Series hopes issues in rearview mirror
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It has been six months since Alex Palou closed the IndyCar season with his second championship in three years and the time off has not been the smoothest for America’s open-wheel racing series.
Honda publicly aired grievances with IndyCar, team owners have been grumbling, the series was forced to delay its transition to a hybrid engine and the ballyhooed season finale in downtown Nashville has been moved 35 miles away because of construction to the city’s NFL stadium.
The new season opens this weekend on the streets of downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, and IndyCar has 17 races this year to showcase its product. It comes at a time when Formula 1 is engulfed in scandal and has just one dominant driver, giving IndyCar the opportunity to prove its on-track product is superior to the more popular European-based series.
“It’s been probably a tougher offseason for cadence and news, but I really think 2024 can be another great step for us in the IndyCar Series,” said Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden. “We have so many positive things going on... (and) it helps when we get back to the track because we just have a great racing product, too . ... I think that we have the highest level of racing in this series.”
IndyCar had seven different winners last season, and even though Palou clinched the title with a race to spare, it was the first time in nearly 20 years the series did not go to the finale with multiple title contenders.
Max Verstappen won the F1 season opener last week by more than 22 seconds; Newgarden won the Indy 500 by 0.097 seconds. And the winning move Newgarden used to block Marcus Ericsson — a sweep below the yellow line on the track — has since been banned by IndyCar.
Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske wasn’t pleased with the offseason hiccups. He said recent meetings with Honda, the drivers and the team owners went well as IndyCar outlined its vision through 2027.
“We’ve been falling over rocks that have been put in front of us, many of them I would not say we caused it, but it’s within our company,” Penske said. “We’ve got to be in a situation where we deal with them. But if you get into the details on this stuff, we are busting our butts. The things we are trying to do, bring revenue into the company, the investments we are making — we are really working hard.”