Helio Castroneves has no desire to be airborne and upside down again at Indianapolis. Neither does IndyCar, which is making changes in hopes of preventing those kinds of scary flips at high-speed tracks.
“For safety, that is what we are looking at,” Castroneves said during testing on Tuesday in Texas that included curved plates affixed to the bottom of cars to help prevent them from flying into the air after spins. “It does not matter what car it is.”
Those domed skid plates are among significant changes the IndyCar Series has made since last year, when Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter — all driving Chevrolets — went airborne in separate incidents at the Brickyard leading up to the Indianapolis 500 in May last year.
Photo: AP
There have also been the additions of NASCAR-looking flaps behind the chassis and more tethers to keep pieces from flying off the car, like what happened at Pocono in August last year when British driver Justin Wilson was struck in the head by debris and died the following day.
Castroneves, Newgarden and Carpenter were among 15 drivers from five teams who took part in a day-long test at Texas Motor Speedway. There had been previous tests at California and Indianapolis with the curved plates that add down-force and help keep cars grounded if they get sideways.
Honda drivers have complained that the domed skid plates, which also raise the car, make their cars difficult to handle.
“They make a difference. My car is like pretty loose here today, it was really loose at testing in Indy,” Graham Rahal said of his Honda.
Even though the 2.4km high-banked Texas track is different than the 4km layup at Indianapolis, Castroneves said teams would benefit in Indy from the testing in the Lone Star State with the same aero package.
“I do not think it is that big of a deal,” Carpenter said of the added domed skids. “I think it is just something our competitors really like to talk and complain about.”
Newgarden, sitting next his teammate and team co-owner, said: “I agree.”
Rahal said he hates that domed skids have become a topic of conversation leading up to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 later this month.
“We should just be talking about how great the Indy 500 is. Instead, we are talking about domed skids, which nobody even knows what the heck that is other than us,” Rahal said.
Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay, two other Honda drivers testing in Texas, never appeared as expected at the media session during the midday break.
Along with changes made before last year’s Indy 500, IndyCar mandated the use of closure panels on the rear wheel guards for the remaining three superspeedway races of last year. Those panels were first used at Texas, and later at California and Pocono Raceway.
Scott Dixon had a dominating run at Texas in June last year, winning by 7.8 seconds over teammate Tony Kanaan in the fastest IndyCar race ever at the track. Dixon led 97 of the 248 laps in his Chevy with an average speed of 191.940mph in an accident-free race that had only two cautions.
Dixon said that the domed skids are not new to IndyCar. The feature was part of past generations of the cars, and last used in 2011.
“You have got to look how much greater it is for the safety side of things,” Dixon said.
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