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: This I get: Can’t really build a new chassis without knowing what kind of engine goes in it. IndyCar doesn’t have an agreed-upon engine for 2027. Ergo, no new car for ’27. This, however, I don’t get: What is Penske expecting to happen in the extra 12 months?
New manufacturer? Hasn’t the train left the station? Ford and Hyundai (Genesis) are doing prototypes; Stellantis is headed to NASCAR, and by now Toyota must have automated its “the answer is still ‘no.’” Who’s left?
Doesn’t that leave mainly Honda’s Ilmor-made, branded by anybody plan? The concept seems to have worked well enough in NASCAR Trucks to entice Ram. Leaving an ERS or no ERS decision to be negotiated. I fear that without some dramatic change, the Marshall Pruett Gap Year solution will be the answer by default.
Al, Boston, MA
Marshall Pruett: Could be some other options for 2028, Al. Been working on a next-IndyCar-formula piece for about eight months and have parked it and waited and rewritten it three times as major changes to the plan have emerged. I’d hoped to get it out last week, but my goal is to have it done before the end of the month.
Q: During Road America Practice 1 on Friday we noticed several cars locking up heading into Turn 5. The tire noise was absolutely drowned out by a very shrill high-pitched sound that was in tandem with the lockups. It was never mentioned on the broadcast. Can only assume it’s the hybrid, but any more insight on that? Instant full regen?
Mike, Elkhart Lake, WI
MP: Possibly. Hard to say without being there to hear it.
Q: With the new F1 movie and the newly announced Days of Thunder sequel in the works, I can’t help but feel IndyCar gets left out. How do you feel about this? We saw how the big screen helped NASCAR’s popularity soar to even greater heights; one can only imagine the shot in the arm it would be for IndyCar. With so much history around the 500, so many potential storylines over the decades, it’s mind boggling.
Jeff
MP: There are some cool documentaries in the works that have IndyCar/Indy 500 elements, but I’m not aware of anything that’s modern or current in development like what F1 is to Formula 1. The F1 movie opens with a bunch of IMSA as well; Porsche put on an awesome private screening of the film in Watkins Glen last week before the Six Hours race. But yes, to your point, there’s an awful lot to choose from at Indy and in the world of IndyCar; maybe Driven’s legacy is that it killed any interest in coming back to the series.
Q: May we please have a primer on the IndyCar hybrid system? i.e How and when can it be deployed? How can it/should it be deployed as a weapon.
What do teams and drivers think of it compared to the previous push-to-pass option?
David
MP: The system debuted in competition 51 weeks ago. Written at least 10,000 words on it since then, so RACER.com’s search function is my first recommendation. [Try Part 1 and Part 2 of “RACER’s inside look at IndyCar going hybrid” first. -Ed.]
Teams think it’s a second push-to-pass system, and it’s required in the rules, so it’s used like any other piece of performance-enhancing technology.
Q: Thanks for answering my question a year or so ago about the Buick Indy engine program. I really appreciated that.
My wife and I had the privilege of taking a tour of the Petersen Automotive Museum last summer, and in the vault I happened to come across what may be my favorite open-wheel race car of all time: The All-American Racers’ Eagle 997 from the ‘99 season. It’s the one of the few Eagles I am old enough to have seen race, and getting to see it in person and study it up close made me appreciate the design of the car and what mavericks Dan Gurney and company truly were/are even more.
I know it’s hard to say, but in your estimation, just how good were those particular chassis? Obviously, AAR knew what they were doing, and I always felt it had potential, but between the Toyota engine at the time and the Goodyear tires, it seemed to be a perfect storm of all the wrong ingredients. I know Robby Gordon did moderately well with an Eagle simply by running Firestones, but if a CART team with, say, Firestones and a Ford or Honda engine had run one, could it have been a consistent contender for points finishes? Or were they specifically designed to house the Toyota engine?
Drew, Birmingham, AL
MP: It clearly had potential but suffered from the same thing that Lola and Penske were going through at the time with having a limited number of models in the field while going up against 20ish Reynards. There’s just no way to compete when facing that kind of chassis development onslaught.
I’d like to think it would have been a frontrunner with Hondas and Firestones, and both would have been much better options. Whether it could have matched Reyanard is an unknown.
All American Racers’ Toyota Eagle 997, driven here by Alex Barron, sure looked the part but while its uniqueness made it interesting, it was also a liability. David Taylor
Q: As we hit the halfway point of the IndyCar schedule, who have been the surprises and disappointments of the 2025 season?
Pedro
MP: McLaren moving to the top of the Chevy camp. Penske being in a growing state of disarray. Coyne and VeeKay making a lot of teams look silly. Kirkwood. Palou. Honda going unbeaten. Shank and Rosenqvist rocking. Ericsson mired in another brutal season. Foster looking better than most rookies in recent years. RLL being faster but no better in the championship.
Q: If you are starting a new team and have to pick either Colton Herta or Kyle Kirkwood, which do you take?
Brian Henris, Fort Mill, SC
MP: Kirkwood. He’s second in the championship while Colton’s 10th. Ask the same question a year ago and it would have been the opposite answer. Ask it next year and it could be different again. All you can do is go on today’s output, and in his fourth season, Kirk seems to have found something new and different. Colton’s had more adversity, but there have also been more days that are good but not great. Kirk’s got the hot hand in 2025, so that’s the obvious choice.
Q: Wow – I’ll just say I was expecting a snoozer at Road America, given how some of the other IndyCar races have gone this year, but that was one of the better road races IndyCar has staged in a long, long time. It had everything that makes a race great, even if Palou won. My initial reaction is that maybe the heat and conditions contributed to a race that strained the cars in such ways as to allow the driver to really drive the machine. And, hopefully that bodes well for some of the racers later this year, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca, and Portland in particular. The cars sliding around, but not punishing aggressive driving was great.
Other snap judgments: MSR/Rosenqvist are on it, Palou is just special this year, the cartoon anvil has either moved from Andretti and the 28 car to Newgarden’s or has spawned a child that is attached to JoNew, and Ferrucci is coming into his own, which is great to see.
I guess, I need a question, since it is a Mailbag, after all… so do you think the weather conditions helped make Road America as good as it was? And, if so, does that give us hope for fun as the summer heats up?
Taco Montgomery
MP: The heat was a factor, but the tires were mostly up for the challenge so there wasn’t advanced degradation on either compound. Cautions and the timing of those cautions are important, because they can open up multiple strategy options that lead to the diverging fortunes we saw on Sunday.
Q: Santino Ferrucci coming home third and producing some results! I used to dislike him as a driver but now with that beer chug at the end of the race, he’s won me over.
Now… what if we put him in a Penske instead of Malukas?
Not that Stefan Johansson
MP: We know Will Power thinks highly of Santino. But don’t discount Malukas. He’s still extremely young and inexperienced at 23 years old with 45 IndyCar races to his credit. Most of those – 34 – were with Coyne. If we’re talking about learning at higher-tier team, he’s got a half season at Meyer Shank and a half season at Foyt. To be sitting 12th in the championship, just 10 points behind Ferrucci, is a hell of a thing.
He needs another season at Foyt to clean up the litany of mistakes that limit his ability to deliver better results. Purely a case of needing time to reach more of his potential. He’s 10 points behind Ferrucci, as noted, and is only 16 points shy of Penske’s McLaughlin. Impressive stuff.
Would Power still think as highly of him if Ferrucci took his ride? Joe Skibinski/IMS Photo
Q: I have been saying since early on in the year that I am not convinced the weight of the hybrid – in and of itself, at least – was the cause for the relatively dull start to the IndyCar season. I felt this way due to one simple fact: Last year’s hybrid races weren’t anything like them. Now, three races removed from the Indy 500, and in the wake of the most entertaining road race of the season to feature an Alex Palou victory, I am more convinced than ever of this.
The real issue that caused the dull start of the season was teams not coming fully to grips with the best way to set up cars with the hybrid weight, rather than the hybrid weight being the insurmountable hindrance its recently been made out to. Ganassi was the first to wrap their brains around it, leading to a dull start of the season, and now others are catching up, leading to a return to form for the series even when Palou wins.
I don’t find it a coincidence that this return to form began with the first truly exciting race of the year at the Indy 500. Indy is the definition of “adapt for fall,” and the sheer amount of practice time finally gave most teams enough data to piece the last few details together. Now most of the field has setups that do allow them to attack in the way they couldn’t before, and we get back to what we expect from IndyCar – and right as we get into the more consistent period of scheduling on top of it.
I for one couldn’t be happier to see this return to form.
FormulaFox
MP: The only issue with the theory is the teams and drivers have said the opposite, which we’ve documented. Teams raced on road courses, street courses and ovals with the hybrid weight in 2024. Spent insane amounts of money working on R&D programs, simulator programs, and learned a ton more in the track testing they completed, and weren’t lacking in knowledge of how to set up their cars from St. Pete through the Indy GP.
Teams make engineering strides in every season, so that’s the norm. But they, collectively, didn’t just unlock some new hybrid-weight-defeating setup secrets. The 500 was quite good, but the same weight-related issues and limitations were spoken of by drivers after the race. Cautions and the passing opportunities that come from restarts brought some entertainment into the 500. Same with Detroit. Same with WWTR. Same with Road America.
The new Detroit layout has been one where an abundance of mistakes are made (seven cautions in 2023, eight in ’24, and a relatively tame five earlier this month), which creates restarts/passing/excitement. WWTR had four cautions to add to the restarts/passing/excitement dynamic, which also introduced the first big race/fuel strategy finish of the year as leaders peeled off for splashes to make it to the checkered flag.
Similar restarts/passing/excitement/multi-strategy affair last weekend, but with another new twist in Firestone’s primaries and alternates being remarkably good and durable, which allowed drivers to push harder in the medium-speed corners like Turn 5 and Canada Corner where a lot of contact or running wide occurred. I’d love to put it all down to hybrid setup improvements, but a clean race at Mid-Ohio could easily bring the boring racing back to life.
Q: Why wasn’t Malukas given a penalty for running over the hose/gun on his last stop?
Jim Balengar
MP: Because IndyCar decided to take such things off the penalty list this year. Makes no sense to me.
Q: What kind of mileage does an IndyCar that is not saving fuel get at Road America?
MP: My quick math says that Palou probably got about 3.6 mpg on his last stint. 16 laps x 4.048 mile track = 64.768 miles. Divide that by 18.5 gallons = 3.5 mpg needed, but he did a cool-down lap as well so let’s go with 3.6.
It did not seem like he was really saving fuel on the last stint given lap times relative to Rosenqvist.
Q: While I know Dixon is the fuel-saving master and I am sure he has imparted many of those tricks to Palou, it just seems like the Honda just got great mileage (certainly better than Chevy) at Road America. But the only way to really know is what does a Honda-powered IndyCar get mileage wise when pushing.
Either way, it was yet another masterclass by Palou and Wanser.
Thoughts?
Jeff Smith, State College, PA
MP: There’s a trait I’ve seen among the best drivers and it’s an ability to be a chameleon behind the steering wheel. It starts off track, and is sparked by intelligence. Wheldon, Franchitti, Dixon, Montoya, de Ferran, etc. Preceded by Foyt, Mario and Michael, Al, Bobby, and Little Al, Parnelli, Gurney, etc. And more than anybody else today, Palou.
They absorb from each other and adapt, adding the special things they witness or learn via data and video from each other, depending on the era. Written about Dixon aplenty and how he took his natural talent honed in road racing, onboarded Wheldon’s oval expertise, went to a new level, then learned a lot of everything from Franchitti, leveled up again, and became the best of his generation by using his chameleon-like ability to take from his immediate surroundings and deploy them in an advantageous manner.
Palou’s done the same thing, with Dixon as his primary source of experiential education. He’s also got Franchitti as an in-house advisor. Saving fuel? Got it. Race administration? Got it. Brutal consistency and efficiency? Got it. And so on. It’s not like Dixon wasn’t already excellent in all the areas where Wheldon and Franchitti helped to improve his game, but he amplified his abilities through infusing their finest attributes into his own. And now Palou has taken the baton from Dixon and has become IndyCar’s latest master of adaptation.
Also, yes, Honda is known for being tops in the fuel mileage department, and lifting early at the end of long straights is where a ton of fuel saving is achieved. One of Dixon’s special skills is to roll a bunch of speed through the next corner and hold onto the car while it’s unloaded or not optimally set to carve through the corner, which reduces the loss of lap time while off throttle. This is another area where Palou (and other drivers) mimic Dixie to their fuel-saving and lap-time benefit.
Q: Some silly season questions for you.
1. Really enjoying seeing Santino take the fight to the bigger teams. With the unfortunate passing of Marylene Sexton, how will that affect the funding for his ride next year?
2. What’s your sense on Will keeping his Penske ride?
3. Will Conor get another season at Juncos Hollinger?
Tony
MP: Still TBD on the first question. There’s a hope her daughters will want to continue, but with the funeral about to take place, there’s a focus on Marlyne and the Sexton family right now and not on future funding. I’m sure those conversations will happen at the right time, but there is some urgency since the end of the season is here in two months.
On Power, the smart move by Penske is to keep him for another year, maintain consistency at a time when the team is in disarray, and give Malukas another season to mature as a driver. Whether you love or hate Power, I can’t find the sense in piling a big driver change on top of the leadership changes to close what has been one of the team’s worst seasons (at least through eight races) in forever.
Said another way, we’ve seen the team struggle after divorcing three key and longstanding leaders, so if there’s anyone internally who thinks the best follow-up is to divorce a fourth key and longstanding leader, I’d be worried.
Q: Question about Gateway. I’ve seen signage at races forever showing 3-2-1 at the end of a straight or before a turn. There was count down signage on the outside fence at Gateway. What would this be used to reference, as it appeared they were already out of Turn 2 before the signage?
John M. Lee
MP: Sounds like braking distance markers, but hard to answer without a reference image.
Q: How does RLL get out of its slump? Does the team need a third investor to infuse more money into the operation similar to what is happening at ECR?
Foster has shown flashes and the Tom Selleck mustache surely makes him at least 0.2s faster everywhere.
James
MP: They have a lot of talent on the engineering and performance side, but it’s also a group where many folks are either new or in new roles. It gets out of the slump with more time and races together and, importantly, a full offseason with all of its smart people to come up with R&D programs as a unit.
It’s got a real gem in Foster, and while I don’t know his contractual situation, the team needs to step up in 2026 to make sure he doesn’t do a Lundgaard and start looking for an upgrade.
Q: Is there any planned tire testing prior to the Iowa races? Are you optimistic that the surface will race better than last year?
Joe
MP: Test there to start this week. The surface should be super grippy like it was last year after the repave. It’s a case of needing to make tires that aren’t degradation-free rocks that never fade.
Q: How much do the stronger FOX TV ratings factor into Honda’s upcoming decision?
Billy
MP: Certainly can’t hurt. Bigger question might be how tired Honda has or hasn’t become with Penske Entertainment and how much Honda does or doesn’t want to try something new and different in NASCAR.
Q: How “Penske” is the 4 car compared to the 2, 3 and 12?
Mark, Milford, OH
MP: Just as Penske as those three and the 14 car, and the greatest development is in car build specification. Having the cars assembled in the same way as the Penske cars is where true consistency and repeatability has happened.
More similarities than the eye can see? Matt Fraver/IMS Photo
Q: Any update on Tim Cindric and what he is doing? I think FOX should hire him. He would provide great information that we don’t normally get, like the way Jon Beekhuis used to do. Would they need Penske approval?
David Tucker
MP: Tim’s on my call list for this week or next. Penske doesn’t own FOX, so no, FOX can hire anybody they want.
Q: After reading your comments regarding Dennis Hauger, I’m wondering what makes a F2 driver “better” than the NXT drivers? Is it the cars they drive in F2? The tech? The competition?
Vincent Martinez, South Pasadena, CA
MP: As I’m told by IndyCar team owners/principals, it’s the depth and culture of total driver development by most F2 teams that far surpass their counterparts in NXT. F2 is like an MIT or Stanford and NXT is more like a state or community college when it comes to the curriculum and education in all aspects of the racing discipline, they say.
That means a Hauger is farther along in his career development, more advanced in training, nutrition, the technical and engineering side, the mental side, due to the intensive programs good F2 teams put their drivers through. There are some NXT teams that do similar things –Andretti is the gold standard and Ganassi has brought this to its new team – but I’ve yet to hear an IndyCar team tell me they’ve received an NXT driver in recent years who was as complete as a rookie as the F2 drivers they’ve signed or tested.
Q: Two questions from the Gateway race:
Are you surprised the red flag wasn’t called in the Foster/Newgarden crash? There’s nothing I could find in the IndyCar rulebook regarding event conditions to weigh (section 7.1.4 discusses procedures after a red is called but not leading to it). I was surprised since there were foam blocks that needed to be replaced
Second, except for one pit cycle, undercutting was effective. How do teams determine if the undercut or overcut is better at a given track? Tire deg and previous races are the only factors I can think of. Admittedly I don’t watch practices so I could be missing additional valuable insight.
Atilla Veyssal, Madison, WI
MP: I was not. It wasn’t late in the race, and while there was a lot of damage to resolve, the AMR Safety Team had it handled swiftly. Twenty laps were lost in a 260-lap race. That’s impressive to me.
Teams look at historical trends to see if and when overcuts/undercuts were most effective, and also have to read the race as it plays out, decide if an early/late stop plays to their driver’s strengths, or if track position needs to be protected, etc.
Q: The general consensus appears to be that the Indy NXT cars are between F3 and F2 in terms of performance. Dennis Hauger is an F3 champion and won multiple F2 races per season for a midfield team. It’s not really shocking that he’s led something like 60% of the total laps this season, but it also makes it hard to judge his performance. And how realistic is it for him to get a full time IndyCar drive next year, which is presumably his goal, given that he doesn’t have a ton of funding?
Will, Indy
MP: Not sure what would be hard about judging a driver’s talent in any series since lap times are recorded as well as finishing results. In those, he’s been the clear best of all NXT drivers this season, judged on speed and finishes. As a rookie. Highly realistic for him to get a drive if a quality seat is open where a team is looking to hire, and dependent on how much funding he can assemble if it’s with a team that needs to be paid.
Dennis Hauger has gone from strength to strength in Indy NXT, but taking the next step will still be as complicated as ever. James Black/IMS Photo
Q: I realize that it’s a Penske (and not CGR) IndyCar, but does anyone other than me feel that the livery on Will Power’s Dallara for 2025 is throwing off strong Jimmy Vasser 1996 Target vibes? With the predominant red and with the yellow stripes running the length of the car, it was hard not to notice the similarities to the famed “Lightning Stripe” scheme. Oh, and the car being No. 12 doesn’t hurt either!
Richard Sugg, Riverside, CA
MP: People, do you feel different than Richard?
Q: Full disclosure, I am RLL’s No. 1 fan. Why didn’t Graham Rahal switch his motor to Sato’s oval chassis? Is that not legal? RLL’s oval package has failed for at least five years. Will they rebound as typical in the final road courses?
Where is my Team RLL test driver Vips? He can’t be any worse than we have. Where are we on the FBI investigation? What are the terms of Cindric being fired? Can Team RLL bring him back home? Team RLL declined after losing Cindric and Scott R. How long until team RLL makes me feel competitive again? Graham has the skills, but how long until he gets tired of just going through the motions?
William Forest, Lima, OH
MP: The rules prevent teams/drivers from using each other’s engines. Those are assigned by IndyCar. There’s no reason for the team to do poorly at any of the remaining races. Attending races. We are nowhere. How would we possibly know the terms of Cindric’s firing? The team already has a president. RLL is responsible for you feeling competitive again? He told us he’ll race through the end of his contract.
Q: How do IndyCar officials track tire usage during a race to make sure everyone uses both tires for the required amount of time?
Craig Mashburn
MP: Firestone does live tracking.
In F1, who determines how hard/soft the compounds will be for the race? Is it up to Pirelli? The FIA? Multiple entities? And how far in advance of the race weekend are these decisions made?
Todd, Indianapolis, IN
CHRIS MEDLAND: It’s a decision taken by Pirelli, based on the car data they have from the teams – given to them pre-season but then also gathered from each event as a season progresses. Pirelli also use historical data, as they have all the knowledge of how their tires have reacted on different tracks in the past.
Decisions used to be made further in advance, but more recently the tire supplier has tried to make the call later to allow more flexibility in its choices, informing teams about a month out from an event (and at times much later, such as just two weeks out from Monaco this year). Teams like to have warning for their preparations and simulations, but Pirelli also needs to do so for logistical reasons.
Rick Mears rewrote the IndyCar record book in qualifying numerous times, including at Indy in 1982 with the Penske PC10. David Hutson/Getty Images
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, June 24, 2015
Q: It seems pretty obvious that Will Power is at minimum the first- or second-best talent on the IndyCar grid today (I’m not particularly a fan but his talent is undeniable) in terms of getting the most pure speed out of the car. Sure he drives for the all-time best IndyCar team which helps, but the evidence is in his qualifying dominance. Seeing that in the last two races he has tied and passed Rick Mears (my childhood racing hero) on the all-time pole position list, how would you compare the two? I’m only 40 and my interest in IndyCar racing began at my first Indy 500 in 1987 as a 12-year-old.
Rick was my hero, but he only raced a few years after I began to follow the sport. As I remember it though, I only remember seeing Rick do well on ovals and being a bit of a backmarker on the twisties. I vaguely remember this being due to mangling his feet in a significant crash which affected his ability to pedal a car around the road and street courses. How good was Rick on those circuits before that crash? Were the vast majority of his poles ovals? Just curious your perspective on Rick’s oval vs. road course skills and how they compare to Willy P.
Brady Hawxhurst
RM: Tough to make comparisons but here’s some stats to help put Rick’s career into perspective. Before shattering his feet at Sanair in 1984, Mears was an exceptional road racer – winning six times in his first 28 road/street course starts with Team Penske. Bernie Ecclestone flew him to Paul Ricard in the spring of 1980 to test the Brabham F1 car and he got within a half second of soon-to-be world champ Nelson Piquet. Then, he tested for Brabham again at Riverside and was quicker than Piquet. Ecclestone offered him a contract but The Rocket opted to stay in CART because he liked running ovals as well as road racing. Following his injury, Mears only scored one more RC victory at Laguna Seca in 1989 and obviously wasn’t able to road race with the same prowess because he found he couldn’t brake hard enough and also he had a “lag” on his right foot where he literally couldn’t mash it to the floor as quickly as he wanted. But he did win nine more oval races – including two more at Indianapolis. Power doesn’t have Rick’s oval-track savvy but he’s getting better and better with Mears’ tutoring and nobody has been quicker on road and street circuits than Willy P. the past six seasons.
