Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
After both the Chevrolet and Honda IndyCar teams conducted a manufacturer test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier in the month, there has been a lot of controversy with some drivers being more outspoken than others.
Graham Rahal is one of those drivers who has been outspoken, stating that the top speed that he is able to pull in his Honda is the average speed that Helio Castroneves can run with his Chevrolet, based on lap times at Phoenix International Raceway earlier this month. While he admits their in a hole, he knows that they’re working hard.
“But honestly I think the Honda guys have worked really hard,” Rahal said. “We continue to develop on the engine front and everything else. And I’m not going to complain. I just keep working hard and putting ourselves in the best place we can to win.
“This is a big weekend for us. Monday we all got to go to Honda, so we got to make sure we got a good one so we don’t get our wrists slapped.”
One of the biggest concerns after the Manufacturer test, where teams collected data on what the new dome skids among other safety components, concerning speeds. Two Honda teams were the fastest times during the test and the Chevrolet’s were slow. After the test there was talk amongst the Honda teams that the Chevy teams were sandbagging. However, Honda drivers were wondering if it was just the aero kit causing it, are they actually lacking horsepower and do they have the data needed to back their claims up.
“No, because we don’t know what they do,” Rahal said. “We don’t have a competitor’s car to go run in the tunnel. As I say to my guys, this is what I said all last year, which was probably our key to success: Who cares. We have what we have. We have to make the most of what we have, do the best job with what we have. If we do that, run our race and everything else to the max of our potential, we’ll be just fine.”
It’s why going into Phoenix with this package, Rahal stayed confident despite knowing that they weren’t going to win without a miracle happening.
“But I told my guys before the race, I’m not a big team meeting sort of guy, everybody knows what they need to do and stuff, I sat them down and said, ‘Guys, you have great pit stops tonight, I’ll drive this thing to the front. I know we can do it’,” he said. “We did. Don’t focus on the stuff that’s out of control, focus on doing our little stuff right and we’ll be fine. Luckily it kind of worked out.”
With the introduction of the new domed skid pads for Indy and after the drivers voiced their opinions on them, there seems to be belief that it could hurt the type of show fans have come to expect for the 500. Fans and drivers feel by them not being able to get up to the speeds they have in the past, it will hurt the show that the drivers put on during the race. With three race weekends in a row to prepare for and with them being both street/road course races, many wonder if teams have enough time to get their oval cars ready with the new improvements by the time they start practice for the Indy 500.
“We’ll see,” Rahal said. “Yeah, I mean, I think we’ll get them closer, yeah. With the sidewalls on, that definitely helps. It puts us in a lot better position. I drove the car at Indy the other day and it was miserable. But there’s 40-mile-an-hour winds. It was a tough day. It was an ugly day. It was cold. You know, it was just not a day you’d really want to be on track at Indy.
“I’m not a fan of the domed skids. I don’t really believe in it. But we have to put our faith in the people at IndyCar and go by the rules. And I told Bill Pappas when he took this job, one thing he needed to do, which I know Bill, and I knew he wasn’t going to have an issue with this, is put his foot down, and when they make a rule, stick by the rule. Don’t be pushed around by Penske or Ganassi or Andretti or anyone else. We’re a one-car team, so we don’t have much of an influence honestly. Don’t get pushed around when you make a rule. Stick with it.
“That’s kind of what they’ve done. They’ve said they’re doing the domed skid; we’re doing the domed skid. Now we’re going to have to go and make it work as best as we can and we’ll do that. Trust me, the Indy 500 is going be to be a hell of a show. It’s going to be. And we will make sure of that.”
The past three races with Long Beach included, the Honda teams have not been fast. Ryan Hunter Reay, took his No. 28 DHL Honda for Andretti Autosport to Victory Lane in 2014. However that was two years ago and a lot has changed since then. The way it is looking Honda will need a miracle to win the 500 this year.
“Ask me in a couple weeks,” Rahal said. “I don’t know. I mean, I do know. We’re running our aero kit from last year in essence, right? Obviously we’ll have the ’16 engine, which will be a horsepower increase. But I do know last year, and I watched the Indy 500, when I work out a lot I watch old tapes to try to learn about old races. I watched the Indy 500 two days ago while I was working out. And I was flat for the last like 20 laps that I raced. They were all lifting like crazy, and still holding even if not pulling away slightly. So that’s not a good sign.
“But then again, you know, we were able to change our rear pods and our front wings, and that’s it. Hopefully magically those two things did the trick, then Honda will give us a hell of an engine and we’ll be looking good. But I don’t know. And as I’ve said all along, this is more than the hundredth anniversary for me or the hundredth running. Its 30 years on for my dad. In my history, I won my Formula Atlantic championship 30 years after dad. I won my Daytona 24 Hours 30 years after dad. I won Mid-Ohio 30 years after dad. For me, it’s a big anniversary, for our family. I just want a fair shot. I just want a fair shot.
“I’m young. I’m 27. Everybody thinks I’m old because I’ve been here forever. But I still think I’ve got many years ahead of me that I can potentially win this thing, but I don’t want to waste years. I want to go there every year with opportunities to win the Indy 500. You know, hopefully we can get it done.”
Last year at the 500, Honda had done their homework and was ready for the 500. Chevrolet wasn’t and kept having issues with their cars gaining lift and flipping upon wreck, so finally IndyCar made Honda change their aero kit and boost systems to make things more even so Chevy could keep within the window of control. Now people wonder how things will transpire this year. Will they have a fair shot come May?
“I can’t answer that really because I don’t know,” Rahal said. “I mean, I know at the test, I know Marco came out and said they were sandbagging. And they were. That’s fine. They did a 216 or something. They did 225 or 226 opening day of last year. They’ve improved their aero. You’re going to tell me you’re 10 miles an hour slower. It’s not possible. That’s just not possible. But, having said that, I’m not going to say we’re at a disadvantage yet because we have not gone out there and run in anger full on yet. So I really just don’t know.
“I mean, hell, we could all be talking about this when we show up in a couple weeks and maybe the Honda is fastest by five miles an hour. It’s very, very hard for me to say. What it always seems, though, is that they always — our competitors have a little left in the bag. If you ever watch qualifying, even oven road or street courses or whatever, they’re always able to dial it up a little. Watch their hands. They’re always able to twist the knobs for like one or two laps. They can run or do something that we haven’t been capable of doing just yet.
“But having said that, I think we’ll be — I hope we’ll be okay. I hope we’ll be okay. I have really a lot of confidence in my team and the way that we build the racecars. The fit and finish of our cars are really, really strong. And so hopefully we can make a little difference there, put ourselves in the best chance possible. I mean, it’s the one we want to win.”
Last year during practice for the 500 there were a few different wrecks where the cars went airborne, notably all Chevy drivers. Therefore, Chevy teams were the ones who wanted the domed skids, because their drivers are saying it’s a safety thing and that they feel it will be a safer. But the Honda drivers feel with the domed skids it makes the car more unstable.
“Yes,” Rahal said. “Because if you actually were me and you talked to a competitor, I know Power told me his car was terrible to drive. Ed Carpenter hates them. So these guys that are saying that it’s fine, like, they’re not telling you the facts. That’s what I believe. But, again, that’s fine. You know, if everybody wants to play games, then we can all play games.
“But as I said to Robin Miller in an interview I did a few weeks back, I mean, I don’t want to get involved in all of that. You know, the way I believe is if one person has an advantage, that’s fine. They earned that. But everybody else should be allowed to continue to develop to get ourselves to an equal position. There’s too much money, there’s too much sponsorship, there’s too much on the line for us to show up and know the best that we’re going to finish at the Indy 500 is 15th. That’s not fair to our sponsors, it’s not fair to us as teams.
“I’m not saying that’s the case. It might be the opposite, as I said. All I think is, I grew up in the day that Christmas for me what when the new Lola, Reynard or Swift or whatever it was came rolling in the shop. Every year it happened. And I love that. I love seeing development. I love seeing the teams have the access to develop to make changes. It’s just like it was a handful of years ago. If a team goes out and they develop and they find an advantage, that’s fine. If they release it on the I.R.I.S. system we have, so every other team can see the drawing, every other team knows what they’re doing. That’s the way it was 10 years ago. No small team was at a massive disadvantage. They could have the parts made, do what they wanted.”
Rahal understands that a system like this has costs involved, but wants to see the development and improvement as he enjoys being apart of it. That’s why he says it should be opened up a bit so that way the manufacture, specifically Honda, can work at closing the gap to each other.
“I think they genuinely worked their you know what’s off in the off-season. But now you’re in a position where we’re still behind and we can’t change anything so what do we do. That’s what’s difficult,” he said. “I prefer to just see it. A, allow development. The domed skids, strakes, let them run whatever they want to run. If those Chevy guys believe, genuinely believe, no sidewalls and no strakes is better, then they don’t need to run them. But if we believe that they are better, then we’re going to run them. And if we put both of them on and we’re too slow because the drag is higher, then we’ll take them off. You don’t need to micromanage that. If those guys really believe what they say they do, then they won’t try it.
“That’s my whole philosophy on all of this stuff. ‘Cause at the end of the day right now we should be talking about Long Beach or the Indy 500 or Barber or Grand Prix or whatever. All we’ve talked about for three weeks is domed skids, which really not a single person sitting in the grandstand is going to have a clue what a domed skid is or notice if they look at it what the difference is. It really doesn’t matter much.”
