IndyCar 2019

How many drivers have come from Indycar to F1 in the last forty years and been successful?
Zero. That's how many. Now, that says a lot about the merits of American single seater racing. Strip away the razzamatazz and you're left with a **** series. **** drivers, **** cars and **** venues. The deleted word is the impolite term for excreta.

eagle eye wrote: »

More entertaining, no team dominating every race.
Indycar is class, sports entertainment. F1 is for mechanics.

This is coming from someone who followed F1 religiously for 30+ years. It's crap now.

Indianapolis 500 is the best motor race on the planet and it's not even close.
After that it's Nascar.
Hell, I'd watch formula e before that F1 rubbish.

Watching cars go round in circles for hours with ads every 5 mins tries my patience too much. I'd take even today's F1 over Indy and Nascar.

TheChrisD wrote:

Villeneuve and Montoya are two that immediately ring a bell.

Villeneuve raced in Formula Atlantic, not Indycar, and Montoya was contracted to Williams before joining Ganassi in a driver swap arrangement with Michael Andretti.

chicorytip wrote: »

TheChrisD wrote:

Villeneuve and Montoya are two that immediately ring a bell.

Villeneuve raced in Formula Atlantic, not Indycar, and Montoya was contracted to Williams before joining Ganassi in a driver swap arrangement with Michael Andretti.

Indy 500 and Indy Champion Jacque Villeneuve may disagree with you on that and the Montoya / Andretti swap story is incorrect but both did indeed race in F1

I'll leave aside the whole "Indycar is easy" discussion; Just consider this: double F1 World Champion and Le Mans winner Fernando Alonso, supported by a world-class racing team as McLaren, failed to qualify. You don't just buy a Dallara chassis, an engine, show up at Indy and win on the count of being a "refined European racer".

So, how's the experience of attending the Indy 500 in person? Here we go.

Buying a ticket

Nothing easier - you buy them directly at the IMS website. I decided to go rather late, and had to order the ticket using the "will call" facility, meaning I'd need to go to their ticket office to collect it. Price of the ticket, 110 USD for the tower terrace stands on the main straights - and this was one of the most expensive tickets. IIRC, the ones directly overlooking the brickyard were a bit more (something like 126 USD) but again, as I decided late (less than a month before the race), they were sold out. Mental note for the next time - buy the ticket early.
If you were happy with general access... it was just 40 USD for race day. Plenty of space in the infield to enjoy the race, there are even "hills" next to the fences so that you can look above the concrete wall. I'm no lover of insects, muddy clothes and camping in general, but if you are there's enough to literally knock yourself out.

By comparison, general admission at Silverstone for the F1 race in July is a whopping 175 GBP, which translates to 221 USD. We're talking over 5 times the price; And let's not even go into the fact the Indy 500 should be compared to the Monaco Grand Prix, rather than anything else on the calendar.

Finally, getting the ticket at the office was a complete breeze - and I arrived at the IMS on Saturday afternoon at around 15.30. There were HUGE queues, but they moved very, very swiftly - I was back in the car towards my hotel in 30 minutes or so.

Race day - Getting there

Important thing to know: Indianapolis and more specifically the town of Speedway, where the IMS, is are quite typical "American Midwest" places; Like the ones you see in movies - residential estates made of rows of aluminium-siding covered bungalows with Stars&Stripes banners everywhere - plus the occasional long bearded, shirtless, tattoo-covered 50-something dude gulping beer in a rocking chair on the porch. What does this mean? It means the only real transportation device is the car; There are vestiges of a bus service and even a railway station nearby, but you'd be left in the woods if you were relying on these.

So, knowing there were some 300.000 spectators expected for the day, I arrived at the car park very early, around 7am; The car park itself was basically a field, which made me thankful that the AVIS office in O'Hare only had a 4x4 Dodge Journey to give me instead of the "4-door sedan" I had booked.

As I arrived, the Indiana State Police had already set up traffic flow - they guided me towards my specific car park lot, I left the car and got into the IMS in a the matter of 20 minutes; Quick bag check and I was inside.

Race day - Before the race

I had a few hours to kill before the race, so I walked around the IMS, went to the gift shops and into the IMS Museum.

First thing - the gifts shops didn't have a huge selection of stuff, but the prices were "normal" and not a shameless eye-gouging. I bought a few fridge magnets for 5 USD each and a couple of 1/64 scale model cars for 9 USD each; Being a model collector, I can tell you the prices for the latter are about the same in a normal, city center model & hobby store - either here or in the US. There were also the usual selection of t-shirts, baseball caps and lanyards - maybe just the "ticket pouch" lanyards were on the expensive side, commanding USD 10 each.

Funny thing: I had been given a voucher to redeem a race program by the ticketing office on Saturday; They didn't know anything about those at the gift shop - they saw it was official, gave me the program anyway.

I then visited the museum; Negative note - you have to pay USD 10 for access, even if you hold a valid race ticket. The museum itself is relatively small but quite interesting, displaying a mix of Indy 500 winning cars, race cars from other series (Mario Andretti's Lotus 79 was on display - they should put a shroud around it and have an "adults only" sign outside, that car is the closest thing to p0rn on wheels you can find) and even a few historic road cars. This year, there was a special exhibit about Mario Andretti's Indy 500 win 50th anniversary. "Marione", as we used to call him in Italy, is definitely a big deal amongst US race fans.

A whole host of other activities were available in the infield area, from weird countryside games like "Cornhole" to car displays (mostly Honda and Chevrolette, obviously) to an e-racing stand by Logitech.

Before the race - parades, national anthem etc.

This part is probably the one that is the most subjective to both personal taste and cultural background.

As the Indy 500 is held on Memorial Day week end, Americans make a huge deal out of it - military personnel have free access to the race, you see a lot of guys and gals in their uniforms (usually with their family), and "civvies" make a big deal of going up to them and telling them "Thanks for serving!".

Before the race there are military parades, a General giving a speech, choppers and airplanes flying overhead; This year, a 4-aircraft formation made up of an A10 Warthog, a F16 Viper, a P51 Mustang and a P40 Warhawk made a couple of passes and a few evolutions above the IMS, including a spectacular full-afterburner vertical climb into the clouds on the part of the F16. As someone who's an aviation enthusiast as well as a racing nut, I appreciate this.

However the whole "Thanks for serving!" and "protecting our freedom" fanfare will look cringeworthy and quite a bit on the fanatical side to the average European obsever, as we literally had two world wars ravaging our entire continent and still don't make a big deal about the people who "fought for our freedom", quite directly in our case. Maybe it's us being in the wrong, who knows.

There's a big deal made out of some priest giving blessings before the race, then some hit-parade singer (Kelly Clarkson, this year) singing the National Anthem.

Before the race proper, there were a few parade laps made by the IMS official vehicles (a nice way to recognize all the people who work behind the scenes, such as track marshalls and emergency vehicle drivers) and some historic racing cars driving around (AJ Foyt, Lynn St. James, Mario, Michael and Jeff Andretti making appeareances).

The RACE

Well, what a race - very few caution periods, plenty of passing, some totally b@lls out moves such as Spencer Pigot basically overtaking two cars with two wheels on the grass in the opening laps; Plenty of three abreast action, an embarrassing mistake (Ericsson...he spun under braking in the pitlane right in front of where I was), a near miss involving Oriol Servia and Rossi.

In general, following the race at the track is much easier than one would imagine, thanks to the TV screens showing the action on the other side of the track, the displays with positions on the engine covers of the cars and the quite frankly STELLAR speaker at the track constantly giving updates and outlining overtakes and pitstops; It's a world apart from F1, where (At least in Barcelona) there is essentially nothing but the screens to help you figure out what's happening.

Simon Pagenaud (cringewhortily called "Saimon Pagnod" by the speaker ) did a quite excellent job, as 1st position is usually the worst place to be in the Indy 500 (increased fuel usage, exposed to overtaking maneuvers by slipstreaming), especially as the final lap starts. Yet he held it to the finish.

Great effort from Sato, who somehow pulled a strategy master-stroke with his team to climb back up into third from the midfield - and at some point, he looked like the one with the most reserve to go for the win. The red flag 20 laps from the finish was maybe a bit artificial and made on purpose to spice up the ending, but still - there WAS damage to the SAFER barrier, and with how the race was setting up to finish, you don't want to risk somebody crashing at 350kph into a damaged barrier.

As with F1 ones, the cars sound MUCH MORE glorious up close than they do on TV (I've just checked the highlights on YT); Somehow, the filters cut out both the lowest and highest audio frequencies, giving a sound that is flat and not representative of the real one in any way. Live, you can literally FEEL the power of those engines - you feel the roar in your chest and they make the entire grandstand and even the ground shake when they go by. To give you a comparison the pace car Corvette, a car that on the road would make everyone turn around by sound alone, was barely audible from the stands, even when it was lapping alone before the race.

Atmosphere, fan access etc

Here we come to what, to an European used to F1, is the most alien yet interesting part of the experience.

First of all, there isn't nearly as much "red tape" as in F1 - I went up to the "Hall Of Fame" terrace, looking into the pits/garages, and what I was was the teams working away on their cars, journalists conducting interviews with drivers, while spectators with a pit-pass just walked around with no barriers. Yes, it IS expensive (a Race Day pit pass was around the 1500 USD marker, if I remember correctly), but if you're willing to spend that amount of money, you could basically walk into a team garage (until some of the mechanics threw a spanner at you, I would imagine ) or have a quick chat and photo with Kanaan or Sato. I've done the "pitlane access" on Thursday in F1 and it's quite frankly a waste of time - big fence meters away from the garages, nothing happening bar a few guys assembling the cars for most of the day. The drivers made a quick 5 minutes appearance at the very end of the day, signed a few autographs and disappeared back into the garages (some were more generous than others with their time - Massa proved why he was such a liked guy by taking his time with the assembled fans, especially kids).

While I was walking towards my stand before the race, one of the IMS Corvette came around parading the Borg-Warner trophy. It was driving at walking pace, only the driver and the trophy in the open-top 'vette, a few "yellow shirts" walking with it and an Indiana State Trooper on a bike following the car. You could get within inches of the trophy - I was myself no more than a couple of meters away. No glass cages, no security "line", no nothing.

I also walked past the garage where they were preparing the historic cars for their laps before the race - again, a few machanics working on them and absolutely no security / fences. I literally walked up to one of Mario Andretti's cars, took some pictures and walked out, the guys in there pleased people took interest in what they were doing rather than snorting away at "pesky fans".

Which brings me to the next, and by far most awe-inspiring part: the incredible passion and respect American fans have for the cars, drivers, personnel and the race in general.

The Indy 500, as I said above, is located in what is essentially Hick country; As an all-American event, happening on the most American holiday week end other than the 4th of July, it attracts people of every background, cultural level and political leaning you can imagine; From the "Average American Family" with small children to the redneck pulling up in a battered, rust-infested rickety death trap of a pickup (something that would give an NCT centre a collective hearth attack upon merely gazing on it ), from the group of lads on a week-long beer bender to the hen-party-like packs of college girls parading 3/4 naked around the infield, from the retired well-off couple of ex-solicitors from Chicago to the true and through racing enthusiasts you really, really, really will see it all. Beer and other alcoholic beverages flow in quantities that would make Temple Bar on Patrick's day look like a Starbuck's at 10am.

And yet, everyone is almost reverentially respectful of the race, the drivers, the teams and other spectators. The crowds cheers loudly and spectacularly for daring passing moves an noteworthy on-track action; There are crowd favuorites, but interestingly not all are American and every single racer is given his or her loud cheer and applause should they do something great.

Ed Carpenter and Conor Daly were the ones getting the loudest cheers being both from Indiana (well, Daly...let's say "born in Indiana" ), but other than these two, the most cheered drivers were by far Takuma Sato, Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves and obviously Marco Andretti. By the end of the race, the crowd went totally crazy for Simon Pagenaud on his overtake on Rossi on the outside of turn 3, and then as he crossed the finish line - to the point it was hard to hear the engines; Same as he came around at the end of his parade lap. A foreign driver beating an American one, in the US, on Memorial Day...it doesn't get more odd than that, and yet the whole IMS exploded in cheers for this him.

We've seen supposedly "cultured" European fanbases booing F1 drivers for winning a race deservedly and being guilty of not driving a Ferrari, not being Brits, not being media favourites or being guilty of "winning while German".

And on this note, where we really have a lot to learn, I'll conclude this frankly overly long report - for anyone who had the patience to read the whole thing

Some pics attached - they might not be the best for framing and clarity (stopping a car doing nearly 400kph isn't that easy), but I preferred not to cut them and give the raw, unedited version out.

Ericsson and Hinchcliffe being interviewed before the race - the people around are spectators with a pit pass


The Brog-Warner trophy


Yep, I'm basically inside the garage where they were preparing this Mario Andretti car for parade laps


Don't let your partner see you looking at this, or they'll get jealous


Caution after Kaiser hit the wall


Poor Colton Herta's race lasted a handful of laps before his engine gave out


Rosenqvist and Sato pit as Pagenaud blasts past on the main straight


Ericsson's car being recovered after Marcus didn't really help the cause of "F1 Drivers are better!"


After another round of pitstops, Pagenaud getting past Pippa Mann on his way to victory

Great post, will.have to research into going next year!

TheChrisD wrote: »

He finished third in the 1993 Toyota Atlantic championship; before moving to Indy cars with Team Green, finishing 6th in 1994, and winning the title in 1995.

Still though, if you're looking to pick holes in the examples that we are giving you, perhaps it might be worth writing up a list of drivers from F1 who moved to IndyCar and were as successful as those who went the other way: Emerson Fittipaldi, Nigel Mansell

There have been a bunch of others who have gone stateside to varying degrees of success, but not culminating in a championship: Sato, Rossi, Chilton, Roberto Guerrero, Max Papis, Barrichello, Justin Wilson, Robert Doornbos, Roberto Moreno, Timo Glock, Shinji Nakano, Mark Blundell; and a bunch of Minardi pay drivers.

Derek Daly, of course, Eddie Cheever and Stefan Johansson would be older members of the same category.

Watched the Road America race "30 minutes highlights" last evening (messed up the timing and missed it live) - wow, Rossi was really on a different planet. I'll be curious to see how Colton Herta evolves, he's a bit all over the place - very mature and sedated for a 19 years old at the start, but then started banging wheels late in the race. Also, interesting how Indycars too run out of tires...

Elkhart Lake (old name when I was a kid) is such a great, old school track - often called the "American Spa" for a reason

5 cars out on first lap at Pocono race after a big crash. Rossi being one of them.

Great race!

I was very confused after the last pit stops. Rossi and Newgarden were on the same lap as far as I was aware but Newgarden was marked a lap ahead so got to come in and get new Tyres and still stay ahead.

See Conor Daly is taking Marcus Erikson's spot this weekend as he's on standby for spa incase Kimi can't race. Be interesting to see how he gets on. Potential spot for em next season for when they become maclaren next season