[IndyCar] #10 Met maar 32 auto's aan de start van de Indy 500?

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Op woensdag 2 mei 2012 13:02 schreef Bjornos het volgende:
Er komen nog wel wat teams bij, Zo wil newman haas ( al 2 jaar gestopt) een auto inschrijven met ex f1 coureur Jean Alesi. Het probleem momenteel in de indycars is alleen dat een aantal teams gebruikt maakt van lotus motoren, en die motoren zijn dus niet goed. Dus sommige teams missen hierdoor de indy 500 en andere teams moeten snel opzoek naar een andere motor.
Ook heb je best kans dat er nog wel wat privateers een auto inschrijven voor de indy 500.
Stiekem hoop ik dat oude teams als Menards en threadway racing zich ooit weer met deze race gaan bemoeien.

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Op woensdag 2 mei 2012 17:15 schreef Breaker.Faker het volgende:
Ik neem aan dat Lotus motoren van Renault is.

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Op woensdag 2 mei 2012 21:20 schreef Migue het volgende:
33 auto's gaat echt wel goed komen, IndyCar gaat het echt niet laten gebeuren dat er minder dan dat aantal aan de start verschijnen.

Ik ga voor Will Power als winnaar dit jaar, het moet nu toch echt eens op een oval gaan gebeuren en Indy is zo goed als iedere andere oval. Of misschien toch Hélio, een vierde overwinning zou toch wel briljant zijn.

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There will be at least 33 car/driver combinations for this year’s Indianapolis 500 after all when practice begins next weekend. And a last-minute deal to insure the traditional starting lineup features one of the most unique pairings in recent memory.

SPEED has learned that Jean Alesi, who raced in Formula One for the powerful Ferrari team, is now going to be driving an Indy car for a little Firestone Indy Lights team co-owned by former Indy Racing League regular Tyce Carlson.

It’s believed Lotus is funding the deal and a formal announcement is expected Monday.

But it’s been an on-again, off-again proposition for Alesi, who was penciled into an Indy seat when Lotus confirmed it was going Indy-car racing in 2010. When a deal for Newman/Haas Racing to run him this month fell through a couple of weeks ago, it appeared he was done.

Alesi, who has never driven on an oval track, has continued driving the Dallara simulator and Lotus made a run at Keith Wiggins’ HVM team last week.

"It was so late and it didn’t feel comfortable and I didn’t have enough manpower to build up a car in a week,’’ said Wiggins, who campaigns Simona de Silvestro in the works Lotus effort. "And I didn’t want to detract from Simona’s effort.’’

So Lotus struck a deal to run Alesi with Fan Force United, the Lights team currently run out of the garages of Chris Williams and Carlson, who competed at Indianapolis in 1997 and 1999.

Formerly Alliance Racing, Carlson has two cars entered in this month’s Freedom 100 and wants to branch out into full-time INDYCAR ownership. The North Central High School graduate could not be reached for comment on Saturday night.

The best news for this group is that Greg Beck, a veteran mechanic/owner who has experienced success with rookies in the past, is currently working for FFU.

Alesi, a 47-year-old Frenchman of Italian descent whose lone F1 victory in his 13-year career came in 1995 for Ferrari, made his final F1 start in 2001. He hasn’t raced an open wheel car since but competed in DTM from 2002-2006 before moving on to sports cars.

He was named test driver and ambassador for Lotus Renault GP’s F1 effort in January of 2011.

Alesi will take Rookie Orientation at the Speedway on Thursday along with former F1 rival Rubens Barrichello.

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With its plans for an Indy 500 return with Lotus ambassador and former F1 driver Jean Alesi now sidelined, Newman/Haas Racing General Manager Brian Lisles confirmed that a few aspects of the Lotus-financed program just didn’t meet the championship-winning team’s criteria.

“Unfortunately, we had to withdraw our entry for the Indianapolis 500,” he told SPEED.com. “We weren’t able to get everything done in time for a sensible entry. We didn’t want to do some mad rush at the last moment, and didn’t have everything in place to feel we could do a credible effort, so we withdrew our entry.”

The hiccup with the Lotus/Alesi program won’t impede any of the other plans the team has in the works, including its first foray into sports car racing and an ongoing effort to rejoin the IZOD IndyCar Series.

“We’re looking to hopefully be on track later this year, but that’s not finalized,” Lisles explained. “That’s not in IndyCar. As we said, we won’t be doing IndyCar this year. The only opportunity was the Indy 500 and that’s passed us by. We are already starting on work to hopefully return to IndyCar for 2013, however.”

With little chance to secure a Chevrolet or Honda engine this season, Lisles said gearing up for 2013 is the only practical choice for Newman/Haas.

“I think, not wishing to get ahead of myself, obviously, in talking to sponsors, you can imagine any sponsor that’s going to put any sizeable investment into a team wants [an engine] that’s competitive,” he remarked. “So they’re obviously going to be looking at what’s going on, and some hard choices will be made come October, I imagine.”

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Turbocharger talk in the Izod IndyCar Series won't quiet down until at least Wednesday. That's when a hearing on General Motors' protest of a recent hearing will be held in Indianapolis.

GM officials contend that IndyCar shouldn't have approved modifications to the single-unit turbocharger made by BorgWarner. Those compressors are used solely by the Honda engines this season.

IndyCar officials announced April 18 that the modification was agreed to in the early stages of writing equipment rules in 2010. They said the compressor is a standard item provided to the teams by an independent source rather than the engine partner.

A three-person panel supported IndyCar's decision April 28, allowing the device to be used in last weekend's event in Sao Paulo; this is the official protest allowed by the rulebook. Honda officials are invited to attend next week's hearing because their engine is affected by the decision.

Honda is the only engine manufacturer using the single-unit turbos. Chevrolet and Lotus use twin turbos; those compressors are also provided by BorgWarner.

Under IndyCar's new management tree, the initial hearing fell under the jurisdiction of first-year race director Beaux Barfield, IndyCar's president of competition. Ironically, the appeal is controlled by Barfield's predecessor, Brian Barnhart, IndyCar's president of operations and strategy.

Barnhart, however, arranged for an independent entity to hear the case, a person with mediation experience. Theodore R. Boehm is a former Indiana Supreme Court justice who retired in 2010.

Boehm was the first president and chief executive officer of the Indiana Sports Corp. and the chairman and CEO of the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis.

By rule, Boehm's decision will be "final and binding."

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Op donderdag 10 mei 2012 15:56 schreef Funzel het volgende:
Dus toch nog 33 rijders.

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Op vrijdag 11 mei 2012 21:09 schreef Migue het volgende:
Ed Carpenter Racing zet geen tweede wagen in, ik snap niet waarom ze die überhaupt hebben ingeschreven, maar ik vermoed dat ze gewoon op een dikke cheque aan het wachten waren. Daar is het nu te laat voor om nog iets op te zetten.

[..]

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Op zaterdag 12 mei 2012 16:58 schreef Migue het volgende:
Het team zei dat na de bekendmaking van de lijst. Wat nu nog op de website staat is een oude lijst, op de actuele moet die tweede auto verwijderd zijn.

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Op zondag 20 mei 2012 01:11 schreef Lokale_Notabele het volgende:
Tja hebben ze bij Judd ooit weleens een succesvolle motor gebouwd? Lotus badged zoveel verschillende teams/motoren/activiteiten in talloze verschillende klasses het gaat helemaal nergens meer over. Als je geen goede partner kunt vinden als Ilmor of Cosworth moet je er gewoon helemaal niet aan beginnen.

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Op maandag 21 mei 2012 09:13 schreef Bjornos het volgende:
Toch 33 autos hahaha

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Op maandag 21 mei 2012 15:07 schreef Funzel het volgende:
Ganassi valt tegen zeg.

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On paper, the twin-turbo adopted by the Chevy should provide better torque out of the slower turns, but the big, single turbo on the Honda should supply the edge at high-speed circuits. Honda seems to be basing its strategy on success at the 500, where Chevy appear to be looking more toward a season-long campaign, given the preponderance of road and street courses where their engine should excel.

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Dallara will make minor modifications to the DW12 IndyCar chassis before Carb Day practice at Indianapolis to further reduce the chances of cars becoming airborne in accidents.

The Italian company ascertained that the lateral stiffness of the new IndyCar's underwing supports had contributed to cars lifting slightly off the ground in some of the crashes during qualifying weekend. Preventing cars taking to the air in accidents was a key safety goal in the design of the new generation IndyCar chassis.

Dallara is therefore cutting slots into the cars' underwing supports in order to "lessen lateral and maintain vertical stiffness", according to an IndyCar statement, which added that the incidents that had concerned Dallara occurred on three occasions when a car "impacted the SAFER Barrier with the car's centreline parallel to the wall."

IndyCar's vice president of technology Will Phillips praised Dallara's prompt action.

"Dallara's response has been immediate to try and make sure all improvements possible could be implemented in time for the race - all credit to them," said Phillips.

"Feedback from observers, safety officials and drivers enabled Dallara to have the data very quickly, and their solution and response is a great example of how safety comes first."