Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers may be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embody a query usually tend to be revealed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday will seem the next week.
Q: Been following racing of all kinds for my complete life. Sort of miss the unknown potentialities of a blown engine throughout a race affecting the result with these nearly bulletproof engines (except it was somebody I used to be rooting for).
I’m wanting ahead to attending one other enjoyable weekend with the IndyCar circus and different followers at Mid-Ohio, and questioning what (if any) kind of issues do the brand new hybrid programs carry to the ability trains? What can go mistaken with them that might trigger some kind of engine failure?
Mike Nikishin, Burgettstown, PA
MARSHALL PRUETT: We’ll want to carry the primary hybrid race to have a greater thought on the problems which may come up. Hundreds and 1000’s of testing miles have been accomplished, however we’ve by no means had a full race distance executed with 27 vehicles, and with contact between vehicles and all the opposite regular issues that occur and go mistaken between the inexperienced and checkered flags that may shake and rattle the ERS.
We might have an ESS or MGU failure. An ESS downside wouldn’t essentially be the tip of the world, however a seized or damaged MGU, because it connects to the motor’s crankshaft through the enter shaft, might result in might hem. Overheating of the ERS unit — ESS or MGU (or each) — might trigger failures.
The MGU is the primary space of sensitivity on the onset of hybridization. There’s nothing mistaken with the factor, however IndyCar doesn’t need to push it too arduous, which is why the ability figures are being stored considerably low. When IMSA went hybrid, there have been expectations for all types of ERS issues, however it by no means developed right into a critical situation. There have been occasional hiccups, however nothing widespread.
Well-known final phrases for me right here, however IndyCar’s final-spec ERS has executed a number of working and the reliability has been fairly good, so primarily based on that actuality, I’d count on Mid-Ohio to proceed the pattern. Mentioned one other approach, it could come as a shock if all the reliability we’ve seen with the final-spec ERS goes out the window and leaves us with half or extra of the sector sitting parked and smoking on the facet of the street on Sunday.
Q: I understand the charters are a foregone conclusion at this level in IndyCar, however I simply don’t perceive why the collection has been so hellbent on including them? I completely perceive why the groups need them, however it doesn’t make a lot sense to me from a collection standpoint – it’s not as whether it is struggling to draw automobile house owners and groups proper now. Why undergo all of this bother, flip away potential events, and reward charters to the incumbent groups? They don’t have charters now, and those self same groups present up each week and there’s a full grid. If this was 2007, I might see how charters would maintain worth for the collection at a time when it was robust to get a full grid each week, however are they actually apprehensive {that a} bunch of groups are going to up and depart now with out a constitution system in place?
I might a lot reasonably the collection embrace the other stance and lean into competitors – embrace bumping! You may run street and road course qualifying with Spherical 1 cut up into three teams – the highest two from every group mechanically advance to the Quick 6. Backside two or three from every group go right into a Final Probability Qualifying like Indy for the ultimate spots on the grid, which might be instead of the now-moot Quick 12 phase. It will definitely make qualifying much more thrilling and would power groups to up their recreation in the event that they need to proceed to play – which might solely be good for the product, contemplating it’s an expert collection.
Matt, Nazareth, PA
MP: I’ve had the identical struggles to seek out the overwhelming causes to create charters, however we do know that workforce house owners wish to have their entries protected, so guaranteeing beginning positions in each race — besides, fortunately, the Indy 500, which they backed away from after receiving an enormous backlash from followers — is one thing they are going to obtain.
And attaching a free-market financial worth to their entries is one other factor they received’t flip down, in order that’s what they’ll get as effectively. All of it matches with the spec-minded path the collection has been on for a few years. Strip away as many areas that you would be able to the place failure might exist, like a number of tire suppliers and a number of chassis suppliers, so no person is vulnerable to selecting the mistaken vendor, and that approach, you’re all however assured to have the ability to compete on the highest degree.
It’s additionally defending your means to compete in all however one race whereas letting the newcomers be the one ones vulnerable to failing and doubtlessly going out of enterprise. That’s not the spirit of racing I fell in love with.
Minus the assured beginning positions, the constitution works for me, however perhaps I’m it the mistaken approach.
Q: As an engineer, I’ve no downside switching between U.S. and metric models to make comparisons. Nonetheless, a number of followers on social media are completely befuddled by IndyCar’s insistence on utilizing the longstanding U.S. models for energy and torque for the ICE however metric for the ERS. To be sincere, I feel that’s deliberate obfuscation to cloak simply how impotent this ERS is in follow versus all that was promised.
Energy is torque instances rpm, plus any crucial conversion elements. 30 Newton meters of torque at 12000 rpm is equal to only underneath 51 hp, woefully in need of what the initially acknowledged objectives had been on the out-set.
The collection will permit 105 kJ of vitality deployment per lap at Iowa. That’s equal to 50 hp for two.8 seconds, assuming that the driving force is ready to harvest and deploy that a lot with the whole lot else happening throughout an 18 second lap – and a 100% environment friendly MGU, which we all know isn’t doable.
A normal rechargeable lithium battery pack on a homeowner-level weed whacker is 30 Watt-hour capability. One Wh equals 3.6 kJ, thus that pack comprises 108 kJ vitality. Clearly, I don’t count on Hinch to be making that comparability on display screen, despite the fact that it’s practical.
A gallon of E85 comprises about 94,000 kJ of warmth vitality, and a turbo engine at full throttle can attain 40% effectivity in changing warmth vitality to kinetic vitality on the driveshaft. 105 kJ is simply about as a lot en-ergy because the ICE places out the again finish from burning 0.14 ounces of E85.
I’ve been a fan of the collection for the reason that turbine period, and I’m having an actual arduous time understanding the hype round this ‘growth.’ It’s a mass of complication with treasured little profit versus permitting just a little extra turbo enhance, OEM advertising and marketing efforts be damned.
Steve Jarzombek
MP: I hear you, however there are a number of constraints IndyCar gave itself by sticking with the identical chassis since there was no area to construct a stout high-voltage lithium-ion battery resolution. Left with a small void to fill within the bellhousing, what Chevy and Honda got here up with is, as I’ve mentioned many instances, a marvel of packaging. However because of the excessive limitation of area to suit an ESS and MGU, they weren’t capable of make a monster ERS that delivers large horsepower and torque.
The collection says it might go as excessive as 150hp with the unit at some point, so that might be nice. But it surely’s beginning at a modest 60hp and 33.2 lb-ft of torque to take care of the reliability it’s achieved with the MGUs.
Initially, it is a advertising and marketing train, not a deep technological exploration by IndyCar, Chevy, or Honda. It’s to present its present and hopefully extra auto manufacturers sooner or later the relevance they should keep in or be a part of the collection. To date, from 2013-2023 (and half of 2024), no producers wished to hitch IndyCar whereas it was non-hybrid.
The brand new ERS package deal may not produce the staggering efficiency we’d hoped — at the least on the outset — however I’m however targeted on what the transfer to hybridization might do to carry extra automobile corporations into the collection.
On the models of measurement, I’ve conveyed the priority and want for the collection to ‘Americanize’ every-thing associated to the ERS models. Newton-meters and kilojoules simply don’t jive right here, so let’s hope the recommendation was taken.