Indycar 2018

[Sam993]

Lentilist said:

Sam993 said:

The only "small" issue is the Indy 500 and it being the main event of the year.

Oh absolutely. Ovals are always going to feature due to the origins of the sport, so I guess the question can be modified to be whether certain styles are less ideal that others, and how oval safety (especially fencing) can be improved to mitigate these sort of incidents. There's only so many times a car can go into the fence before everyone's luck runs out, and the consequences of a Renna type accident happening during a race really don't bear thinking about.

The fence is certainly not compatible with open wheel racing. Not only on ovals (Franchitti's career ended on a fence too and that was a road course). Hockey style perspex would be great but unrealistic I think.

[Speed Badger]

In case anyone hasn't seen it Indycar released an update a few hours ago:

[funkyrobot]

st. Hope he is ok.

Any spinal cord injury is not great news.

[MitchT]

There's a piece on YouTube about Kenny Brack's injuries after a similar crash. Very frightening what these violent rotational forces can do. Hopefully Robert Wickens will make a full recovery.

[2fast748]

This is a very good piece on Autosport by Sam Schmidt (himself badly injured in a crash)

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/138167/wick...

He talks a lot of sense. I just don't think the structural changes to make ovals safer will ever happen as it will be very expensive and make them almost impossible to view at for trackside spectators.

[Sam993]

What a race last night, like a freaking game of chess! I stayed up until 4am and it was worth it.

Also Robbie is now breathing without assistance and speaking with his family, which is great news.

[MartG]

Yes - the last 10 - 20 laps trying to figure out who would need to pit for fuel to make it to the end was quite tense

[99dndd]

I really hated Gateway on that IndyCar Series PS2 game from the early-mid 2000s but the racing there is brilliant! Love the 'Road Course' style passes into Turn 1.

Fuel mileage races can be a it dull but this one had me on the edge of my seat!

[Sam993]

What a race at PIR, WOW just



A miracle on dirt...

[MartG]

Dixon was very lucky indeed there !

Very good race overall - well done Sato !

[MartG]

Provisional 2019 calendar published. Interestingly it includes COTA, so for the first time we'll have a comparison between Indycar and F1 laptimes on the same circuit ( assuming the same configuration is used ). One less oval race next year too

[Sam993]

It's good that Phoenix is gone, I get it's got history but it had been boring in recent years. And with the redesign it could have been even worse.

[MartG]

They really need to slot something in to the month long gap between Long Beach and Indy GP though

[99dndd]

MartG said:

They really need to slot something in to the month long gap between Long Beach and Indy GP though

Even moving Long Beach back by a week would fix that.

I reckon they'll use a shorter layout at COTA because I can't see the lap time comparison looking too favourable.

[FourWheelDrift]

They might use the short layout used when the Australian V8 Supercars visited.



Outright lap records for comparison here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_of_the_Ameri...

[Sam993]

They are talking about building a new section, getting rid of 12-15 and making it a one corner would be enough IMHO, it's a stupid design anyway.

[Vaud]

funkyrobot said:

st. Hope he is ok.

Any spinal cord injury is not great news.

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/138555/full...

Lucky to be alive, looks like a hell of recovery ahead of him.

[funkyrobot]

Vaud said:

funkyrobot said:

st. Hope he is ok.

Any spinal cord injury is not great news.

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/138555/full...

Lucky to be alive, looks like a hell of recovery ahead of him.

Cripes. He had a big one.

I am concerned about his spinal cord injury. I guess that means he has some complications at the moment.

I hope he makes a full recovery. He has been an interesting driver to watch in Indycar. Never really watched DTM so missed his driving in that series.

Get well soon Robert.

[Sam993]

What a season finale. Congrats to the new champion! Incredible race. Everyone said it is going to be dull because Sonoma doesn't allow racing but it was far from it.

[FourWheelDrift]

funkyrobot said:

Vaud said:

funkyrobot said:

st. Hope he is ok.

Any spinal cord injury is not great news.

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/138555/full...

Lucky to be alive, looks like a hell of recovery ahead of him.

Cripes. He had a big one.

I am concerned about his spinal cord injury. I guess that means he has some complications at the moment.

I hope he makes a full recovery. He has been an interesting driver to watch in Indycar. Never really watched DTM so missed his driving in that series.

Get well soon Robert.

Update from Robert himself - https://twitter.com/robertwickens/status/104143536...