that’s never something that should change. F1’s a huge hit. NASCAR’s been kicking IndyCar’s ass in terms of national popularity for 30 years. And why should either of those things diminish one’s love for IndyCar?

For those of us who care about the series’ health, yes, we rage against the inaction and ineptitude wherever it has been identified, but that’s the proverbial ‘inside baseball’ side that isn’t too far removed from reporting on local government affairs. It’s easy to get lost in the local zoning legislature that will cause traffic delays and whatnot, and those matters are important, but then you walk outside and see there’s some rather amazing things to enjoy. That’s what I think of with IndyCar on a semi-frequent basis.

Yes, there’s all kinds of nonsense that needs to be covered and analyzed, but Lord, get out to Iowa or Toronto or Laguna Seca or wherever and just soak in the joy and energy of what a weekend of IndyCar racing can bring to your life.

Does IndyCar deserve occasional criticism? Yes. Is IndyCar awesome? Also yes. Joe Skibinski/IMS

Q: Do you have any insights into Penske’s policy on driver interviews? Racing sponsorships are typically about brand awareness, and I’d think Newgarden’s sponsors must have felt like they hit the lottery when he landed the starring role for FOX’s IndyCar promotions via his back-to-back Indy 500 wins. Hopefully all that goodness buys sponsor patience as they endure negative headlines and a lack of results. But it’s been at least four or five races now that Newgarden simply speeds away from the cameras without even a comment after qualifying as well as race exits.

At least when his teammate Will Power is going off on another driver (like he did toward Alex Palou last weekend), he’s doing it on camera and giving the logos on his firesuit a few hundred thousand views.

What is Penske’s policy on that? Is the thinking that a grumpy driver is bad for sponsors, or is there any attempt to coach him to give the sponsors some value? 

LA IndyCar Fan

MP: Are we talking Team Penske or Penske Entertainment? I guess it doesn’t matter because the team and the series have no rule requiring drivers to speak to TV. There’s a hope and expectation, but no, there’s no Marshawn Lynch ‘I’m only here so I don’t get fined’ policy in place.

As for logos being seen, that’s not an angle to take. If sponsors are being asked to endure during a rough period with negative headlines, a shouty and grumpy driver going on TV isn’t going to help the situation. The ‘say nothing’ approach is always a winner. I’d rather have a self-policing driver make the call on avoiding the camera than one who sees a camera and microphone and can’t help but to make matters worse.

The dividing line is whether you’ve been done wrong by somebody and feel compelled to make your frustration known (Conor Daly’s at nearly 10,000 likes and 300 replies to his venting at Santino Ferrucci for the dumb defense atop Turn 5 that hurt both of their races), and simply being mad, disappointed, or feeling powerless, which is when few words said in a public setting will change the situation or make you feel better.

Josef did speak to TV after the first-lap crash and was his usual self.

Q: While admittedly having mixed feelings about Ferrucci, his antics during Mid-Ohio Practice 2 show just how lacking what passes for IndyCar officiating is. Since early 2024 I’ve become one of Newgarden”s biggest haters and actively root against him. That notwithstanding, Ferrucci’s kamikaze move on several drivers – Josef the last – made me feel sick for what could have happened had not Josef reacted at the last second.

If the officials were ever going to bench a driver, that was Exhibit A for doing so.  The fact nothing was done, and if it was it’s not public, shows how feckless the officiating is. Are we just supposed to hold our noses until 2026?

Mike DeQuardo, in ‘The Malibu of the Midwest’ (true)

MP: I was fine with everything that didn’t come with a risk to others, but yeah, the blast down the inside of Newgarden at Turn 8, which appeared to surprise Josef, and took his last-second recognition of what was hurtling down the inside to not get tangled in a mess. 

Q: I’m sitting here taking in the British Grand Prix and see they announced a three-day crowd of half a million fans. I assume most are the same ticket holders for the weekend, but I believe Liberty Media is salivating at the prospect of announcing one of their Grands Prix as the world’s largest single day sporting event, surpassing the Indy 500. So far as the weekend crowd, IMS should be thinking about propping up the Carb Day and Legends Day agenda to boost their own weekend attendance north of that 500K marker. Your thoughts?

Denny Jones, Fort Scott, KS

MP: We know what the biggest single-day sporting event looks like because there’s no denying the mass of humanity in person and on camera. People can claim whatever they want, but the eyes don’t lie.

Q: With the recent troubles befalling Team Penske, one has to wonder if we are witnessing the end of an era. Sunday’s race has to be one of the worst races in the team’s history.

We’ve seen something similar in the past. At the end of the Al Unser Jr. period and before Gil de Ferran joined Team Penske, things weren’t going very well, but in short order the Penske professionalism returned and produced wins and championship. They have been on top with Ganassi every year until lately.

It would be a shame if they can’t recover, but one thing is for sure. Nothing lasts forever.

Doug Mayer, Revelstoke, BC, Canada

MP: If Power’s engine stays together, we could have seen a better result. McLaughlin wasn’t having a great day, but thought something top 10-ish was possible until a late tire delamination ruined their result. It ended up being the latest in many terrible events for Penske, but had the potential to be better.

The dynastic question is an interesting one. I hope not. Penske’s our New York Yankees or Boston Celtics. Without them posing their usual fierce opposition to Ganassi this season, Palou’s run away with things, and while that’s cool to see once or twice a decade when a driver and team are on fire, it’s not what I’d want to become the norm for IndyCar.

Arrow McLaren has risen up to leap past Penske as the most dominant team for Chevy, but being P1 among all Chevy teams and being able to go toe-to-toe with Ganassi are two very different things.

As for the future, almost all of the people who propelled Pagenaud, Newgarden, and Power to championships and Indy 500 wins since 2016 are still there. The loss of the three senior leaders was crushing, and if I look to next year, I wonder if McLaughlin’s race engineer Ben Bretzman gets promoted to a senior role on the technical side. Its former managing director Ron Ruzewski was a big part of the team’s technical/engineering brain trust, and with Cindric’s role and Moyer’s role having been backfilled, I look to the last big hole to plug, and I can’t think of anyone there who’s a better fit to step off the timing stand and become Penske’s next engineering/performance leader.

With all that being said, we could leave Iowa in a few days with a pair of Penske wins and it will feel like all is right in their world. But like some of his contemporaries — brother Eric Bretzman at Andretti and Chris Simmons at Ganassi — who won everything as race engineers before shooting upward as technical directors/sporting directors/competition directors and led their teams to greater success, the time seems right for Ben to follow that path for the benefit of Penske’s IndyCar program. 

Is Bretzman the missing piece in the new Team Penske leadership puzzle? Joe Skibinski/IMS

Q: Nico Hulkenberg gets on the podium. 

Alex Palou makes a race-losing mistake.

What’s the next unlikely thing that racing fans having been hoping for that will finally happen?

(Sorry Alex, hope your 100-point lead or whatever is consolation enough)

Jeff

MP: That one’s easy: First win for Conor Daly and Juncos Hollinger Racing this weekend in Iowa. But that doesn’t really feel unlikely.

Q: Thanks, Alex, for making the last several laps at Mid-Ohio pretty exciting. Your greatness was not diminished by the boo-boo – stuff happens to the best, and that’s an easy corner to fall off the outside. And to put it in perspective, your disappointment has to pale compared to Dixie’s when he lost Indy for want of one less mph on pit-in. 

I was conflicted on whether I wanted to see Palou make a late race winning pass or see Dixon once again get a classy off-script win. I’m glad he held on and next year he’ll try for an unbelievable 22 consecutive years with a win. Also it was great to see Emma and the family so over the top with enthusiasm and joy. It reminded me of when Power won Indy and how he and Liz shared the win with exuberance you seldom see.  I love that stuff. 

Ferrucci was sadly comical in his takeout of Daly. It wasn’t a full-chit racing move with an “I’m coming through, make way” attitude. He was being petty, and actually slowed down to make sure the alignment was just right and to enjoy the moment. It was a total BS move. Just race, man. I’d have given him a stop and go for that one with the understanding that the next one will park him.

Kudos to Newgarden for finally talking instead of pouting. I actually felt a little sorry for him. It looked to me like all he was doing was driving an IndyCar like it’s supposed to be driven and the rear wheels locked at the first hard braking. I wonder if he did a hard brake check on the warmup lap? I wouldn’t think it’s driver error since a too-abrupt brake input should lock the fronts first. Was it a car issue?  

Finally, and most importantly, it’s official now. Team Penske needs a process intervention. Nothing less will do. For those of us on the outside, all we can do is guess at what transpired with P2PGate and Attenuatorgate and how the team was affected by the top floor housecleaning. But it is clear they are now in a very bad place. Yes, they’ve had good moments and shown well on occasion, but Sunday’s dismal outing seemed more par for the course this year. So I would save the money and time of hiring experts from Boston and get four or five organizational behavior business grad students from Michigan to help them get back on track.

Team Penske is to some degree the face of IndyCar, and its success or failure goes to the bottom line of a series I have loved my whole life. It’s great that there are other teams that are so successful and the racing is good, but I and many others want to see the OG big dog eat again.  

Oh yes, my question. Can you ask the good folks at Mid-Ohio to please paint the top rail of the starter’s stand? A TV closeup showed it’s been a very long time. But if it was neglected in favor of the changes to Turn 4, no problem. Turn 4 is much safer now. Too bad it wasn’t done before Michael’s and Simon’s wrecks but that’s the way it goes in racing.  

Chris, Colorado

MP: On the Penske side, keep in mind that since the firings, the running of the team and many of the administrative tasks those former managers handled were passed onto the three race engineers. This wasn’t just firing the team president but leaving the equivalents of the VP and vice-VP in charge. This was blowing out the IndyCar team’s entire executive layer, which meant the running of the team fell to Dave Faustino, Ben Bretzman, and Luke Mason, and their crew chiefs where possible. All while having to prepare setups, spend time in simulators, go testing, go racing, look after travel or catering or similar day-to-day needs, and so on.

If there’s a group of people to isolate and leave alone so they can focus on doing the direct things that make a team successful with the cars supplied to their drivers, it’s the race engineers. And Dave, Ben, and Luke have done incredible jobs of pulling double or triple duty during the month-plus of having to do their jobs and the jobs of those who were fired. But turning their complete focus away from the cars was going to come at a cost to their competitiveness, and it seems like they’ve been living with the consequences of the firings since mid-May.

Adding in Jonathan Diuguid and Travis Law as the new president and VP, effectively, is brilliant. But they already have those jobs on the Porsche Penske Motorsport IMSA GTP/WEC Hypercar side. How much will they be able to restore normalcy within the IndyCar team and return to a protected environment for the engineers who create the playbooks for speed? Iowa will be the first inkling of whether that fix comes with immediate effect or if it will take a little while longer. 

Q: Has there ever been a more boring winner than Scott Dixon? Zero personality off track or on, zero difficult passes made on Sunday to win in rather dull style. Maybe I missed something? Did he pass anyone other than going by a temporarily off-the-pace Palou?

Palou also isn’t exactly ‘Mr. Personality.’ This is part of Indy Car’s problem. Two of their most prolific winners have the personality and racing style of an empty suit. Before you defend their boring style, yes, it’s effective. I’m not suggesting every winner or race has to be exciting, but holy heck man. We need Pato and ‘Santucci’ winning and making headlines with unapologetic comments after clashes with rivals. Newgarden as well. Not full-on demo derby NASCAR-type nonsense, but more touchstone moments that create drama. I could really go on a rant about this, but I’ll stop.

Eric Z, Lancaster, NY

MP: Glad you stopped. Out of curiosity, who peed in your Cheerios?

Dixon earned most of his championships while demonstrating some of the greatest and craziest car control I’ve ever seen. Mythical ability to drive with the tail out — as much as an IndyCar of whatever era could tolerate. It was the polar opposite of boring. Dario Franchitti, who was never short of balls and bravado, would marvel at Dixon’s ability to drive sideways away from him and the rest and win races and championships with relative ease. And when the cars changed and that was no longer possible, he’s done his best to adapt to a vehicle that won’t allow him to use his super power.  

But he isn’t a big personality, and was flawless on Sunday but doesn’t waste his time chasing clickbait and social followers, so he’s ‘dull and boring’?

Guess we should lump the Patrick Mahomes types and Shohei Otanis and Steph Currys into that same no-personality group as well. Poor idiots. They suck because they win championships without saying bombastic stuff that gets forgotten in 48 hours. If only they were respected for their excellence.

Pato and Ferrucci and the rest had equal opportunities to win on Sunday and didn’t. Instead of pooping on the ones who are winning like Dixon, who is hilarious in person and beloved within the paddock like few others, or Palou, who’s genuinely sweet but also psycho-competitive – he’s like Spanish Dexter, or Kyle Kirkwood, who is a total Clark Kent type (I’ve nicknamed him ‘The Killing Machine’ because if he isn’t winning IndyCar races, he’s singlehandedly depopulating the ocean with all of the fish he catches on a weekly basis) maybe take some time to get to know the real people we’re talking about — not the showtime versions presented on TV and social media — and do more than scratching at the surface.   

I’m thankful we have a paddock with a wide range of personalities. We don’t need the champions and front runners to all be WWE superstars cutting over-the-top promos.

It’s a safe bet that any of IndyCar’s ‘big personalities’ would trade their careers for Dixon’s in a heartbeat. Joe Skibinski/IMS

Q: How do teams for any series determine if tires are limited by their surface temperature or their core temperature?

Atilla Veyssal, West Allis, WI

MP: Sensors. Inside the wheels, with the tire monitoring system giving temperature in real time, and inside the wheels with an array of infrared sensors giving live inner temperature readings across the tire. Also from external IR sensors reading the surface of the tires with multiple beams. And feedback from quality drivers who can feel what’s happening with the surface of the rubber. 

Q: Are there team orders in IndyCar like in F1? Palou’s mistake almost seemed like he was told to find a way to slow down so Dixon could extend his season with a race win streak. I sure hope not, that is one of the things I hate about F1.

Craig Bradburn

MP: No. You actually believe Alex Palou would intentionally run off track to give away a win and lose 10 points while he’s closing in on, but has yet to clinch the championship?

Q: What are Tim Mayer’s realistic chances of winning the FIA presidency?  What about any other candidates’ chances of beating the current president?

David Tucker

CHRIS MEDLAND: It’s tough to gauge at this stage because Mayer needs to lobby all of the FIA Member Clubs for their support, and some will be solidly behind Mohammed Ben Sulayem because they feel they’ve benefited from his leadership, even if we’ve seen a some senior former employees and national federations voice concerns.

Mayer admits he hasn’t done any canvassing yet as he was keeping his run a secret right up to the announcement, and that’s because he needed to know what the rules of engagement would be. Changes to the statutes relating to the election process were approved in Macau last month, and that explains why we haven’t had any other candidates prior to now, either.

That shows how it has been made harder to stand against Ben Sulayem, with some of the rules changing so late, and the FIA nominations committee now effectively being controlled by the president – giving him the power to question the eligibility of any opponent or their team.

I don’t think Mayer is the only person who will have been looking at running, but he says the current situation makes it likely that only one candidate is likely to succeed. If that’s deemed true by others, too, then his announcement might also reduce the likelihood of anyone else standing.

Mayer insists he’s going into the campaign with the full belief he can win, but the first hurdle is to get though the nominations committee checks and get on the ballot.

Q: The Sauber (soon to be Audi) appears to be punching above its weight. Can you shed some light on this? It can’t all be Binotto and Wheatley?

Steve

CM: Aside from Sunday’s podium, I’d argue it’s not punching above its weight. It has a very impressive facility in Hinwil, and Sauber has good partners, so it had the ingredients to always be a competitive midfield runner.

It underachieved in dropping to the back recently due to a lack of funding for a spell before Audi completed its takeover – the team was in limbo due to the previous ownership not putting money in for future owners to benefit from – but as we get closer to 2026, I think you’re simply seeing the impact of that increased investment level and a structure starting to settle down with multiple new hires.

I’m told a number of the basics needed addressing over the past year or so, and now that’s happening you’re seeing better performance from the car and better execution trackside. Wheatley might have had a hand in the latter, but Nico Hulkenberg was still seventh in the dramatic first race in Melbourne to show Sauber was there or thereabouts.

The gaps have been so small in F1 recently, but that’s easy to forget if one team keeps winning and one team keeps being last. But even at the first race in Australia – before some car improvements were introduced in Spain – both Saubers were just 0.6s off the fastest time in Q1 (and Hulkenberg was still eliminated). That’s meant even a small gain compared to rivals with an update has a big impact and has moved Sauber from back of the midfield pack to much closer to the front of it.

It’ll be even cooler if they can start doing this more often. Kym Illman/Getty Images

Q: A question came up during our British GP viewing party. Why does F1/Pirelli spend big money flying many sets of full wet weather tires to race after race that never get used?

Even in Sunday’s biblical conditions at Silverstone all teams opted for inters. Maybe F1 should leave the wets at home and bring the teams something more useful. Thoughts?

David

CM: I’d say Sunday’s a bad example, because the showers were so short and sharp that teams knew it would pass quickly, and therefore you’d get little value pitting for the full wet before you had to change to the intermediate again. They also knew it was likely to become Safety Car conditions, so you wouldn’t get the chance to race and make use of the full wet. It was less a case of opting for inters over full wets, but being in a position when a pit stop didn’t make sense.

You’re right that the full wet is not a good tire, but there are multiple reasons it’s often not usable. Some are down to performance – the inter is actually very good, so teams always want to be on it as early as possible due to the lap time gain – but others are simply visibility. The full wet clears far more water, but those are conditions where you can’t see, so often race control will call the Safety Car.

If we’d had persistent rain on Sunday, then there’s a chance the full wet would have been used because it would prove quicker for long enough when under racing conditions, but given that the sharp downpour then cleared up quickly, nobody wanted to lose race time by pitting.

They can be useful, though – think back to Canada last year and Kevin Magnussen at the race start on full wets. He was much quicker than those on inters when the track was really wet and the visibility was not bad enough to require a Safety Car. But as the track dried, you quickly saw how the inter became the faster tire after too few laps for the full wet to be of huge benefit.

We also had full wet running at times in Brazil last year, so you need to have the tire there as an option, otherwise you sometimes limit the options to get out on track. I get your point that they seemed like a waste at Silverstone, but given those conditions and the fact everyone had plenty of sets of intermediates to use, I’d be interested to know what you think something more useful would be!

Q: After another banging Atlanta race. I’m putting it out to the universe that Texas could use a re-reconfiguration and paving. 

Shawn, MD

KELLY CRANDALL: There was a rumor last year (that hasn’t amounted to anything) that another track was going to get the ‘Atlanta treatment’ and some were hoping it was Texas, but that has seemingly gone away. It’s incredible how different, and bad depending on who you ask, that track is after they reprofiled it. On one hand, they needed to do something because of the weepers, but man, they certainly changed the dynamic of the racing. I would imagine that had it stayed as it was, this car might actually put some good racing on there. 

THE FINAL WORD

From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, 10 July, 2019

Q: The early history of IndyCar racing found drivers from various short tracks located around country. Mario raced a midget at my home track in Danbury, Connecticut (sadly shut down in 1981) before achieving his fame in IndyCar and F1. Nowadays, the good short track sprint and midget drivers find their way to NASCAR – Gordon, Stewart, Larson and so on. Financially, of course, it would be impossible for a short tracker to find his way into a top IndyCar seat, but wouldn’t it be a wonderful boost for the sport in general? Do you think a Christopher Bell or Kody Swanson would put more rear ends in the grandstands at an oval track race?

Eddie F., Norwalk, CT

ROBIN MILLER: Good question. When Bryan Clauson got his chance at Indy I hoped it might spark interest in the ratings and attendance during May, but I don’t think it did. I called Bell last March and asked if he was interested in running the Indy 500, and of course he was, but I don’t think Joe Gibbs would allow it. Swanson is magic on pavement in USAC Silver Crown, but obviously needs financial backing, and I’d heard he could be in line for an F2000 or Lights ride next year but that’s kinda died down. If Rico Abreu got an Indy ride he’d become the most popular driver overnight, but I’m not sure that it holds any interest for him – and he would also need a backer. If Bell, Swanson or Abreu got an IndyCar ride at Iowa it might make a difference since Knoxville is so close, and you would think it could also help Pocono with all the sprint car fans in Pennsylvania, but I’m just not sure enough people care to go buy a ticket.