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Max's Comeback Charge and IMS Testing
Max's Comeback Charge and IMS Testing
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About this episode
The hosts dive into the recent F1 race in Austin, highlighting Max Verstappen's dominant comeback and the challenges faced by McLaren's drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. They discuss the evolving competitiveness of the cars, the impact of tire and brake developments in IndyCar testing at IMS, and the potential introduction of spec dampers in 2028. The episode also touches on Colton Herta's move to F2, the pressure on young drivers, and the psychology behind championship battles, offering a blend of race analysis and insider technical insights.
Topics:
max verstappen comeback
mclaren challenges
f1 austin race
indycar ims testing
brake system development
spec dampers
colton herta f2 move
tire performance
race strategy
motorsport psychology
Cars:
Lotus Elise
Between two F1 races, Hinch and Rossi talk about Max's impressive run in F1, and the potential to catch the McLaren drivers for the championship. Plus, Alex is doing some testing on the oval at Indy, Colton's going to F2, and more.
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Lotus Elise
"...no idea what the next five races hold. Uh, Lando, Elise got around Charles, so he finished second Oscar m..."
Select text to request an explanation
This is, is off track.
Hello. And welcome to an episode
of Off Track with Hinch and Rossi.
That's just Hinch and Rossi. Yes. Finally, bro,
What the people have always wanted and have asked for. No, Tim.
And what, honestly, I, we wanted, Look, there was a time when we started this , it was, he's, it was necessary , it was necessary to have him on board.
Yeah. Uh, we didn't know how to, you know,
hit record on a program, bro.
You know how like this, and now in like, history, there's those like really valuable lost files.
Like this episode, like our podcast one day might be so important to kids and this, this could be the end of it.
And this episode may never air.
And think of all of the information that we discussed that we unfortunately can't air for 33 minutes prior to this.
Imagine what those kids in like 2090 when they're studying sports broadcasting history, and they find this archive on a hard drive That would be, it's gonna be, it will have, it will have either predicted the solution to, or complete fall of something that we love very much.
Yes. And, and we'll leave it at that.
But yeah, that, that would be a funny thing to stumble across, you know, 50 years from now.
Mm-hmm. Oh man. Actually let's make it longer than that.
Let's make it like a hundred years so that we're gone and don't have to answer and Answer to anything. .
There's no repercussions from what we've discussed up to this point.
Cool. Oh man. Mm. Um, yeah. Yes.
So good call. You're, you're, uh, you're in Mexico.
Let's, let's get right, uh, your last weekend.
So formula, uh, returns to North America.
Um, back in Austin it looked packed, which is as Always Must be nice.
Um, and and how, how was it hot?
So it was hot. Yeah, it was definitely hot.
I think it was the hottest race they've had there, which is saying something for Austin.
Yeah. Um, talked about the, the ness.
I don't know what changed from years past.
'cause I've done that race a couple times now.
And it was actually, it was my fourth anniversary.
That was my, uh, it was four years ago. Did you have a cake?
My first, first F1 race there? Uh, no.
Nobody, I didn't tell anybody. Nobody cared.
It's irrelevant, but for the last three years, yeah.
You know, look, it's not the easiest place to get out of, you know, the parking lots get kind of packed when you leave and there's only kind of two directions you can leave the track from outta the same road.
But, you know, once you're moving, it's not too, too bad.
The traffic, both getting in, which was new and getting out was exponentially worse.
I don't know how, there was not that many more people, if any, more people than last year.
But they did something different incorrectly with that.
And it led to like one morning in the, whoever decides who directs traffics, uh, defense.
We being the group of people in my car, so like me and Laura and Palmer and Jake Z were given the wrong parking pass.
And so there were certain places where f One's not known to be sticklers about passes, though don't even get me started on that , that that led to some very colorful conversation in the car ride on the way in.
Mm-hmm . But it was, it was more that there were certain
places where the, the cops had like blocked off roads and were re redirecting traffic unless you had a certain parking pass.
'cause then they would let you through to go to.
And like, we were getting close to being at risk of not being on site in time for first practice.
Oh. And so we pulled up to one of these, uh,
the first one, the first blockade.
And we were like, Hey man, we worked for F1 tv.
We're on air in a very short amount of time.
We were given the wrong parking pass.
We need to go this way.
And the guy like kind of was like, you work for F1 tv.
Like we work for F1, we're on tv, but we're super late.
We got the wrong pass, whatever. And he's like, okay.
So like, okay, sweet, we're in.
But we go through and then there's like a road with no cars on it and we blast.
We're like making up time blast on this road.
Then we come to a stop, it's another intersection and there's another cop and they're like, oh, you have the wrong pass.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, no, sorry.
Uh, we just explained to your, your colleague there and did the whole story again.
And they were like, yeah, but you have the wrong pass.
I'm like, yeah, but I can't be here unless he thought it was okay that, that, that I'm here.
So like, can we, can we agree that I didn't just run past him?
Like you didn't get a radio call saying look out for a, you know, rental blue rental car.
So I had to work our way through that one.
Got through that one. Then we come up to the third blockade
where we need to turn a direction that they're not even like, that's not even part of the past program.
And, and now this guy, I had talked to this guy, I think he actually watches F1 TV 'cause he seemed to clock who we were in the car immediately.
And we're like, I'm like, we need to go left. He goes, okay.
And I had to like stop traffic in both directions and let us turn left.
Had we not been able to talk our way through that.
Which again, understandably dealing with like cops directing traffic in a big event like that, they're not often open to making concessions for people who claim they have the wrong parking pass. ,
we got very lucky, dude.
We might still be on our way to the track. Mm-hmm.
It was very tense.
Anyway, that part aside, um, Austin's just a great one as you know.
And, and, and it's obviously quite different now from when, from when you were racing there.
'cause like yeah. There's people, there's a lot of people.
It's like people are excited about racing. Yeah.
I never had any sort of issue getting into or out Of the track.
Right. At Austin. Yeah. Yeah.
I would've, I would've loved you.
You two have been on the grid at at this time. Mm.
'cause there's a lot of people there. And a big old American
flag can turn one and it looks it's pretty cool man. It
Is.
That's when the, the whole that's nice.
Like turn one berm is just shoulder to shoulder people.
His big, I'm not gonna, he's got a lot of time to discipline Big <inaudible> off American flag hanging up at the top of, Just keep drumming it in man. Just keep, keep going. Blow
It in the wind.
Yep. You know what they did though? You know what they did?
They had like black hawk helicopters do the flyover.
And I was like, that is such a rip off of the 500 this year, Which was ripped off the Daytona 500 From like 30 years ago.
We let it breathe, you know. Yeah.
But like you can't, that's like, you can't That's that Stones at Glasshouse Dude.
Fine. Alex. Fine Alex, listen. You're right. That's true.
I kind of forgot That's where It came from.
And also like that's still just badass.
Like that's the most American, like for big US events, black Hawk helicopters should be everything the day.
It's the standard we do leading up to. Yes.
That should be the standard. Should be
Mandatory. Yeah.
Um, alright. Yeah.
But the event's awesome. It gets blown
up like all the teams do. Did
You get on the rollercoaster?
'cause they're now No. Trying to be Abu Dhabi. Oh
Yeah.
I, it's weird. There's like three
rollercoasters on the property now.
I didn't even know about it until I was on Instagram and I saw someone on it.
You saw Mario? And I was like, no.
I saw, oh, what driver went on it? Was it Charles? I don't know.
No, I don't Know.
Anyways, I didn't see it. Um, yeah.
And I was like, wait a second, this isn't Austin.
That's, it's like Ferrari world, which is again, did you see the renderings for the building?
They're gonna put at the top of the hill in turn. I
Sure did.
Alex. That looks pretty neat.
Here's, here's a little fun fact that I'll tell you about.
Um, there was a period of time in, in 20 13, 14 and 15 where um, my dad and I were working with Bobby Epstein, I think was his name.
Epstein? Yeah. Is he still involved at Coda? Yep.
Like owns it. Runs it. I think
So. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That place was about to disappear
because yeah, no one was going and they couldn't justify the sanction fee and hosting F1 and it just wasn't making sense.
And so he commissioned us being the American representation to go out there and try and find investors and supporters.
Now they have three rollercoasters and are building a sick suite, the top of the hill and turn one And I race until 2030.
How? 1 20, 34, something like that.
How changes have timed Yes.
How the turns have tabled. Um, yeah. Crazy man. Crazy.
Anyways, whatever. Good for them.
Let's talk about the race different. Well,
It was weekend. It's so
Qualifying one.
Qualifying one. Um, you know, obviously,
you know Max was on poll, But, but that's not obvious because Lando led practice and then he led Q1, Q2 And his theoreticals were good enough for poll in Q3.
But what happened? Max happened. Mm.
Max maxed, which is, this is what's so interesting man.
'cause like he's obviously been on this run, right?
He won Manza, he won in Baku, Isn't it? He scored, scored
In Singapore, scored like 176 out of 190 available points.
119 out of 133 or something available. Okay.
I don't know where my numbers came from, but yes.
Okay. But yeah, the concept is right in an insane
percentage since the, since that the summer break, I guess he's finished second, first, first, second, first in a sprint And first Is that good?
It's not all it's a Well, so like, you know like how Palolo normally finishes first, first, second, first, first, first, first, First, first, first, first. Yeah.
So kind of Palolo esque. Mm.
And um, you could like Mazda's kind of a unique place obviously, right.
B who's kind of a unique place.
Singapore has never really been a strong Red Bull track and he didn't win there, but neither did McLaren.
He still beat McLaren. Mm-hmm.
Like a McLaren has not beat him in four full weekends. Hmm.
Right. They beat him in in Zandor. He came second.
But since then they have not finished ahead of him.
Um, but then we got to, we got to code on and it's like, okay, this is a proper track.
This is a proper road course. We're not a straight circuit.
We're on a weird, like this one's got a bit of everything.
It's hot, like tired egg's gonna be a thing.
This should really play it.
McLaren is like, yes. Should be the here. Yeah.
And yeah, the, the thing about it is that's just not exactly what happened.
So what that's proven is that whatever they've done to this Red Bull in the last six weeks has made it a genuine contender at all tracks. Now. Like it's,
But hilariously the second card , it's no different.
Yeah. I mean when he was on polling the sprint Yuki his
18th in the sprint, but he had, he got, he got, he ran outta time or so he didn't get his second lap.
There was a lot of that weird dick around. Don't worry around
Trying to get don't worry, we're gonna get to not getting your second lap here in a second.
Yeah. Um, so yeah, so so Lando wasn't able to get it done.
He was second. Oscar was third I guess,
and Kinberg was fourth.
How about that? Yes, Kinberg was separate quick in
Practice and like, and like P five in practice one.
So it wasn't like some like conditioned change, like there was no rain involved.
Like he was legitimately in contention. Okay.
And, um, if Max wins the championship, not saying that anything about this incident is Nico's fault, but like Nico probably should get dinner bought for him by Max.
Okay. So let's get to turn one then. Yeah.
What, how did you see the turn one?
No, I saw turn one as a complete racing incident. Yeah.
It was nobody's fault.
It wasn't Oscar's fault, it wasn't Nico's fault.
It was, it's a tight corner and it's super wide on entry and cars, two cars, one spot sort of thing.
Which, um, hilariously, and I don't mean any ill will towards Lando because I, I love Lando and I love everything that he's doing.
But like hilariously Oscar's little run in with Nico pitched him so high in the air, it like hit Lando and ripped his right front off .
Meanwhile, max is like already five seconds up the road, .
And the worst case scenario for McLaren other than it being the actual race, uh, kind of happened and it's like mm-hmm .
Man, you start to add these things up, right?
You start to add Lando failure in Zor, you start to add the whole piss stop positioned kerfuffle in Monza, you add Oscar's issues in Baku then that at the sprint, it's like you'd be really hard pressing McLaren to start thinking is this, is this not meant to be like, are we, are we actually in trouble of giving this thing up to Max at this point because it's, he's coming.
It's got, it's got some 2007 vibes in a big way when Alonzo and Hamilton were just hamming each other taking points off one another as and Here comes Kimmy. Yeah.
Calmly won three of the last four races in the championship by a point.
Yeah. But yeah man, it's like, so, but here's the thing.
Like I still, I think back to him being 104 points behind after the break, What is he now? 40
40?
He's, he's taken 64 points, sorry not for break after Zandor.
So in four weekends he's taken 64 points.
He's 40 back and there's five weekends left Now.
And he's very good in Mexico, he's very good in Brazil, Very good in Brazil.
The qatar's gonna be the tough one because like on paper, that's the one that should just suit the McLaren.
So, so, so well yes, but in all those races right, you can see things that didn't go particularly perfectly for McLaren.
Like Monza was relatively clean.
The stop thing doesn't really affect the outcome Sure.
With as far as Max, right?
So that one, he just beat them Baku, they were quick in Baku, they just hosed it in Q3.
And then obviously Oscar had his issue in the race.
Landau couldn't really make up a lot of stuff.
They didn't have great race pace.
Singapore, you know, Landau was way faster than Max at the end of that race, but you just can't pass at Singapore.
Right? So they just didn't get their qualifying right in
Singapore here, you know, they were, they were quick in practice qualified second and third for the sprint by not doing a single lap in the sprint.
They have no data for the race pace and because it's parked for me, you gotta sell your cart for qualifying and leave it for the race.
So they probably had to be conservative for Grand Prix qualifying, which might explain why they were second and sixth.
Right? Maybe that's part of that.
So the, every weekend there's been something you can kind of point to that's put them on the back foot. Okay. Even just a little bit.
But you can't, you who you have no idea what's gone on at Red Bull that's put them on the back foot.
You can't say it's just been six perfect weekends in and out.
No. Fine. They've, they've,
if there's been issues they have executed and got around it, what I'm saying is in the next five races right, for a team that has been operating at the level, McLaren has the, the thought of them not having at least one just trouble free weekend from here on out where they could just beat Max and if they beat 'em once, it's kind of over short of some weird bad luck thing where they get taken out in the rain in Brazil or uh, you know, some weird thing.
So they just have one more solid weekend as a team.
It, I think it kinda removes Max. I think,
So here's, here's the interesting question that, that every sports person, I, I'm thinking a lot to golf, right?
Where, you know, you golf is a three day event and you know, you've got guys that that shoot lights out on day one and then day two, you know, they're, they're still good, but like they gave up four or five strokes and then day three, like the guy that's coming, he's playing with like reckless abandon, right?
He's taking big risks, he's taking the chances 'cause like was he had to lose nothing.
Right? Whereas the guy is leading, he can't bone it up.
Like he can't make a mistake, he can't, you know, double bogey a hole, that sort of thing.
Yeah. Like McLaren is in this position
where it's like they know they, they, they still probably have the better equipment, right?
They've got two cars against one.
They've got more than competent and capable drivers of winning a world driver's championship.
Two of them. But they know they can't screw up.
Whereas if Max off in Red Bull screws up like, oh, I mean whatever they gave it a good shot. They were
Never supposed to win it. Right?
It wasn't, it wasn't their year.
They've won four outta the last five, you know, we'll try again next year sort of thing.
That's a very difficult position to be in.
You'd almost rather be just five points behind or ahead and just going at each other every single weekend.
Like having this lead is, is a blessing, but it's also like, it could be their, it could be a downfall.
It it, it'll be very interesting to see how it goes.
It cranks the pressure on in a big way. Right?
And I was having this conversation with someone, max is driving completely free 'cause there's no pressure on him, right?
He just has to drive and win and like if he wins, he's in it.
But if we get to Abu Dhabi and maybe there's some pressure, but he's also max for staff and he's been here before.
He is been through that pressure and he eats it up, he's fine.
The other two, it's their first time doing it and now they've got this guy breathing down their neck that they had enough internal bull to worry about.
Mm-hmm . Now they've also got this external pressure in,
in the form of like the best driver of whoever maybe of all time, right?
Mm-hmm . So it is super fascinating from a sporting
standpoint to like watch the psychology of it all.
And like you can see like Zach Brown and Andrea Stella, they looked tense this weekend compared to what you've seen them.
Um, and it's, it's, man is it interesting to watch And I, here's the thing for me, there's no bad outcome No.
As a fan of this sport and I, and, and on someone who works in it, uh, like I'll put that aside.
This is a fan of the sport. Yeah. There's no bad outcome.
'cause either you have a first time champion and that's just awesome to see. And you love to see guys
With two likable guys, right? Like
Two guys that you can cheer for.
Yeah. I I respect them both to an incredibly high level.
And on the other hand, you've got history being made.
You've got the biggest comeback in F1 history.
The first guy since Schumacher to win five titles in a row.
Maybe the only guy other than Schumacher to win five titles in a row on a, on a year where he should not have done it.
Right. Like it's, if it happens, it will be one
of the co You can say I was there when, you know mm-hmm .
And I love those moments in sports history, but at the same time, if that one happens, dude I will probably shed a tear, I'll shed one tear out of each eye for Orlando and Oscar respectively because that would, it would just hurt.
So I cannot even comprehend the pain that those two would be in if Matt pulls up.
'cause because you would ha you would have to be like, that's on me, wouldn't you?
I'm, I'm sure you'd go through all the emotions I'm sure you'd go through like, but do, do you, what could the team done better? What could I have
Done better?
Wouldn't not, do you not think that the McLaren is still a, has a leg up?
I do think it is slightly better. Okay.
But I do think the Red Bull is closed that gap tremendously.
Right. But, but I do think there's a slight
Performance but Max put, max just put two and a half tenths to Lando.
Yeah. Yeah. So let's, let's let's get to that. Right?
Let's get to the sprint race happens.
Bad luck from McLaren, no fault of their own sucks.
Max runs away with it no problem.
Um, we get to real qualifying, right?
And Max is obviously, and Red Bull have had a lot of data from the sprint.
They know exactly what they can get away with all this sort of thing.
So he leads round one, round two and we get into round three and he puts up a lap that's like half a second clear of everyone else, right.
On his first set of tires and either Red Bull or him or a combination kind of mistimed when they went out for their final set.
Like everyone tries to leave it till the last second.
So you get the most track evolution and all this sort of thing, right?
But you're kind of dictated obviously by the cars in front and what they're doing with prep laps and, and this sort of thing.
So the way it worked out is Max was like four seconds short of coming to the line to start his second lap or his second, um, attempt on a second set of tires, right?
His first attempt on a second set of tires.
And most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time there's a little bit more time to come in that final attempt. Yeah. With
Track evolution and Right.
You just, you're you're you've, you've cleaned up a few more things and sure enough, Lando, Charles, whoever else they found a chunk of time, max never got that opportunity yet.
He still had two and a half tens in hand over Orlando.
So you're saying and agreeing, and I agree with you that the McLaren's probably slightly better yet Max is somehow still finding, call it two and a half to three and a half tenths just in him.
The, the only thing I can think of that contributes to the size of that gap is what I was saying before that I think that McLaren maybe had to compromise on set up a little bit. That's
Fair. That's a good point. Yeah.
But that, but the thing is he's still just Mac, this is what his superpower is, is it's getting 100% out of whatever he's driving at all times.
And if they lose this championship, if either McLaren driver does not win, I almost feel like you have to just accept the fact that, That he's unbeatable.
You're sitting, you, you need an unfair car advantage to beat Max for stepin over 24 races.
I I think you just might have to accept that like, yeah, I was the wrong year to have a good car because his car was just good enough and he's that much better.
And I say that much better.
That much better is a, is a, is a infinitesimally small percentage amount.
But in the scheme of what you're doing, yes, it translates to unbeatable pace and it's, it's wild man.
It's wild to watch. Even Max is like, you'd be an idiot.
I thought I would never see anything like it.
After watching what Lewis did for the better part of a decade, I never thought I'd see it again.
And we, I remember talking about it and leading up to Abu Dhabi in 20, what was it?
20 20, 21, 21.
And we were like, 'cause people were getting tired of the Mercedes and Lewis show and it was like guys just like Tom Brady, like accept the fact that you're witnessing something you're never gonna see again.
Little did we know that we were gonna see the exact same thing if not more.
He just literally passed the baton to the next guy. . Yeah,
Yeah.
No dude. It's, it's, um, it's awesome.
So I have no idea what the next five races hold.
Uh, Lando, Elise got around Charles, so he finished second Oscar moved up from sixth to fifth.
So he, I mean I won't say damage limitation 'cause that's not as big of a jump as I'm sure he was hoping.
Um, but the other thing that's, that's interesting and kind of came outta this was the race was dull, Super boring.
Like, I'll be honest, I watched 10 laps and then I watched the last five laps to make sure I didn't miss anything that I would need to talk about on this show. And I didn't.
All you, all you missed was Lando getting back around.
Charles was basically getting that done.
But here's so, so like these cars have gotten so hard to follow it now it's, I think this was five or six pole sitters in a row that have won, which that's not what it's been like since this ground effects car came out in 22.
Like it's, the racing's been good, but they're just so developed now.
Everybody's so close now, you know, they literally add bits to the car to make the air behind them worse.
It's not even to make the air car better, it's to make the cars following Worse.
I didn't know that. I knew that.
That's, I mean that makes a lot of sense.
It's kind of awesome. Yeah,
It's crazy.
And so, um, I was lamenting this rules change 'cause I'm like, we've got such good racing, we've got a lot of cars that are up there.
It's all super close, but it's like the racing's, it's super close, but the racing's kind of taken a taken a big step back.
So maybe a big shake up is what we need.
I just hope that one person's not dominating everything because of it. But
So, so question when you say like, things have gotten so developed, right?
And things are the margins now of difference that a team can make or are so small 'cause there's only so much you can do with a rules package, Right?
Would you, would you say it's kind of the same thing if if you go spec racing, right?
Like there's only, there's only so much difference that can be made.
So even though in theory, right, you would think the competition is better because everyone has the same <inaudible> and it's the driver that's gonna make a difference.
But also at this level, all the drivers are pretty good, right?
Yes, there's a plus A B and B minus drivers, but everyone's pretty above average, right?
So there's not gonna be a driver that goes out there and makes a a four 10th to half a second difference.
So in a way is a car that's been completely developed or a car that is completely speck actually not the solution for competitive racing?
That's a great question, Alex. That's a great point.
And yeah 'cause like, you know, we talk on the Indy car side about how one of the big differences between Honda and Chevy is drivability, right?
Like that's not a, that's not a secret.
We've talked about it on here, it's talked about on broadcast drivers talk about it all the time.
And so you know that at certain tracks there's gonna be an advantage to one versus the other and that helps mix up results or Yeah, it it does, it adds that little bit of a differentiator in it Or, or a team or a team like goes down a development path that's wrong but then they right the ship.
So for two or three weekends they struggle but then they unlock something and then they're back and maybe not go one or two spots higher and knock a team down, right?
Because there's always this this chase of like, oh, we can find a way to solve the puzzle and make it better.
Mm-hmm . But if the puzzle's solved for you Yeah,
it's gonna be, it's gonna, you would argue that it's gonna be even more follow the leader based on qualifying because if everyone has the exact same <inaudible> and all the drivers can get 99.3
to a hundred percent out of the car, the guy that starts on pole odds are, unless something tragic happens, he's just gonna manage the gap and win the race.
Yeah. Because he's not gonna have a deficit in a certain
corner or over tire life.
'cause his engine is harder on tires but he is got more power and, and that sort of thing.
Yeah. Like it won't exist, I
dunno. Yeah. Something to think about
It is something to think about.
It really is. And the other thing I wonder if, part
of the reason the racing's suffering more now is all the cars are pretty static in the sense of development for that kind of, to your point because everyone's put all their attention towards 26.
Nobody's bringing any upgrades.
So everyone's just staying where they are.
And so there's, you're not getting a guy that's got a new front wing this week, so he's now up here and it's bouncing around and now this guy's gotta make a new wing to catch up and it goes badly.
He actually falls down 'cause the sim didn't correlate, didn't, you know, all that stuff is sort of gone now.
Development. It's good for racing.
Yeah, it's good for the show. I agree.
I think you're, I think you're onto something there, pal. I think you're
On anyways.
Enough. F1, we are IndyCar predominantly podcasting guys.
Uh, so I got to drive an IndyCar around IMS today, which Hercules, Hercules, Hercules.
I mean it is, it's the best place to drive an IndyCar.
It's just cool man, despite all of our complaints about IndyCar and Locky Hughes and being like, oh, you know, it wasn't as much of a wow factor compared to an indie lights cars.
I thought when you get into an IndyCar at IMS, it's a, it's, there's a wow factor.
Yeah. It doesn't really matter Upper
Factor 10, Um, it's always, it's always wild to like do your first three laps, right?
Because your mind and eyes and everything aren't used to it and like, you know, you need to be flat and you are flat but it, like, it's hard work even though you're doing like two seventeens whereas, you know, you're obviously qualifying above two 30.
Like it feels, it feels fricking fast and it's rare these days after driving race cars for so long that race cars feel fast and it's always cool to go to IMS and it's like ba these things haul ass.
Um, so anyways, uh, we are doing, we uh, we being myself and Kuma Sato for RLL are doing some, uh, parts evaluations for 2028.
Okay. Um, so it's not really a test for us.
Like we kind of got the one run to make adjustments, you know, front wing angle, right.
Height, whatever. Um, but then it's kind of keep it as it is
and kind of follow this run plan given to you by IndyCar.
So it's not a lot of learning for us.
Um, but still nice to, to get the opportunity to be on track.
Um, the other two cars were, uh, the 10 car and Patto, um, who are doing some tire testing for Firestone.
Okay. Which seemed to be very positive.
Um, good and so positive that I will get a chance to try them.
Me and Tem will get a chance to try them tomorrow.
Um, amazing. Well let's talk about what,
What are they, what are they trying to solve with the tire Exactly?
Well, I'm not, I was not involved in the tire test so I don't know, but what I can tell you the results of the, the development tire, let's call it, um, was no vibrations and negative dag.
So I actually think that's quite interesting because on a lot of tracks, oval specifically, you would argue that DAG is good, like dag makes the racing better.
Um, which is the case at your Milwaukees, at your old Iowas, that sort of thing.
Uh, when there's two lanes, Nashville, Right?
D uh, IMS, which is super single lane is not a good thing because all that means is everyone starts lifting and following in line.
You can't get close to the car in front of you.
So negative day at IMS is actually incredible for the potential show. Um, because
It, when you think about after a restart, when there's been pit stops, everyone's on new tires, you've got a lot of grip and so everyone's right mixing it up and, and going for it, 10, 12 laps in you tires start to wear, everybody kind of spreads out and Passing stops, two stops, 15 plus you're not taking huge gambles that snaps with tire dig and that sort of thing.
So, um, obviously it was not, obviously it was a 55 degree day.
So a lot of caveats still, um, that I'm sure Firestone's gonna look at.
So if that tire doesn't show up in May, uh, I'm sure they have their reasons, but regardless, they're looking at ways to continue to improve the show, which is awesome.
Um, and then on our side, uh, we are testing two components.
Um, one is new break calibers.
Um, and I'm not gonna get into the details of what those are 'cause I don't know if that's public yet, but essentially the, there's been a problem.
Um, not a problem.
There's been a situation at Indy for the past, well, ever since I've been there.
So I would imagine forever, yeah, really where break drag is a bad thing because break drag is what it sounds like.
The pads are rubbing on the rotors and that slows you down.
And when you're dealing with thousands of a second, um, you need to find everything that you can to try and make the cars go quicker.
So teams were getting very creative, um, with ways to, to make the pads pull back from the rotors so you don't have any drag as you're rolling around the track, which is all fine and well, um, but it starts to cause some issues, um, as early as qualifying because there are rules about what you can and cannot do.
Um, teams obviously try and, and take those rules to the limit.
But where you started to see a, a big issue was if the car was coming from the garage, let's say there was ways to, to make the pads be pretty far back from the rotors, but if you had to go do another run on pit lane, right, like you're trying to bump your way into the fast nine, fast 12, sorry.
Um, or you were trying to bump your way into the race, you were never gonna quite go as quick as you did coming outta the garage for a number of reasons.
Some was would be engine heat, um, gearbox, temps, that sort of thing.
But the other thing was brake drag, right?
Because you obviously have to hit the brake pedal when you come into pit lane.
And so that's pushing the pads against the rotor.
So when you leave pit lane, again without the whole system being reset, it was very hard to go out and duplicate a run.
Um, but then the other bigger problem was that yes, while this is very much a qualifying thing, teams would try and find a way to kind of not have it be that extreme as they do in qualifying, but still be pretty aggressive in pulling the pads back from the rotors, which is an issue.
And you have to pit, you're pitting off a four at 210 miles an hour.
You're trying to get the thing slowed down, you haven't touched the brake pedal all stint, the pedal's long, you're trying to pump the pads up to the rotors, you're trying to get temp in all this sort of thing.
And we were starting to see some issues.
So what IndyCar has looked at and, and kind of correctly in my opinion, deduced, is if we come up with a brake system that doesn't have any brake drag, then people won't need to mess with the brake system and the brake pedal will be consistent throughout an entire 500 mile race and through all your qualifying runs and that sort of thing will be easy to police and it'll just take that variable off the table.
So that was a huge success because all three of the new products didn't have any break drag and the pedal was consistent.
So a plus, um, that's the dream.
The the other thing that we are testing, uh, that it got rained out today is a spec damper.
Um, and the spec damper, we don't have a lot of information on it.
It, it is something that if it were to come, it would come in 2028, um, with the new car.
But obviously one of the huge things about IndyCar is it's like there's, the dampers are open.
Like there's, there's, there's a lot of ingenuity and there's a lot of, um, it's kind of the one thing that is open for the teams right to develop, right?
There's a lot of brain trust, there's a lot of ip, there's a lot of money spent, um, on teams damper programs.
Um, you see that in full effect on street courses with what Andretti does.
You see that, um, on full effect kind of everywhere with cani, um, .
And so it is something that, I don't know, it's it, it, it brings up an interesting situation because on one hand it would save teams a substantial amount of money from a DR and D side of things, but on the other hand, it takes away one of the major levers, if not the only lever that teams have to differentiate themselves.
Um, yeah. And ironically we were talking about
that at in this past conversation at Austin in terms of like when cars reach a static development right place, maybe it doesn't actually make the racing better.
So anyways, right. Um, who knows
what these dampers are gonna be like because we didn't get to run 'em today.
They might be great. They might be terrible.
That'll be for next week.
Interesting. Yeah, that's, uh, it's a,
it's a tough one, right?
Because obviously saving money is a good thing, but, you know, racing is about development and, and ingenuity and the teams are already a little bit hampered, a little bit, uh, you know, constricted on or restricted I should say on what, what they can do.
Um, yeah, I, I, when you talk to engineers, one of the things they love about going racing is being able to create something, right?
Being able to think outside the box and develop something new.
And, you know, as, as the years have gone on and, and the, the formula for IndyCar has changed and kind of gone more towards more spec parts, there's less of that happening.
Dampers is kind of the one area that engineers can still get really excited about, you know, and they can still be creative and they can still kind of flex that muscle, which most race engineers want to do.
So it'd be a shame to lose that. Um,
And like you would also lose the storyline of the FBI getting involved in IndyCar racing , I dunno if we ever even covered that whole thing, but just Google it.
Just, you could Google that if you really feel like, yeah.
Uh, but yes. Yeah, that takes away some
of the off track drama as Well.
Sure. Uh, yeah. Okay.
Well, so you're back in the car tomorrow. Yes.
Um, what are your, what are your weekend plans?
Oh, wait, no, sorry, sorry.
'cause we only have a few minutes left.
Um, officially announced Colton's team in F two.
So that's, we Did they, did um, be part of the management program or Dunno?
No, it's, it's funny, it's so funny, right?
Because like , I look back to that incredible day of interviews that we had with Colton, with Dan, with Will, that they all so graciously came on our show to talk about this big news.
And like there was like, no one was saying that Colton was going F two racing, but everyone was saying that Colton was gonna go F two racing.
And it's like, so are we, can we talk about Colton going F two racing or not?
And he was like, no, but he is.
Yeah, okay. I think
He even said it too, right?
So like, I think Dan even said it, I think everybody sort of said it.
Um, but, uh, so not a surprise that that happened.
Um, I, yeah, We didn't know the team until Today, right?
I have not followed F two enough to know anything about high tech.
I know High Tech has been around for forever.
Um, I drove for high tech in, uh, formula Master, which is the championship that GP three ended up becoming.
Oh yeah, right. Um, and some awesome people there.
I drove for them. No, that was for tech.
So anyways, great, great group of guys.
Um, one of the, the legacy Landmark European Junior Formula teams.
Um, so yeah, I think I, I'm just so, I'm so excited to pay attention to F two now 'cause Colton's in it.
Dude, I was joking with some of the guys we were flying here today.
I was like the first race, the first F two race of the season next year be, its gonna be your Highest TV ever be most watch, most watch F two race in history by a landslide.
Mm. Could have an entire continent paying attention. Yes.
That traditionally doesn't really care. We're gonna
Watch every session.
Um, and I was talking to, I was talking to these guys about how we like told Colton like, look man, we know, and we've discussed this, you know, his results in F two are not necessarily what he's being judged on for a potential Formula one C.
Right. He's there to learn tracks, learn tires,
learn cadence of a weekend, all these things.
But he's gonna be judged on his performance in the F1 car and TPC testing and fp ones and simulator work and whatever.
I was like, what?
Your own program aside bro, the weight of an entire Motorsport series, an industry that surrounds it is on your shoulder.
I don't care about your personal goals at this point.
You have to do well for us, man.
We are all gonna be watching, we are all gonna be cheering and all of our collective self-worth is now attached to how you perform Well and all of our collective um, internet self-worth given to us by the old Faithful on Twitter is dependent on Colton's success.
Because I tell you what, every single IndyCar driver's gonna get lit up the first bad weekend Colton has, which is bound to happen.
Yeah, well of course. Yeah.
Look, I expect the first one to not go super well.
The way that he's gonna have to learn is so he'll get five hot laps, he'll get five hot laps around Albert Park.
Do they, 'cause they run, do they run Australia?
I don't know anymore, dude. I never did,
but I think it's barre there first.
Okay, alright. Which is
Where the winter testing will be.
So he'll be all right there.
Okay. That makes you feel better
When he goes to Singapore or Baku.
He's hosed So hard.
Or like we Got laps in practice before qualifying With all those blind like hosted Hosted.
Yeah. No chance. I don't think I could do that
after four days of testing.
We'll see, we'll see what he's got again.
We're gonna, we love him and we're gonna cheer for him meter away.
Um, just kidding, pal. There's no pressure.
Just do what you gotta do If you suck. Lose my info.
I swear to God I will.
I'll come to Vegas and beat your scrawny ass.
I will golf. I'll piss in your pool. .
It's aggressive. I like it. Oh God. All right.
Well, uh, what are you up to this weekend after your days in the Indy car?
Um, I, I've got another weekend at home, man.
I'm gonna enjoy it. I'm gonna continue learning how
to be a dad and I'm going to watch, hopefully Max just take it to the max. Just sweep him.
Just sweep And very uh, big FP one coming up for our boy.
For our boy Patto, our Kick Kat. Oh, that's right.
Beloved superhero.
Um, so he's, he's in the car from McLaren, uh, FP one Mexico City.
So everyone who wouldn't usually watch FP one go watch that because it'll be cool to watch him drive around there. His home race.
You should watch it on F1 tv.
That'd be a good thing to do.
Oh, watch It on, talk about the, The OCHO On the ocho.
Oh, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot pal.
Why would I watch, did you have one tv?
Why would I watch F1 TV when I pay for it? ?
Yeah. I mean, well Tim will watch it
because he paid for it at least.
That's good. . Alright, well, we'll, uh, we'll recap, uh,
day two of IndyCar testing at the Speedway in Mexico.
And we should probably check in on NASCAR 'cause I think they're getting pretty close to the end of that.
Oh, I know Chase Briscoe locked himself into the four in Talladega.
I didn't get to see much else of that race. Kind of busy.
Um, but yeah, we'll check in on that and then next week we'll definitely try to cover Nashville.
Can't wait. Thanks for listening.
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