IndyCar: Contact, drainage topics of concern ahead of first NOLA race
AVONDALE, Louisiana – The weekend forecast for NOLA Motorsports Park – humid with a high chance of contact.
As the Verizon IndyCar Series heads to “The Swamp” for its first ever race in the New Orleans area – Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana – the 24 drivers in the field will have to battle high speeds, high-heat and a high risk of debris if the cars make contact on the fragile pieces that make up the Chevrolet and Honda Aero Kits. With more than 200 pieces on the Honda kit and over 123 on the Chevrolet kit, it didn’t take long before some of those parts broke off during the car-to-car contact in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
INDYCAR allowed both Honda and Chevrolet to strengthen many of the pieces on the Aero Kits before the series resumed competition this weekend at the 13-turn, 2.74-mile NOLA Motorsports Park.
“There are a few pieces that needed reinforced and we are doing that now,” said Mitch Davis, team manager for A.J. Foyt Racing. “You will see guys bump around a little bit but the pieces should hold together better. You saw a lot of contact last year but the pieces held together and didn’t fly through the air.”
Drainage issues could also adversely affect the flat road course in the swampland that surrounds New Orleans and, with rain in the forecast for parts of Saturday and Sunday, it could plague the race. But even if Sunday’s race is contested on a dry track, it could be a much different race than on the streets of St. Petersburg two weeks ago.
“I think the drivers underestimated the strength of that wing,” Davis said. “They had to experience it and they are going to respect each other now because it takes you out of contention when you knock a wing off. Team Penske was tough and would have been hard to beat that day but when you are knocking wings off and going to the back you can’t have a shot at them.
“They were flawless all day and that is what you have to be now. Teammates raced each other pretty clean.
“The drivers have to sit up in the seat and pay better attention now.”
Davis helps oversee the two-driver team at A.J. Foyt Racing that includes Takuma Sato of Japan and Jack Hawksworth of England. Hawksworth finished eighth at St. Pete despite the fact an end plate broke off his front wing. Ironically, after that part broke off his Honda actually ran better in the race.
“You have to take your hat off to Larry and A.J. Foyt over the winter to keep Takuma’s team together and then add another driver in Jack that drives 110 percent on the race track,” Davis said. “What you are going to see is more improvement on the team as the season goes along. Synergy and data is what will get us to the front to race against some of these four-car teams like Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing.
“A.J. Foyt is only here for one reason and that is to win races.”
Davis has worked with many of the top IndyCar drivers of this generation compares the 24-year-old Hawksworth from Bradford, England to another talented IndyCar driver from that country.
“I call him Justin Wilson only 10 years younger,” Davis said. “That is what I see in him – a guy that is very, very talented, has no baggage and racing is his future and his life. I think what you will see from him in the future is phenomenal. He has only had a taste of oval track racing and his feedback from what I’ve seen he will really be good on the ovals.”
For now, however, it’s road racing for the Verizon IndyCar Series on the first natural terrain road course of the season in between the street race at St. Pete and next week’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
“The cars are so equal that you will see great racing, tire degradation, and you’ll see some passing and strategy to get off sequence to win the race,” Davis predicted. “You’ll have to challenge everybody on the timing stand how to win the race. I don’t think you are going to push anybody out of the way here.
“You’ll have to do something different to win the race. I think we’ll put on a good race for the fans. You’ll see some hard-braking and some good racing.”
And there will be some fast racing on the road course as Tony Kanaan’s Chevrolet lapped the track in Friday’s practice at 1:18.8753 (125.058 miles per hour) followed by Will Power’s 1:18.9292 (124.973 mph) and Scott Dixon’s 1:18.9662 (124.914 mph).
Practice continues Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET with knockout qualifying featuring the Firestone “Fast Six” beginning at 5:15 p.m. ET.
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