IndyCar Series, Go Uri! Opciones

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Luego de varios años de desavenencias que provocaron la división de el más importante campeonato de monoplazas estadounidense, finalmente se llegó a un acuerdo para fusionar este año la Champ Car a la Indy Racing League (IRL), acuerdo en el que sin duda se beneficiaran los aficionados a estos bólidos.


Los dirigentes de las series de automovilismo de monoplazas estadounidenses Indy Racing League (IRL) y Champ Car anunciaron un acuerdo para fusionar ambos circuitos con vistas a la temporada 2008, 12 años después de haberse separado.


Video: Rueda de prensa de la unificación 27/02/08

El acuerdo se encamina a incorporar tres carreras de la Champ Car al itinerario original de la IRL, que contaba con 16 pruebas, con los grandes premios de Long Beach en California, Surfers Paradise en Australia y Edmonton en Canadá. El resto del calendario de Champ Car fue cancelado. A comienzos de la década de 1990, la serie CART, que luego cambió de nombre a Champ Car, era un destino habitual para pilotos europeos y sudamericanos, y tenía gran respaldo de los aficionados.

La CART fue fundada en noviembre de 1978 por Roger Penske, Pat Patrick, Dan Gurney y otra serie de dueños de escuderías.

La IRL comenzó a operar en 1996, con intención de dar espacio a los jóvenes pilotos estadounidenses, y CART tomó su propio rumbo hasta que se declaró en bancarrota en enero de 2004.

George realizó la mejor oferta por las acciones de CART, pero un juez se las otorgó a Kalkhoven, Forsythe y Paul Gentilozzi porque el comprador había mostrado intenciones de clausurar la serie, lo que hubiera dejado a muchas personas desempleadas.



Monoplaza.

Los coches de las series IndyCar son monoplazas de al menos 1525 libras de peso y 192 pulgadas de longitud, con chasis monocasco y construidos con fibra de carbono y composite. Son coches con cambio de 6 velocidades secuanciales por palanca (no por levas) y sin dirección asistida.
Los equipos pueden elegir entre 2 modelos de distintos fabricantes, bien sean los italianos Dallara o los americanos Panoz.





El Motor de 3.5 litros V8 turboalimentados desarrollados por Honda (y construidos por Ilmor Engineering, compañía constructora de los motores Mercedes-Benz en F1 hasta 2005), capaces de transmitir más de 650 CV usando como combustible Etanol-Metanol.







Los neumáticos son gomas son slick, con una grosor de la goma como el deaproximadamente 2.5 milímetros de espesor. Las dimensiones son 25.8 las delanteras pudiendo llegar hasta las 28 en las ruedas traseras. Los anchos: 28 centímetros alante y 38 atrás.

Cada piloto dispone segun el tipo de circuitode 8 sets para Urbano/permanente y 7 sets para Ovales. En Indy 500 dispone de 35 sets.



Street Tire / Race Tire



Hay dos tipos de Frenos dependiendo de si corren en un óvalo o en un circuito urbano. En el caso del óvalo, los frenos son de carbono con cuatro pistones, y son más bien pequeños. En el caso del circuito urbano, los discos son de acero, más grandes y de 6 pistones.









IndyCar Series. Puntuación.

1st - 50
2nd - 40
3rd - 35
4th - 32
5th - 30
6th - 28
7th - 26
8th - 24
9th - 22
10th - 20
11th - 19
12th - 18
13th - 17
14th - 16
15th - 15
16th - 14
17th - 13
18th>24th - 12
25th>33th - 10


Se otorgan 3 puntos extras a aquel piloto que consiga el mayor número de vueltas en cabeza durante la carrera.


Repostajes.



Las paradas en boxes son también obligatorias en las IndyCar Series. Sin embargo, no se podrán realizar cuando la condición de la pista esté en "peligro", es decir, haya banderas amarillas y un coche de seguridad en el circuito, salvo que el dirigente de la carrera de la orden de "Pits Open". Todo aquel que haga una parada en esta situación será penalizado.

En una parada de boxes podemos encontrar a 11 mecánicos. 4 se encargarán de sustituir las ruedas, 2 de ayudarles, uno sujetará el "chupete" o cartel de indicación de estado, 1 del respostaje junto a su ayudante y 1 mecánico se encargará de elevar el coche.
El último, quizás el más curioso, es el que hace de "apagafuegos". Tras un respotaje, una vez retirada la manguera, él inyectará un chorro de agua sobre la boca del depósito para aplacar las posibles llamas. Recordemos que el metanol se apaga con agua y su llama es completamente invisible (de ahí que se realice siempre este procedimiento, tanto si hay llama o no).


El Volante

1. OVERTAKE BUTTON: Changes the fuel map to 100 percent rich for a set amount of time, allowing the engine to produce the extra power needed to complete a pass or hold off another driver.

2. PI DASH: Displays warning lights and information the driver needs during the race. That information includes lap times, oil, water and gearbox temperatures and fuel mileage.

3. RPM SHIFT LIGHTS: LED lights that go from green to red and indicate engine RPM. When the red lights are on the driver shifts gears.

4. PIT LANE SPEED LIMITER: Used on pit lane by the driver to activate the engine control program limiting the cars speed to the pit lane speed limit, which is usually 60 miles per hour.

5. PULL-TO-TALK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Activates the microphone in the drivers helmet so he can communicate over the radio.

6. RESET: Used during the race. During a pit stop the driver pushes this button to reset the fuel reading on his display.

7. FUEL MAP SWITCH: Allows the driver to adjust the fuel mapping of the engine to increase fuel mileage or to increase power. There are a number of settings available including full rich, where the engine produces maximum power but uses more fuel. There is also a lean setting which uses less fuel but produces less power. During caution periods the drivers will switch to the leanest mixture to increase fuel economy.

8. DASH SCROLL: Allows the driver to scroll through the different pages available on the dash board, including the race page, qualifying page and practice page.

9. WEIGHT JACKER: Adjusts the cross weight on the car from left to right. The weight jacker allows the driver to make fine-tuning adjustments as the car begins to handle differently during the race.

10. DRINK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Allows the driver to get a drink of water during the race. It activates a pump connected to a water bottle on the car which pumps water through a hose installed in the drivers helmet.

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An interview with Oriol Servia, Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan




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IndyCar Series

SunTrust Indy Challenge

Richmond International Raceway

June 28, 2008

THE MODERATOR: Our fifth‑place finisher, Oriol Servia. Interesting night, what was your take?
ORIOL SERVIA: It was a really busy day. It's a difficult place and the car was great. Since we unloaded on Thursday, I told the guys, I said, "Listen, I think we have a Top‑5 car."
So I'm really pleased I was able to prove it and finish fifth. We started at tenth and really worked our way up, and every spot we gained, we really gained it through working hard. I passed many cars on the restarts and we passed cars on pit stops, so I think we all did our job and I'm extremely pleased.
Everybody expected us to do well on street and road courses, but I wanted to show that the team is really capable of doing a good job on ovals, so we kind of showed it in Milwaukee and we showed it again today.
Q. (No mic.)
ORIOL SERVIA: Well, I don't know. I don't know what to say. We knew that the tires were really fast at the beginning and the pace would slow down for everybody. So it was a question to see who had the most consistent cars through the spin.
And Helio, obviously from where he was, he was extremely faster than anybody on his team but then he was quite slow, I think he was getting very loose later in the seam and then he would pass us early and then kind of slow down.
So it was all a question of how your car was through the seam, and unfortunately we didn't have a jacket through this race, so that handicapped how many things you can do on the car through the different fuel loads and tire life. But fortunately the car was very consistent and fast on the full spin.
Q. Was there an issue on restarts?
ORIOL SERVIA: It's just that we are all racers and once we know the pace, it's really hard to overtake anybody, until you get into traffic so restarts are your best bet. I made most of my moves on restarts on the outside and inside and everywhere, and everybody tries the same. On the restarts the tires are colder and when you take the biggest grips is when you have the hardest time on the lap time, so that's why it's very easy to lose it. That's why you're seeing all that action happening.
Q. How tough was it today to pass?
ORIOL SERVIA: My car was good on highs and lows, but tough on restarts or when the guy was ahead of me. When I was losing the downforce, I couldn't get closer. And like now at the end when Danica was faster than me and I was catching lap cars, I just couldn't pass the lap cars, and then she had many chances to overtake me. Fortunately I was able to keep her behind, and she was difficult.



Oval marker




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• By Dave Lewandowski
• indycar.com

RICHMOND, Va. - Oriol Servia forecast a top-five finish for the No. 5 KV Racing Technology car before the first practice session at Richmond International Raceway.
"Fortunately, I was able to prove it," said the first-year IndyCar Series driver, who recorded a career-best fifth place on an oval in the SunTrust Indy Challenge.
Servia, who started 10th, finished sixth at Milwaukee to tag onto 11th-place finishes at Kansas and Indianapolis.
"Everybody expected us to do well on the road and street courses, but I really wanted to prove the team is capable of doing a good job on ovals," he said. "Obviously, we have started to work out these short ovals and now we have to work on the big ones, but every time we are moving forward."
Team co-owner Jimmy Vasser wrapped his arms around Servia, soaking wet from the 300 laps run in temperatures that dropped to the mid-80s.
"Our first top-five, it's great," said Vasser, the 1996 CART season champion. "Oriol drove a great race, the guys did a great job in the pits and we had our sponsors here from Plantronics. I think we had a pretty strong car all weekend. It was just a great day. Now we're looking forward to getting into the meat of the road course part of the season, and I think we'll be well-prepared."