‘Ruined a great race’ – why Iowa IndyCar was such a letdown –

Josef Newgarden had won five of the last seven IndyCar races at Iowa before the weekend, so his failure to add to that could be seen as a kind of triumph for an interesting result. (Though I would argue that seeing Newgarden dominate at this level is exactly what people should want to see since you’re watching greatness right in front of you; isn’t that a big part of why we watch the sport?)

However, while a different result might suggest the race was more interesting, the complete lack of a fixed second lane on the track meant that overtaking was extremely difficult.

The high line could be used for several laps after the caution – because the track had been cleared and not everyone was at full speed – but once the drivers at the bottom of the track were at full speed, they would not be overtaken later in a set period of time. The outside line was just slower.

IndyCar has had similar problems at Gateway and Texas in recent years.

“The track is a lot of fun on your own, but the problem is that it’s not fun when you can’t pass anyone. You can’t fight,” O’Ward said.

On the point about the junction when the high line is no longer relevant, the McLaren driver added: “When you finish that first lap after the restart, you can’t [run up high].

“Once you get the momentum, it’s just a matter of acceptance. [you might hit] “Basically the wall, or at least really shitting your pants.”

One of the biggest issues we had with the poor racing was that Iowa has often been one of the better oval races in recent years, so moving from that standard to this standard probably made the racing worse in people’s eyes.

“It was a shame because it was a really great race for the fans with a lot of overtaking, a lot of tyre wear and things to do,” said Palou.

Reason before the race

Prior to NASCAR’s return to Iowa earlier this year, the lower two lanes of the track were resurfaced, only at the corners, at both ends of the circuit.

With the current IndyCar car package, oval racing has become difficult under certain circumstances in terms of avoiding having a single lane around the bottom of the race track which is clearly the most convenient track to use.

Things get even more complicated with IndyCar adding hybrid power, and Iowa being the first oval race to feature the new unit, making the car about 30kg heavier than it was before.

After recent testing in preparation for the event, IndyCar also decided it needed to reduce downforce levels because with the repaving, speeds were too high.

This means that the new tire introduced by Firestone was developed without knowledge of these last-minute changes.

The recent NASCAR race has been a huge success with drivers and fans. However, trying to make a direct comparison between NASCAR and IndyCar would be like “putting MotoGP on dirt,” Palou said.

“It’s a great track, but you can’t put it on the same track and expect a really nice race,” he said.

What We Learned Over the Weekend

Saturday’s race may have been more entertaining, but much of that was down to a series of late cautions, plus championship leader Palou crashing out of the race.

Sunday’s race did not see a series of cautions that generated other cautions, and even extreme heat could not force the firm Firestone rubber to deteriorate.

The problem was so bad that Power had trouble overtaking cars that were circling him in the second race. He said he backed off at the turn to get fresh air and focused on getting out of the corner at a good speed, and everyone behind him did the same, creating a frustrating situation.

Another problem was that the new pavement didn’t extend far enough back along the IndyCar straight. The ideal line in Iowa is a late turn, but doing that on the new pavement would take the car from the old surface to the new surface mid-turn, throwing it off balance in the process.

This means a lot of early delivery, which is not uncommon but would not be the norm if you analyzed every driver.

power theory

In this scenario where you want to unlock the top line, you have two clear and relatively simple options with the car package.

You get rid of as much downforce as possible to make the cars slower and harder to handle, which you hope will encourage overtaking (which is what IndyCar did).

Or you can increase the downforce to give the drivers enough grip to make the high line work and that will likely degrade the tires as well so you have drivers with different amounts of grip as well.

Bauer discussed the latter option and had a theory as to why it was impractical.

“I wonder if the car is too heavy now,” Power said, referring to the reported weight gain due to the hybrid.

“Then when we add downforce, it increases the load on the frame. I feel like we were weighing 200 pounds.” [90kg] Lighter, you can run more downforce, use a softer frame. There are a lot of things that can help achieve this.

“I think it should be and probably will be a big focus of the new car coming in a couple of years, is to reduce a lot of weight. [out]“It’s hard to do, but I think they really need to focus on that.”

IndyCar introduced a host of new lightweight parts this year that limited the impact of the plug-in hybrid engine installed on a 12-year-old car. But ultimately it couldn’t stop the weight gain.

IndyCar’s Preventive Attempts

A practice session was held on the high line and an extra set of tyres were given to the teams with the aim of adding rubber to provide enough grip to make the second track usable.

But this additional practice alone was not enough to make the high line more consistent, and when combined with the detrimental factors mentioned above, these measures ultimately did not work.

The chain tried hard and listened to teams – something it has been accused of not doing in the past – to add that session after testing raised concerns that the high line might be unusable.

There’s no doubt IndyCar has ideas about how to change the package. With so many unknowns, a failed race was always a possibility, and that was proven in Iowa, despite the series’ best efforts.

IndyCar races have been held twice over the years. The Iowa races are hugely popular, largely due to the concerts held before or after each race, and have hosted some of the biggest events in the world since returning to the calendar in 2022.

But on this occasion we had just two doses of the same disappointing race. And the only thing worse than one bad race is two in 24 hours.

Without wanting to go too far off topic, it’s worth noting that some crews had an hour’s sleep between Saturday and Sunday as well, so the format – in this case a ‘night race’ on Saturday – was unsustainable.

Teams often complain about how difficult it is to find and retain high-quality employees, which is mostly due to how much the network has expanded in recent years.

But taking them to Newton, in central Iowa, and working 20 hours a day certainly wouldn’t help either.

There are enough tracks for IndyCar to choose from that it doesn’t need doubleheaders anymore, and perhaps with a new TV broadcast coming next year — meaning the series won’t face a schedule break when the next Olympics come around — there will be more flexible calendar options.

Why did this outcome seem inevitable?

Ultimately, as was the case in Texas, when a track hosts a NASCAR race and is repaved, it does so with NASCAR as its priority. It is the biggest show in town and brings a lot of people into the seats and millions of dollars into their pockets.

Sometimes this isn’t a problem for IndyCar racing, but sometimes it is because they are completely different cars, use very different tires and react differently on the oval track.

Ultimately, any track that IndyCar goes to and that NASCAR also uses could face this problem in the future.

In my sugary world of gumdrops and raindrops, the ideal scenario is that if the track is repaved, IndyCar should remove it from the calendar so it can conduct a full test to assess how the race goes.

But this suggestion is ridiculous, even if it is a way to ensure better racing. Tracks should not be penalized for upgrading their facilities. Testing is expensive, and sometimes they are resurfaced after the following year’s race schedules are announced.

It takes a lot of effort for a driver like Ballou to speak out and complain. This is not a wave of discontent with the series, but rather an acknowledgement that this was an unusual set of circumstances that led to an unexpected outcome.

Iowa has been very good to IndyCar in recent years, and it didn’t deserve it and neither did its fans.

But she can’t afford any more of these weekends either.