5 thoughts on IndyCar's new car, what it could mean for the sport's future, paddock insight

Indianapolis Star

11 hours ago

The new specifics are few, but the news was no less exciting as it rang across the IndyCar paddock: After 16 years of use, IndyCar's combination of its DW12 chassis and 2.2-liter twin-turbo engine will be retired after nearly 270 races of use come the 2027 season finale.
For reference, the careers of Bobby Rahal (264 starts) and Dario Franchitti (265) rank within the top-15 lengthiest in American open-wheel racing history dating back to 1946.
The car was born out of the testing acumen of the late Dan Wheldon, saw the entry (and soon to follow exit) of a third engine manufacturer in Lotus, welcomed first a manufacturer aero-kit and then a universal one and was the proving ground for IndyCar's aeroscreen and bespoke hybrid system. Among its full-time driver contingent, only Scott Dixon, Will Power and Graham Rahal have raced anything else in their top-level American open-wheel racing careers.
'The DW12 served the series so well, as it provided a combination of phenomenal, wheel-to-wheel racing and critical enhancements to safety,' IndyCar president Doug Boles said. 'But recent significant updates to the car … have helped advance the need for a completely new car.
'We are pleased by what our engineers and Dallara have collaboratively designed and believe it will appear to the fans and paddock, while also upholding our standards of safety and enhancing IndyCar's on-track competition well into the future.'
Penske Entertainment's rollout plan announced June 22 included a private audience of owners or executives from all its full-time teams minutes after the end of Practice No. 2 on Saturday, during which sources with direct knowledge of aspects of the meeting said meeting attendees were not shown a mock-up of the new car design, which is said to have undergone a notable redesign since owners were gathered for an offseason meeting in October when talk around the new car around the paddock picked up significantly.
Multiple sources with knowledge of meeting said Penske Entertainment leaders didn't dive too deep into the cars' specifics beyond what was laid out in the Saturday afternoon release shortly after their meeting together completed.
Here are five thoughts I have in the wake of IndyCar's most substantive statement around its future technical regulations since Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles sat down with IndyStar at St. Pete in March and elaborated on the process and did his best to dispel rumors and clarify the work that had taken place in the offseason.
Miles said one could come 'as early as 2027,' but after a year, though an initial prototype had been developed and seen wind tunnel time, Miles was still not able to offer a hard-and-fast timeline. In fact, he promised that the series would see some level of change to the cars being raced in 2027, planting the idea that some updates could rollout that year with the rest coming by 2028. IndyCar and Penske Entertainment have given no indication why that phased rollout with new technology on track more quickly has been scrapped, but there was no mention of 2027 in Saturday's release.
Another delay as it may, the firm road map — as long as it doesn't see delays the likes of the elongated hybrid system rollout — now begins to give teams the makings of a runway on which they can prepare not only for the cost impacts of a new car but the way in which they wind down use of their parts related to the DW12.
'I'm pretty happy with where the whole thing is right now,' Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Mike Shank told IndyStar. 'I think the move to 2028 was really crucial for all of our sakes, and now we can plan around it the best we can.
'And because they moved to 2028, we have a proper, doable plan that allows us to fully depreciated (our DW12s) and run all the parts out as much as we can and end up with worn-out racecars by the end of 2027.'
It was already well-understood across the paddock that the car would be made by Dallara and would include low-voltage hybrid technology and a 2.4-liter twin-turbo V6 engine. Maybe the most impactful piece of information IndyCar unveiled was the early makings of a timeline for which the new car would begin on-track testing.
That process, according to IndyCar's release, will begin in 'early 2026.'
It will allow for a nearly two-year runway of testing and production ahead of the car's on-track debut. By comparison, the DW12 began on-track testing in August 2011, just seven months before it was first used in a race. A test and production window nearly three times the length of that of IndyCar's most recent new chassis should assuage any concerns that Penske Entertainment will be unable to meet its benchmarks along the way, despite the festering wounds of how the hybrid testing and development process went from 2022-24.
'This gives us a lot of time to really develop this, so it's not a cluster-you-know-what, and we'll actually be able to run the car,' Shank said.
'I think Doug Boles has done an awesome job. I was impressed with how he led (the team owners' meeting),' added Prema Racing IndyCar CEO Piers Phillips. 'This is a team sport, and once you get over the pit wall, you want to beat everybody, but I always say, you've got to get to the pit wall together as an organization, and I think the group discussion has been very productive.'
It remains a paddock mystery as to who and how many engine manufacturers the sport will have once Honda and Chevy's deal with the sport that runs through 2026 expires. Of the two, Honda Racing Corp. USA is the party those around the paddock are uncertain whether it will re-sign or not in the wake of the company airing its concerns in late 2023 with the state of the sport and the return on investment it offers.
'It's great to see IndyCar moving forward and announcing plans around the new car. That's something fans have been waiting for and teams, drivers and OEMs have been waiting for, so I think that's a really good step forward,' Chuck Schifsky, the national manager of HRC USA's racing endeavors, told IndyStar at Road America, who noted that HRC USA continues to meet 'regularly' with Penske Entertainment executives regarding the future of the sport and the prospect of their involvement in it past 2026 and that those meetings 'have been doing well.'
Schifsky offered no specifics as to HRC USA's decision-making timeline, though one has been given to Penske Entertainment.
Though it wasn't explicitly stated in the release, one would imagine that new car testing in early 2026 for IndyCar's next technical regulations would involve manufacturer-specific testing — i.e. a 2028 safety cell with updated parts and body kit and manufacturer-specific engines inside. Such a theory would require HRC USA to decide whether or not they plan to stick around long enough ahead to have a 2.4-liter test engine and testing plan prepared, making it reasonable to expect the longtime IndyCar manufacturer's future in the sport (or lack of it) to be solidified in the coming months.
Changes coming in IndyCar's new car: Weight reduction, engine formula, more
Though specifications around the engine formula are minimal, beyond it being a 2.4-liter twin-turbo V6 internal combustion engine with a low-voltage hybrid component, if that sounds familiar, you're not going crazy. It's the bones of what the series announced in 2019 would be coming in 2022 — after the internal combustion engine side was announced in 2018 for 2021.
To me, that signals two things:
One, for Chevy and (potentially) Honda, it's like slipping on an old forgotten pair of pants in the back of your closet. For both of them, the 2.4-liter engine formula is a piece of technology both were a good ways down the road with three years ago. In March 2022, just weeks after the 2.4-liter engine and hybrid combo were punted to 2024, the IMS road course hosted both Honda and Chevy for a multi-day test of both camps' 2.4-liter engine.
Results of both sides' testing was kept largely private, but we know that Chevy turned 600 miles, and Honda went so far as to embark on an additional test day a couple months later with both the 2.4-liter and a version of the hybrid system. Though both sides ultimately decided to scrap continued development of their respective 2.4-liter engines to pour time, money and energy into helping IndyCar get the hybrid to the finish line, it's not as if those development plans just disappeared into thin air.
There's reason to think both could get those engines back up and running with relative ease and that producing a dependable, competitive, track-tested engine with which to compete in IndyCar a couple years down the road isn't a project that requires starting from scratch. In fact, though it's slightly different, the bones of Honda's 2.4-liter engine is currently racing in its Acura GTP cars in IMSA, giving the manufacturer most known to be on the fence something concrete to work off of.
The downside to this: Rebooting an engine formula that was in the works for four years previously and one that isn't all too different than what IndyCar is running now doesn't give me great hope that a new manufacturer outside the two competing is coming into the fold any time soon. Though the sport has made some notable gains in its popularity and what it can offer for those who play a major role in the sport, but there's neither been enough of a technological leap nor has the sport gained enough traction for me to think a major racing manufacturer that once turned the sport down is going to circle back around and have a change of heart.
The manufacturer arms race in the major racing series around the world is becoming an increasingly crowded and competitive space, with sports like NASCAR offering a massive platform, ones like IMSA and WEC offering a lot of technological freedom and the ability to compete against a bunch of other high-level manufacturers from around the world and ones like Formula 1 that offer maybe the best of both worlds. It's a tough landscape for IndyCar to compete in at the moment, and racing an engine package that has been on the table for years in some form with no new takers doesn't have me thinking one is going to magically pop up any time soon.
Setting the record straight: IndyCar CEO Mark Miles details new car development process
The word 'horsepower' appeared just once in IndyCar's release about its new car, in noting that the hybrid would offer a gain in that department. In short, the amount of power Indy cars could sport come 2028 is yet to be confirmed, though it's notable that all the descriptions of the 2.4-liter engine and hybrid package that was pursued years ago was said to allow for as much as 900 horsepower when including the internal combustion engine, the hybrid and the push-to-pass boost system.
Presently, the cars run around 800 hp at their maximum capacity, according to numbers provided around the time of the hybrid's debut a year ago, meaning a 100 hp gain from various components of the new engine package would mark a notable boost to the power drivers currently have at their fingertips. The downside of that additional power at the time of the addition of the hybrid last summer was that it took the addition of just over 100 pounds of new technology added to the back of the car to produce it, therefore negating that added horsepower boost.
The next generation car will come with a drop in weight compared to the car in use between 85 and 100 pounds, making said new car's weight right around the pre-hybrid weight, but one that could be equipped with a significant boost in horsepower.
The specifics of all of those will matter a great deal — the weight distribution, after all, matters as much if not more than the car's overall weight — but if a well-balanced car can be had, then a lighter, more powerful one certainly should be something drivers will enjoy competing with far more than the overweight, under-powered one they have now.