Firestone advise against running when track and ambient temperatures don’t add up to 100degF and for most of this week, Speedway, IN has been struggling to reach that number.
This week’s 2.4-liter engine test, conducted by Team Penske-Chevrolet and Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda on a slightly modified version of IndyCar’s standard road course layout, had to be extended to three days after cold and rain hampered meaningful running on the first two days.
That first on-track testing of the 2024 engines (run without the hybrid components) concluded yesterday but further poor weather has caused disruption to the ‘regular’ current-spec IndyCar test. So bleak was the outlook for this week that Ganassi – which was only taking part in the test having pulled out of the postponed Texas Motor Speedway test due to cold weather – has switched its test day to Barber Motorsports Park next Monday.
There, the quartet of Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Marcus Ericsson and Jimmie Johnson will be joined by Rinus VeeKay and Conor Daly of Ed Carpenter Racing, and the Andretti Autosport foursome – Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi, Romain Grosjean and Devlin DeFrancesco.
The Andretti team is also one of the three remaining squads set for the Indy road course test tomorrow, along with technical partners Meyer Shank Racing (Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud) and the solitary Chevrolet runner, Juncos Hollinger Racing (Callum Ilott). Andretti Autosport is granted an extra IndyCar test day for running a team in the Indy Lights championship, which from this year came under the control of IndyCar.
This week’s test at IMS was set to feature 20 cars until the gloomy weather forecasts cut the participants number to 10. The number has been further reduced to seven due to the withdrawal of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy. The team was set to run cars for full-timers Felix Rosenqvist and Pato O’Ward, as well as Juan Pablo Montoya. For a second year, the Colombian ace will compete in the GP of Indianapolis as a ‘warm-up’ for AMSP’s third-car crew, before they compete together in the Indy 500. Montoya won the 500 for Ganassi in 2000 and for Penske in 2015.
