Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevensville Mike
Now, this type of analogy really is not that applicable to IndyCars, for there is only so many daring moves one could make vice a sprint car. But, could it possibly change the dynamics of the racing form from what it is today? I do not think it would be as much as, let us say, when wings came about, or rear engine cars, but a change is a change and everything will play out. I think if anything, it might change the aero on the cars, but when all chassis are the same.....?
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That very thing has been discussed quite a bit by Robin Miller, Marshall Pruett, and drivers that as the cars have become safer drivers are more willing to make more aggressive moves, especially on the road courses with more run off....you still don't want to tempt the catch fence in one of these cars. Drivers have much better frontal impact protection, side, and rear impact protection than they ever have.
I think many view the type of aggression seen during the old lower HP higher downforce IRL package as a different animal. Drivers were put in that position on some of the ovals, needlessly I might add. A car would get a run, then stall, creating in some cases a pack type deal where multi car crashes could happen with one mistake. I think the aggressiveness in today's formula comes from some part safety some part getting that edge at the start/restart because of how close competition has become. I think both attributed to the bold turn 2 sector moves we saw at Pocono the past two years. The 2018 accident wasn't the first time I had seen Wickens make a bold move going into a turn. We've all seen Rossi make some daring moves on the outside at Indy that many wouldn't have tried in the past.
From what Power said from his test at Indy, the aeroscreen, in his opinion, helped the balance by shifting some of the weight forward. RHR couldn't get a good feel on the road course test at Barber due to the new pavement and rain. They are testing again at Sebring so there will be place they have testing data for with an unchanged surface. Even though the cars are the same, some teams will be better at adapting depending on how good of a damper, engineering, and driver program they have. As in the past with change, we might even see some mid pack teams cope with it better than some of the bigger teams, if it's even that big of a deal to begin with.
But back to aggressive driving, even with what has been seen as more of it and with a car that has more power and less downforce, thus harder to drive, they've only seen 3.5 cautions per race since the demise of the old IRL formula with the past two years in the new formula well below that at 2.6 per race. Pre 2011 was seeing 5.1 per race. Granted, there are many factors that go into that, but just going off from 2012 onward, with a similar schedule and increasingly harder car to drive, we've seen numbers trend lower.
Cautions per race:
2012: 4.1, 2013: 4.5, 2014: 3.6, 2015: 4.6, 2016: 2.8, 2017: 4, 2018: 2.6, 2019: 2.6.
Due to accident/spin:
2012: 49, 2013: 63, 2014: 55, 2015: 45, 2016: 34, 2017: 35, 2018: 34, 2019: 36
During that time you've seen ovals stay in the 5 to 6 mark, street courses(which can see a lot of carnage) went from 6 in 2012 to 10 in 2013 down to 8 in 2014 to the current 5 the following year. IMO, one of the biggest factors, even with the aggression, has been in that cockpit. People can pout all they want about where these drivers come from, but it's hard to deny that the caliber from top to bottom has increased every year since 2008 reunification.