IndyCar: Will We See Passing in the Indy 500?

There has been a lot of talk about how the NTT INDYCAR Series drivers are having issues with the heavier car due to the hybrid being onboard, the first time it has been used on the 2 1/2 mile oval for the Indy 500.

Autoracing1 asked several drivers how they felt the race would run with the added 120 pounds the hybrid added to their car for this season.

Kyle Kirkwood, driver of the No 27 Siemens Andretti Global Honda and winner of the 2025 Long Beach race, had an interesting perception of the coming race.  The American does not feel the added weight will make the race any different.

“I’m excited for it. It’s actually pretty cool. You’re going to see some people from the back
charging through. I hope it’s us sitting here. You can expect the Penskes to come through, obviously.”

“I think that back ten is just as strong if not stronger than the front ten of the group. Yeah, it’s going to be an interesting race because of that. There’s going to be a lot of passing going on. It actually shakes it up, right? It’s going to make it exciting for people.”

“The cars are passing just as well as they have in the past years, and I think there was some people that were a little bit worried that potentially the racing is not going to be as
good with the added weight in the rear of the car, but I have not seen it to be that case at all.”

“I’m excited for it. It’s thrilling. It’s nice to know I’m in good company back there. Yeah, it should be an exciting day.”

Scott Dixon

Scott Dixon, driver of the No 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing  Honda, has only won the 2008 race.   The six time NTT INDYCAR Series Champion will start fourth on the grid this Sunday and it will be the Kiwi’s 408th start, surpassing Mario Andretti’s record.

“Yeah, can’t worry about the weather, nothing you can really focus in on too much. We’ll
get a little bit better idea come Friday, conditions should be pretty similar to race day.”

“It just makes kind of tire deg a little easier and things like that when it is cooler. I think for a spectacle maybe with the race being cold, it might be a little more compact so the racing will be a little better, so that will be good.”

Josef Newgarden

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden is trying for his third win in a row, which has never been done before.  “I think you’ll see a very similar show to last year. I really do. I don’t think we’ll deviate much from the amount of passing or the style of passing, which is a good thing.”

“We had a really good show last year, right? Still gets tricky with multiple cars in a pack. If you’re sitting three or four deep, you’re working harder to try and look for a mistake or
an opening. But the ability for the front group to pass, certainly the first two, to get through the field a bit, I think it should be a similar show.”

“It’s a little different way we’re getting there. You have to use the hybrid now within either attack or defense. So that strategy is different than last year because we didn’t have that.”

Marco Andretti

Marco Andretti will be making his 20th Indy 500 start in the No 98 MAPEI/CURB Honda for Andretti Herta with Marco and Curb Agajanian.  When he starts the race, it will be 53 years with an Andretti on the grid for the Indy 500.

“Obviously, you want to use the hybrid to try to pounce on guys that when they make
mistakes.”  the American said.  “I’m worried about guys using it after they make a mistake and to kind of defend, basically, if you slide wide or something, you hit the button, and it bails you out. We’ll see what that does to the racing.”

“I think you can catch guys out if theirs (hybrid capacitor) is empty and yours isn’t.  That’s an unknown I think for I guess a lot of us. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like a huge shot. It’s just something that if somebody does make a mistake and they don’t have their button, it might help you complete a pass for sure.”

Since the drivers have varying options on what they think will happen, Autoracing1 asked the Fox Broadcast team what their thoughts were on how the 109th running of the Indy 500 will look.

Former driver Townsend Bell said “I really think that we’re in for an incredible treat and a bit of an unintended benefit of the hybrid as the car is significantly more difficult to drive.
That’s what you hear from all the drivers.”

“If you look at the crashes that we’ve had this year, if you go back to the open test, Takuma Sato’s crash there, all the way through to Kyffin Simpson, Marcus Armstrong, Colton Herta, Scott McLaughlin. These are the result of a car that is a little bit more of a handful.”

“It’s been difficult for drivers to adjust around the balance of the car. Everybody seems to be reading from the same sheet of music, which is it’s more difficult to drive. Anything that puts a premium on driver talent determining the winner of the Indy 500 is a good thing in my book.”

Newcomer Will Buxton added his thoughts. ” I’ve spoken to a lot of the drivers obviously over the last week and a half. I think what’s fascinating for me with the hybrid, the two guys occupying the top two positions on the grid, one of them in Takuma has a lot of experience with INDYCAR, but not with the hybrid. The other has never driven an oval in his life. Both were able to find the feel with the car, able to drive around that extra weight at the rear, and put it in the top two positions on the grid.”

“Robert was talking the other day that he and Takuma were doing something the others weren’t. I asked him about that yesterday. He said they were running way more downforce than anybody else. They got to a place of comfort with the car and were able to extract more from it with fingertip feel than necessarily trimming out to the max and leaving that rear of the car feeling quite loose and quite sketchy, being able to almost take it over the limit, which I found really interesting.”

“The thing with the hybrid utilization, we’ve been talking about it all the way through qualifying, is how would drivers deploy. Almost everybody came down to the same
methodology during qualifying of where they would deploy usually with the a slow trickle over the lap. Takuma was a bit different.”

“The fascinating thing now is how do you use it in the race. Obviously there’s no push to pass. If you’re in a group, you may be able to re-gen by lifting, then have that burst coming out of the corners, utilize on the straights, wherever you want to. But everybody is going to be pretty much in that same position.”

“If you’re the lead car, you don’t. It may work a little bit like DRS does in Formula 1 that if you’re the lead car, you don’t have the advantage, but the cars behind do. The race leader may find themselves susceptible to being passed. Once they’re back in the group, they get the ability to recharge and utilize it.”

“This is a step into the unknown that not one of these 33 drivers have experienced before. That I think is fascinating for how this race will play out because none of us know
and none of them know.”

Friday is Carb Day and the final two hour practice for the teams from 11 am to 1 pm.

Lucille Dust reporting live from Indianapolis