There's no doubt that this is a weird looking race car, but it's equally clear that the people behind the design were making a statement with this car. And that's no bad thing: Indy is dying on the vine, the teams are as disenchanted with the series as at any time in the recent past, no one is watching the show and there is increasingly no reason for it to exist. If the series is to continue to have a future, there is a lot to do: just getting people watching would help, and clearly something radically different can only attract attention where it is needed.

And a race car ready to go for $600k? Hell, I'm almost ready to start up a team at that level.

Is the design going to work on track as they plan? I'll hold fire on that until I can talk to a friend who has designed a few race cars in his time, but there are serious people behind it so I'm not going to throw cold water on the design until I know a bit more about it. I do wonder about how the sponsors logos will be seen on the car but it is a striking design, so it's likely to have more eyeballs on it just for that fact. I'm certainly keen to see it on a track, as planned in the near future.

You mean Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

The more I think about it, the more I feel that although the goals and targets are correct, the conclusions reached don't work. It's too nostalgic in shape, and the front end is pretty pointless. He said he didn't want to look like a sports car by keeping the track wide, which would indicate it's an aesthetic choice, not an aerodynamic one. I think it's a mistake, as although the faired wheels are likely inevitable (wheel to wheel contact is just too unsustainable from both a safety and economic standpoint), looking a bit like a sports car isn't a bad thing.

Yes, traditionalists would have fits, but they will no matter what. That said, although the thinking is correct, and the goals are correct, the design of this car is just too retro to fly. Someone under 40 needed to design this car, as it just isn't going to be a bridge to the future while it looks so much to the past.

Brian Barnhart will announce that Dallara is going to be the supplier, and that it will look like the dark red, conventional drawing. All dissent from the paddock and fans will be ignored, and the series will be dead by 2011. That's essentially what's going to happen.

I agree with you juicy sushi. There seems to be a bit too much retro-styling involved in the design. I'm thinking something like a single-seat, open cockpit LMP shape, but with the wheels exposed a bit more would have been entirely reasonable.

Let them just race LMP's then... I could live with a field full of Audi R10's. Not this though, whoever is going to advocate this is out for the Irl's destruction, nothing less

Very likely re the Dallara, and it'll be a V6 Honda. Would be great if they'd allow any/all the proposed cars, but I don't see that happening.

Deltawing needs to build 2 or 3 of those cars, and PROVE they can work by putting them on the track. Otherwise, no deal.

To further amaze the masses, I have heard thet the car is rear steer, not surprising with the fitment of the front wheels......

I think the Deltawing concept has achieved one important aim for Indycar, and that's put the whole series right back into the minds of the casual/recently disillusioned fans and brought the debate 'front and centre'......the Dallara and Swift (and on the other thread, the Marak concept) are all decent workable solutions, and unless something bloody bizarre happens, the Lola would probably fit that bill too.....I wholeheartedly embrace the multi-chassis + multi-engine concept for the series, and would hope that one of the stipulations for the supply of cars and engines would be 'the combination of chassis, engine and gearbox must sell for $600,000 or less'.

Yep, that's it, thanks . I couldn't remember its name, a Google Images search provided the picture and I just copy-pasted the name on top of the picture.

Aanyway...

Yes, it's a matter of weight transfer amongst other things.

You should get on the phone to Mr Bowlby and his design team, he'll be interested to know that the car he's designed is actually an ill-handling unsafe impractical monster.

If that design ever appears on a circuit lapping quickly, I'll eat my (pasta)* hat. It's a styling excercise to attract interest, as are all the others I have seen in connection with Indycar Lite.











*On the principle of converting to Catholocism on your deathbed "Just in case".

Exactly, so if you had been conditioned to see this as normal it wouldn't shock you and the current F1 cars would.

It's a matter of being open minded, I'm pretty sure the designers of this know more about what they are doing than us.

The message is good. An open series. And I think everyone (but Lola, Swift and Dallara) are all for it. But, should the technical regulations be based in such a freaking ugly concept car? The more I look at it the more I tink it looks like crap.

Brian Barnhart makes it clear, there will be only one chassis available to race.

Ganassi says he is not "Houdini", so Rahal is still without a drive.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100212/S...-cost-effective

Ridiculous.

Trust me Rob, I'm with you 100% on this.

It's ridiculous isn't it? A spec chassis is against everything that IndyCar stands for.

He basically says that if many chassis are allowed the big teams might end up having several different makes to get the best out of ovals, street circuits and road courses.. and that it would be too expensive because an entrant might feels his best chance is to have one of each chassis. (odds tilted to far towards the big teams)

There's a very, very simple fix for that... make it illegal to race more than one chassis make.

what the hell... this is totally shaping up to be a war again, with all the nonsense that goes with it..

Yes, but at this point, I'm starting to feel that the blame is going to be able to be fairly easily apportioned. Barnhart is unable to effectively interact with the paddock it seems, and the Hulman-George family are not up to running the IMS. They don't know what they want to do, and don't have the leadership or intellectual capacity to find a direction going forward. Their new replacements for Tony George don't fill one with confidence, and the series doesn't seem to really be embracing their future as one feels they should. They also don't seem to realize the need to retain drivers with star potential (such as Graham Rahal and Ryan Hutner-Reay) when they very much need to.

The enthusiasm shown by the teams is impressive. I'm starting to come to the conclusion though that it is being wasted in a lost cause which can't be bothered to save itself.

Many knowledgeable people and casual fans alike, with a long track record of following American open wheel racing have spoken out for quite some time of many viable ideas, but it just doesn't seem to compute for the powers that be. It is extremely frustrating to see the series careening down the road with no apparent direction.

If the last few years in Indycar have taught us anything, it's that a single chassis/engine supplier just makes it easier for the big teams to dominate. There's no chance for Ganassi or Tasman to take a chance with Honda, or Patrick to develop Firestones, or Carl Hogan to give the Lola a go. It's difficult to see what Brian Barnhart and the IRL's agenda might be, other than that they clearly mistrust and fear competence.

There's also no chance of Penske failing to qualify at Indy

*sigh* The teams don't want a spec series (and are backing a design that is meant to come up against competition), the fans (from what I can see) don't want a spec series, so let's go ahead with a spec series.

In a nutshell, that's been my feeling for a number of years...

I don't want a spec series either, but Barnhart has a point. In the current economic conditions, escalating chassis costs are prohibitive for all but the biggest teams. Rahal/Letterman Racing dropped out last season, Forsythe never even made the jump from CART to IRL, and now Newman/Haas/Lanigan are in trouble.

A spec chassis won't necessarily solve those problems though. The current series uses essentially a spec chassis, but the costs are massive. In contrast you don't have a spec chassis in Formula Ford, and the costs are low. It's a bit more complicated than spec or not spec. Cost goals have to be incorporated throughout the development of the new chassis rules. If they are able to be met, and make IndyCar economically viable again, then multiple chassis might be an option.

If teams are going to buy chassis from manufacturers, the costs have to be affordable. Thus the manufacturers won't build anything that is overpriced because they won't be able to sell it.

But that is exactly the problem. Barnhart stated that the chassis manufacturers intimated that they cannot keep chassis costs at around $600,000 in a competitive environment. Research and development costs will force the price of the chassis up in order for the chassis to be competitive.

Well, I think it really is a matter of debate. If you put a price cap on the cost of the chassis, then the R&D done is irrelevent to the final cost of the chassis, for example. If you banned chassis development that could also be a way to prevent excessive costs (Personally, I think that should be a goal, as aerodynamic development only reduces the quality of racing).

Also, the design of the chassis itself could affect how much it cost. The current cars are very expensive, but for what reasons, and where does the cost come from? I think such claims about cost by the chassis specialists may be a bit of blinkered thinking in terms of what can be achieved, and what methods would be used in chassis construction.

But if you ban chassis development, what would be the point of having an open-spec series? If the Lola is superior to the Dallaras and Swifts, Lolas will quickly populate the entire grid because the other chassis will remain inferior.

That depends on how you write the rules. If you create it around performance targets, rather than dimensional rules with unlimited performance potential, things would be rather different. If you spec'd cost, crash safety, downforce and drag levels, and weight, then left the suppliers to create something that delivered on those goals, then you'd have pretty similar performance, as the actual performance window would be specified, even though the cars themselves would be very different. It's a different approach to rules writing. Rather than letting everyone fight to find the fastest solutions, tell them how fast to go, and then let them have variety in reaching those goals. You then enable much more creativity, while preventing one group from gaining dominance.

Ben Bowlby is a serious designer who designed the Lola Indy car back in the '90s. He was the Chief Engineer for Ganassi for years. The design exercise is one of three proposals submitted so far. Delta Wing LLC is owned by Michael Andretti (Andretti Motorsports), Eric Bachelart (Conquest), John Barnes (Panther), Tony George (Vision), Kevin Kalkhoven (KV), Roger Penske (Penske), etc., etc.

I suggest you check out http://openpaddock.net/2009/12/13/indycar-...w-car-for-2012/

Shairon and I had dinner once in Indy with Ben and his wife; and he is a brilliant designer. The effort reminds me of the Tyrrell 6-wheeler except it uses standard Indy car rims and tires. Plus it gets 12 MPG and the engine only has to be rebuilt every 5,000 racing miles.

Relax he's British and Eric Bachelart is from Brussels, we Americans could never pull off something this bold and imaginative by ourselves.

I never thought that a dead-ended Series could take such a bold move. It's also been announced that the Indy Racing League has hired a dynamic young CEO Randy Bernard from the highly successful Professional Bullriders Association.

My thought now regarding that car is: "Eh, why the hell not, might be good for a laugh." To steal a line from Office Space, every year for Indycar is its worst year ever. Every year things are worse than they were the year before. I honestly don't even see why the series is still alive, given its appetite for cold, hard cash, and nearly complete anonymity. We might as well throw a Hail Mary and see what happens.

An explanatory article on the Delta Wing project by the excellent Marshall Pruett. A few things stand out:

Team owners, from Ganassi to Panther to Dreyer and Reinbold to, yes, Tony George himself, are throwing their weight behind the Delta Wing. Add in Firestone, who are already developing Delta Wing tyres, and the professed interest of the new CEO Randy Bernard himself, and Delta Wing seems like the only serious candidate for 2012.

The car will turn, due to a combination of an advanced diff and the extremely lightweight front-end. As Graham Rahal (an enthusiastic supporter, which disproves the '50s futurist wet dream theory) explains, it's just simple physics.

The car will be completely 'open source': anyone with engineering expertise is invited to design parts to the technical specification and submit them to Delta Wing for approval. If they do what they say they will, and fall within cost limits, they'll be recommended as legal parts for the teams. No matter what you think of Apple, an Indycar App Store is kinda cool.

Wings suck. The current Sprint Cup car has less drag than the Dallara.

The Delta Wing ought to be far safer in a front-impact: the extremely long front end gives about five feet of crash structure after the chassis and footwell ends. The suspension and brakes will be housed in this separate structure, which is quite a novel solution -- and, crucially, will save a ton of expensive repair bills to the tub itself after a crash.

Small 300hp engines will throw open the field to turbo V4s, N/A V6s, those big straight four Hayabusa things, and the fruits of the FIA's 'world engine' programme, whatever they'll be. Not to mention quite a few LMP2 blocks. It'll be sad to lose the V8s, but 2012 should see the biggest variation in engine notes and configurations since early '90s IMSA.

The more I look at it (and read about it, thanks Risil) the more I like the Delta Wings design.

It's provoked more discussion about the actual mechanics of Indy car than I've ever seen. Other than the odd breakout of the Pro/Anti George brigade these threads could become near ghost towns and never attracted newer people to Indy, other than those who come with brilliant left, left, left jokes.

I'm very excited to see it on the track, not just because I'd like to see summat different but as an engineer the car absolutely fascinates me and I really want to see how it works.

That's sounding quite promising. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

I like what I'm hearing, but not so much what I'm seeing.. lol.. just wish the car would look a bit more evolutionary instead of batsh*t crazy different..

I'd like something maybe like how the swift concepts look.. classier

Great article. Pruett's quickly overtaking Cavin and Miller as the must-read journalist on all things IndyCar.

You also really get a sense of how invested the paddock is in doing something to cure the current lack of interest in the series, and how much of a team owners/management battle we appear to be in. A real crossroads moment . . .

If it's as fast, efficient, and inexpensive to run as claimed, the beauty will come. I still think releasing it in silver was a mistake--hey, look, the MP4/35!--but for me anyway, imagining it in Target livery helps considerably.

Does anyone else think the more radical Swift versions look too much like something out of the Speed Racer movie?

I understand that they're going for something that's visually shocking on purpose though..

I mean, you look at something like GP2 and the races themselves have a lot more action than, say, F1... without being ridiculously expensive (still alot though). To me the racing there is exiting, a bit like CART was also exiting 10-15 years ago, minus the chassis diversity.. but even reviving that sort of quality of racing wouldn't do it for the Indycar series, I'm afraid..

Indycar needs an electroshock therapy, not soothing medication to fix a headache..

I understand all of that, but still don't see the logic in the narrow front track (other than to just not look like an LMP), and still think it looks too retro. Hopefully the bodywork will be open source too.

The goals and principles I enthusiastically agree with. The fact that everyone other than the IMS and IndyCar organization itself (Barnhart) actually agrees with it speaks volumes about what the racing community thinks of its viability.

Actually, I think Delta Wing looks a lot more Speed Racer-ish, just because Speed Racer itself is retro. I just don't see a reason for the track to be so narrow at the front, and I think Swift's ideas resonate better with the general public at a visual level. The ideas behind the Delta Wing are great though, and the desire for something radical to really get the public's attention are correct. It will get attention, the great unanswerable is whether or not that attention can be sustained.

The Pruett article certainly seems to suggest that there's some leeway there.

This might be a stupid remark from me, but isn't this essentially spec? The teamowners, organized in Delta Wing LLC, need to approve every new part. That means the teamowners know every new part before it is allowed. Please enlighten me, but I do not see how someone can get a competitive advantage with the Delta Wing??
The only difference I see with the current situation is that suppliers will not have exclusivity.



Is it really certain they allow different sort of engines or is that something that could be possible?

If there was a single manufacturer then yes, but IIRC the DW lot said they wanted there to be a set of specifications that could be interpreted by other companies building rival cars.

How about fixed homologations?

Every 3 seasons Dallara can homologate a package with 3 different wings. Teams can use whichever roll bars, brakes, springs or torsion bars (as Dallara specified) etc but are prohibited to change any of the homologate parts of the car like suspension, aerodynamics, etc. No developments by Penske or Ganassi.

That is true that everyone will want the apparent best car (even if F1 they will all copy the RB5 or Lotus X or Maserati Y as the case may be, yet they can build whichever they want!!!) but a problem of all open formulas. You do not want $100,000 upgrade kits with revised brake ducts and some different pumps or something every 5 rounds. Those are needlessly expensive items.

The cars should be good and bad at different circuits and all popular, unless one brand is staggeringly much less competent among big name operations like Lola, Swift or Dallara! Fixed, low price should put the emphasis on quality, low cost, properly engineered vehicles without excessive amounts of $75,000 unobtanium widgets on them.

Yes, but the teamowners have to approve every part. So they know every part beforehand, what it does, if it's faster, etc. All the parts of the Delta Wing will have a (low) maximum price to make sure every team could afford them. Every part will be available to every team. The only logical outcome seems to me that every team will drive the same car.

FIA might not sanction the Indy Track at São Paulo!


Uncle Bernie is pissed that nobody asked him about bringing another OW series to SP, so he is threatening that FIA (and by consequence, the Brazilian Racing Confederation - CBA).

The organizers said that they will do evrything to get the FIA approval, but the race will go on regardless of the result.

This whole idea of a Indy race in that part of São Paulo is crazy! with so little time to prepare, and the traditional floods and bad asphaut around the fair grounds (Anhembi Convention Center), its a recipe for disaster. They say that the tarmac will only be ready 5 days before the race...