Seeing how it is the off-season, and IndyCar is an open wheel series, albeit rarely mentioned here, there are some interesting rumblings about the 2024 season and beyond.
Two articles from
www.racer.com. Both good reads:
The first is a "suggestion" from American Honda Motorsports Manager Chuck Schifsky in which a good way to contain costs is to go to a spec engine that Ilmor Engineering could develop. Note that this would allow Honda to slip away from the series.
An excerpt:
“I think there are several areas where you could save money,” Schifsky told RACER. “The biggest way that you could do that is to take a page out of the development of the hybrid system. So the hybrid system, once it’s up and developed and in the cars, and you’ve worked out all the bugs, and it debuts, the bulk of that development cost is finished. Everybody’s using the same part.
“You can’t mess with it. Teams can’t take it to their super-specialized dynos to trick out their supercapacitor packs or any of that. And so one could look at that and say that we should probably do the same thing with the ICE, where it’s a spec engine; everybody runs the same engine. Ilmor could build it.”
Honda’s suggestion for Ilmor Engineering to become the series’ sole ICE supplier, which is co-owned by IndyCar Series owner Roger Penske, which also builds Chevy’s IndyCar engines, is nothing less than remarkable.
https://racer.com/2023/12/13/hondas-...-supply-costs/
Note that the aforementioned hybrid system mentioned will be spec for both Honda and Chevrolet and at this time will be implemented AFTER the 2024 Indianapolis 500.
The second is a response from General Motors’ VP of Performance and Motorsports Jim Campbell. He essentially skirted the question of whether GM would be willing to be involved in a one make spec engine series and stated that they prefer to compete against another manufacturer.
https://racer.com/2023/12/15/chevy-t...indycar-costs/
Enjoy the articles.