The IndyCar Series has decided to continue with Dallara as its spec car manufacturer for 2012-15. Dallara has committed to build its Indycars at a new facility in Speedway, Indiana and the company will receive tax breaks from the city and state governments worth US$5 million. IndyCar hopes to bring variety to the table by encouraging other car or engine builders to design their own unique aerodynamic platform – front and rear wings, sidepods and engine cover.
“The team owners wanted cost-efficiency and the fans wanted to see different cars on the race track,” said IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard. “The fans didn’t want a single car, spec series and we’ve been able to deliver those things. We will encourage other car manufacturers to build their own aero packages and bring variety to the series, and we’re going to be pushing with the auto manufacturers. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve started on our path.”
The 2012 Dallara’s price has been pegged at US$385,000, a 45 per cent reduction over the current car. Dallara’s aero kit is priced at US$36,000 and aero kits produced by other manufacturers may cost no more than US$70,000. Dallara has also agreed to a US$150,000 discount for the first 28 cars bought by teams located in Indiana. “We’re expecting a significant increase in the life of the parts,” said IndyCar competition boss Brian Barnhart. “This will result in an overall reduction in running costs of nearly 50 per cent. Any manufacturer can produce the aero kits for the chassis, however the parts must receive approval from the series, fit within certain price parameters, be available to all teams, and undergo safety testing. Each team will be allowed to race two different aero kits during the season.”
‘Iconic’ committee member Tony Purnell said of the decision to continue with Dallara: “It was a holistic approach, it was not one thing. When we stepped back from the various proposals and presentations we felt Dallara had the complete package. We were very comfortable going forward with them. They addressed every aspect we asked them to and did it with gusto.”
The first new Dallara rolling chassis is scheduled to be ready in October 2011, with deliveries to teams starting in December. Team owner and ‘Iconic’ committee member Gil de Ferran said IndyCar hopes to embrace multiple car builders in the future.
“There was certainly a lot of discussion on that front,” he said. “We were looking at this decision not only for the short term from 2012-15, but essentially laying the groundwork for the long-term future of the series. One of the beauties of this concept is that the framework is there to continue to free it up if the environment allows us to do so. The important thing is we were not choosing any specific car but creating a new concept and approach to solve what on the face of it are very conflicting requirements.”
Bernard admits it will take a year or two to attract new engine manufacturers and aero kit builders. “We have to be realistic and not set our expectations too high. Our goal was to be looking at the long-term and we knew that engine and chassis manufacturers were under deadlines right now. So we think it’s going to be pretty darn hard to see other engine manufacturers by 2012. We’re optimistic but our goal is to have some interest from other engine and aero manufacturers in 2013.”
The 2012 Indycars will named according to the manufacturer of either the bodywork or aero kit. “If Team Penske does a kit, it will be a Penske Indycar,” explained Brian Barnhart. “If Lola builds a kit, it will be a Lola Indycar. We encourage Lola or Swift or anyone to design aero kits. It’s certainly a fraction of the cost compared to designing a complete car. We think it’s an inclusive invitation to every manufacturer out there.”
It will be interesting to see how the theory works in reality. As ever, we’re hoping for the best.
I think the concept is sound, but implementing it before anyone other than Dallara and Honda are on board is a bit risky. They could end up with another Dallara-Honda spec car (albeit with two aero kits).
Has the idea of concentrating on the bottom of the car rather than front and rear wings been abandoned?
At any rate, if it develops like they hope, it should be good, or at least a lot better than what we have now.
Indycars biggest weakness, from a car standpoint, is the spec chassis and engine. During the heyday of Indycars, from the mid 60s to mid 90s, you had multiple chassis mfrs and various engines. That is necessary for any top line racing series. Sure, NASCAR is essentially all spec, but that’s a totally different thing. Other Indy weaknesses have been said many times before … the lack of top name drivers most obvious. No offense to those that are there, but all US drivers unfortunately head to NASCAR.
Let’s hope this small step makes a difference. I’d prefer a more open formula, but let’s see what happens.
Why does the idea that Dallara are going to be building the chassis for the ‘new’ indycar fill me with dread? Maybe their woeful efforts to get a car together for Hispania in F1 make me think they could be biting off more than they can chew.
Also the idea that the only really developable side of the car will be the aero package strikes me as going too far down the F1 route .. simply, the teams with the most money (ie.Penske) will end up using mega CFD and wind tunnels to get better results than anyone else, even if the areas of develoment are small.
I’m not sure why but I was expecting more from this ‘re-launch’. Pretty much all the way through the 90s Indy/CART was the best open wheel racing in the world (emphasis on RACING there) so lets use that as a template and get back to doing what the Americans do best, putting on a great show for the fans on the track.
The chassis is a
compromise, the same as the 2012 engine. I find it a bit curious though, that while the committee essentially chose “none of the above”, one of the applicants still got the deal. I bet Swift, Delta Wing et. al. would’ve appreciated the chance to design to this brief originally. That being said, I’m more likely to regularly follow IndyCar in 2012 as a result of the coming changes; there’s certainly more appeal. It’s not been specified yet, but I hope the teams can fiddle with suspension parts as well – aero (and hence appearance based distinctions) will likely vary more that way. I hope all data about spec components relevant to designing the non-spec parts will be publicly available (geometry, compliance, CoG, and what have you). Even though it’s exceedingly unlikely I will even have an IndyCar of my own built, I’d still like to “design” a “virtual” one as something more than a mere visual exercise.
I have to admit I’m really quite pleased with this approach- as has been stated by numerous folks related to F1- most fans don’t really care about one tenth being gained by lighter gear clusters and the like. Even though Indycar doesn’t sufer from the financial drainage that F1 has, it is still impossibly expensive to develop numerous different chassis in this economic climate. I think this has been well thought out, case in point being Iain’s comment above- the rules state that any kit must be available to all teams for a limited price- thus if Penske can develop a killer kit, then any other team will be able to buy it at an affordable price… which also seems to offer some real financial incentive for lots of folks to give it a try as well (although the name change of the team mid seaon would be kinda’ weird)- perhaps you could even have manufacturers in different countries working on their kits, and get a little nationalistic flavoring in there as well. As for drivers, Paul Tracy is still sitting around, and maybe even a certain Mr Villeneuve could add an additional ‘total focus’ on indycar to his total focus on F1 and total focus on nascar.
Gordon, it is the best solution that the ICONIC team can arrive at.
Ideally, we would want to see different manufacturers in the sport. However, the financial risk is too great for them (need exclusive rights) and mfg. in the states was too much.
But the best thing it opens up the door for the cottage industry to come up with their own aero kits! Yes the cars can look different.
My prediction is that you will see Ganassi and Penske mfg. their own pieces to finance their racing….
Steve…
racer.com has a picture of the “tub” that Dallara will supply, and pictures of possible aero solutions.
James, if you were
commenting with my earlier post in mind, I know. The same images are available for download at IndyCar’s own website. Only Dallara has announced that the tub is subject to unspecified change (i.e. this is just a concept fit for the reveal, there’s not too much engineering in it) and even so these are 3D renderings with no additional information. There’s nothing to base the beginnings of an actual, functioning design on. At this stage to do anything would equal sending IndyCar and Dallara fan mail, nothing more. I’m not inclined to waste my time so I hope that will change in the near future.
If Bernard and IndyCar think that people will be fooled by this Dallara lash-up they are wrong. These rules will enable the few wealthy teams to develope aero packages which will be too expensive for less well-heeled teams to afford. It’s also doubtful that another engine manufacturer will be willing to finance a program to support a ‘budget’ spec formula like IndyCar. They had an opportunity to promote new relevent technologies and re-introduce open competition into American open-wheel racing and they didn’t have the vision or desire to do it. IndyCar is all about team owners, IndyCar’s management and apparently some local politicians (big surprise!) lining their pockets by putting on noisy ‘race-like’ circuses all across the land. It’s all an insider’s joke, sad really.
Ha! I told you so: “… this is just a concept fit for the reveal, there’s not too much engineering in it.” (July 26th, see above) Now, let’s hear from Dennis Reinbold reflecting on IRL’s team owners meeting with Dallara at Mid-Ohio (as recounted on SpeedTV’s website by Robin Miller on August 15th):
“Overall there wasn’t much information or direction and what we took away from the meeting that was somebody has got to get busy on this thing right away. We didn’t get real excited about the new car announcement because we didn’t have enough information and we still don’t. I guess you can’t blame Dallara because they haven’t had much direction …”
Quite obvious, even as seen from afar. Now I’m somewhat confused though. Wasn’t IRL’s pitting potential chassis manufacturers (and the like) against each other supposed to provide the aforementioned direction? It seems to me that Tony Cotman’s new role as chief of the 2012 car and rules begins by picking up where ICONIC left … which seems to be nowhere in particular (i.e. “a concept fit for a reveal”).
This is somewhat shocking, as things do get succesfully designed in this World all the time. Yes, it’s hard but by no means not “that” hard. My best wishes for Mr. Cotman in his efforts. I hope he’ll find some able men and women, given the US employment situation in particular it shouldn’t be “that” hard. Look outside the racing establishment as well – it’s not as if the rest of the World lives by some other laws of nature. Dallara may or may not be up to the challenge; they should be under no illusion that they must deliver “or else”.
It took Mike Gascoyne only six months to field two not entirely hopeless F1 cars, establish a professional team and build a factory. As for 2012, IRL isn’t even cutting it close by comparison (not that they should, but on occasion things become necessary). Again, hard, but not “that” hard.
It’s all right if things appear human. Continuous spin is off-putting. For us racing fans good intentions are sugar coating enough, we don’t mind seeing the grimier side of things too, i.e. please “keep it real” for us real people. I believe the one thing you can’t design is greatness. It can only be sought out.