With the 2016 season drawing closer with each passing day, the announcements continue to come through on a daily basis. INDYCAR Series officials announced on Tuesday, February 2 that Honda has signed a two-year extension to continue to supply engines in the Verizon IndyCar Series.
The extension comes with a three-year option, that Honda can choose to accept should they want. Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Co., the parent of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said that the partnership was kept at the length so that way the manufacture can know what is next in the terms of future developments, before deciding whether to move forward. The previous contact that Honda held was three years in length, lasting from 2012 to 2015.
Art Sr. Cyr, the President of Honda Performance Development, stated that the contractual agreement and what it contains is about creating a good platform for the series moving forward to produce exciting racing, with exciting drivers and make it easier for potentially more drivers and teams to join the series. Notably, that is the goal of both the series and Honda, but yet they have different routes in trying to approach the same goal.
“Now, the path to get there, there’s some resources required to get to where we want to go, so there are always negotiations on how to get to our goal,” Cyr said. “There’s lots of paths to go. That’s stuff we work on all the time, constant communication, to try to make it stronger, make it more appealing to fans, how to get more fans to watch the race, to come to the race, to enjoy the races, to follow the drivers, all those types of things, to develop an overall interest in this series that we are striving for right now.”
Thus far, the changes over recent years have worked to the series’ advantage, as they have achieved more interest from fans and teams.
“They’re moving in the right direction,” Miles commented. “I think everyone who invests in this will make their future decisions about that based on what’s achieved. But we absolutely have the same view about the importance of more eyeballs watching the sport. The question is, not a contractual question, is how can we all work together to get farther faster.”
Last year, the Honda teams struggled against the Chevrolet teams, with Chevrolet scoring the most victories and leading the most laps en route to winning the championship with Scott Dixon at Chip Ganassi Racing.
This was a result of an imbalance between the two manufactures in their aero kits, with Chevrolet able to find an advantage. The advantage was noticed by the series when they took a car from each manufacture to the wind tunnel following the final event of the 2015 season at Sonoma Raceway.
“After the Sonoma race, we took the 9 car and the 15 car and we took it to the wind tunnel in Charlotte to look at the two cars in Superspeedway configuration and street and road course configurations,” Miles explained. “We determined there that we thought there was an issue, competitive issue, with respect to streets and roads, but not the Superspeedway and short ovals.”
Through the series rules, Honda has been able to submit changes for their kits, which they are currently waiting on the approval for. Cyr stated that they sent in a list of requests, in which wasn’t all approved upon.
“We don’t have a final ruling yet on that one,” he added. “I think Marco (Andretti) was here before, saying they were still worried about some of these tracks as well. I think we have a common understanding of where we’re going with this stuff. I think that our expectation is that we can be competitive this year.”
In speaking of the topic, Miles says that he and the officials went over the changes on three different occasions, determined what would be acceptable to achieve the catch-up that they wanted to see in making the pair of manufactures equal against each other.
In speaking of the new aero kit design, Cyr went on to add it would look similar to the old Formula One cars that they had.
“One of the things with this package that we have right now is that we have taken the development, design development of this aero kit, from outside Honda to inside Honda,” he added. “We have utilized our internal Honda resources.”
The manufactures could see a third competitor in the future as there have been discussions flirting around about a third possible manufacture joining the fold. Mark Miles noted, though, that it’s tough than it may seem on paper as its a “long, drawn-out process” for them to be competitive in the series.
“I would say the first thing is that Honda and Chevy completely share with us a view that a third manufacturer would be good. Another competitor, another storyline, another investor to help promote the sport would simply be good,” he added. “It’s very difficult to get done. We have had situations where Honda has said, You may want to talk to these guys. It’s been quite collaborative. I think it’s more likely a question of when than whether. It’s something we are engaged in at some level all the time.
Beyond being one of the two engine suppliers, Honda has shown their commitment over the years, sponsoring three of the race events.
“They support the series in the commercialization of the series in so many ways,” Miles said. “It’s a partnership we value as much as any. We’re delighted that it’s inked.”