First-time Indy Car test
Lights racers get experience
ELKHART LAKE – The objectives were fairly straightforward when Indy Lights driver Nico Jamin strapped himself into Marco Andretti’s Indy car for the first time Wednesday.
“Obviously the No. 1 goal was bring it back in one piece,” said the 21year-old Frenchman. “Learn a lot. Get a first feel for it.
“And obviously you always want to be the quickest of the young drivers. Which I was.”
Hence, Jamin’s smile during the midday break at Road America. He’ll be back to race for real during the June 23-25 Kohler Grand Prix weekend, but for this day Jamin had accomplished his mission.
Verizon Indy Car Series teams are permitted an extra day of in-season testing if they have a Lights driver in the car for half of it.
Andretti Autosport and Schmidt Peterson Racing took the opportunity barely a week ahead of the race on the rolling, 4-mile course. Jamin, Canadians Dalton Kellett and Zachary Claman DeMelo and Brazilian Matheus Liest all benefited.
“It’s a great rule because it pushes Indy Car teams to try out what the young guys can do,” Jamin said. “It benefits both ways.
“Us, as a driver, it gives a first taste of what an Indy car is and gives us a chance to show the Indy Car team what we can do. Also it helps the Indy Car teams and drivers because they’re able to have that afternoon to drive those 40 laps.”
DeMelo, 19, and Kellett, 23, had taken part in this type of test last year. For Leist, 19, and Jamin, this was the first opportunity to experience cornering speed and braking power they didn’t have before in a car with triple the down force and an extra 150 horsepower.
“There are corners here that are almost flat (full-throttle) with Indy Lights,” said Leist, who started the day in 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi’s car. “The Indy car has a lot more power and a lot more down force, and it’s easy flat. “That’s crazy.” Rossi watched much of the morning session from the pits before getting in the car in the afternoon.
“Each of the guys who’ve been in the Andretti cars have done a good job,” he said.
“The pace has been all right. They’ve come up to speed quickly and not made any mistakes, and that’s really all we ask them.”
Kellett, who raced at Road America last year in Lights, spent a week driving the track on a simulator in Indianapolis to prepare to do it for real Wednesday before 2012 series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay’s got in.
“You get in the car and it almost takes a lap to get yourself in the mind-set of ‘I can attack this corner so much harder than I’m used to,’ “Kellett said.
“It was just retraining my brain, OK, you can brake a half a marker deeper and get on the power way earlier, and you can roll more speed (through the corners).”
Then in a little more than a week he’ll have to retrain his brain again. The Indy Lights series races both Saturday and Sunday of Indy Car weekend at Road America.
“I hope I don’t brake way later in the corners,” Kellett joked. “I’ll have to make sure I’m back in Lights mode.”