The season finale for the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights series took place this morning at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and there was no lack of excitement! Although Sam Schmidt Motorsports had long since wrapped up the team championship, and the team’s primary driver, Josef Newgarden, had secured the drivers’ championship at Kentucky, there was still a fierce battle to be had for second spot in the drivers’ championship and there were some new drivers looking to make a mark as they work on plans for 2012. Andretti Autosport’s Stefan…
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IndyCar – New Images of the 2012 Chassis and Rear Diffuser
We have some new photos of the 2012 Dallara IndyCar chassis, IR12, in both the Honda and Chevrolet livery thanks to our photographic partner, Tom Turk, from Piratical Photography. One of the interesting things Tom ran into was a reluctance by Chevrolet to allow him a view of the rear diffuser. Odd since it should be the same exact underwing! Either they were just being overly protective, or something fishy is happening. I’m chalking it up to an overzealous engineer. We were able to get some shots of the rear…
Read MoreIndyLights – Las Vegas Preview
The final round of the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights Series takes place this Sunday at the Las Vegas Motorspeedway, but the calamity from Kentucky has left a few cars and one driver on the sidelines. David Ostella, primary driver for Jensen MotorSport, is out. The team was not able to repair his car in time for the transport out to Las Vegas leaving the team with only one entry, newcomer Oliver Webb. This is a pretty brutal situation for Ostella who has scrapped and fought well for Jensen MotorSport all…
Read MoreEpisode 108 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike as they talk about Formula 1 from Suzuka and Vettel’s title. They break down the race that was the always amazing Japanese Grand Prix. The boys also look ahead to the INDYCAR World Championship from Las Vegas and ask the question…will this be a real race? How will race control influence all of the events that will be going on? Is race control positioned for world domination? Where they the ones who secretly plotte dthe assasination of the Saudi ambassador?…
Read MoreEpisode 107 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike as they recap the events from WRC France and the IndyCars from Kentucky. We talk a bit about the 2012 schedule or lack there of and look ahead to the season finale in Las vegas. As always, thank you for the download and enjoy the show!
Read MoreIndyCar – Kentucky Weekend in Photos
Our IndyCar photographer, Joe Ferrall, was at the Kentucky Speedway and brought back some really great shots of both the IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights events. Enjoy! You can view the rest of our IndyCar photos from this year and back to 2009 by clicking on the Photo Galleries tab above and selecting IndyCar.
Read MoreIndyLights: Jensen MotorSport Adds Serious Engineering Muscle
Jensen MotorSport has already been showing some strength in the latter half of this season, but now they’ve grabbed another gear and are shooting for significant improvement. Today, the team announced the hiring of veteran GP2 engineer Raul Prados! Mr. Prados’ experiences includes working with top-shelf European open-wheel such as Carlin and iSport, and he engineered the winning car in the 2010 GP2 Asia series. Most of all, I love Mr. Prados’ comments and optimism in regards to open-wheel racing in North America: “This is an exciting new chapter of…
Read MoreOP-Ed – Does INDYCAR’s “Faux-vertaking” Rule Encourage Avoidable Contact?
Comparing the number of accidents in Formula 1 and other open-wheel series and in IndyCar in the past couple of years has me wondering if the INDYCAR overtaking rule (faux-vertaking as @MikeOpenPaddock would call it) doesn’t in fact encourage avoidable contact rather than discouraging it. There has been a lot of talk about INDYCAR’s overtaking rule on road and street courses that demands that a driver leave open the inside line in approach to a corner, and usually not in happy tones. This rule comes from Tony Cotman and the…
Read MoreEpisode 106 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Mike and Shaun as they hit a couple points from Motegi. They also talk 2012 IICS schedule and all of the weeks hot INDYCAR news. We also look back at a dominating performance from Sebastien Vettel during the Singapore Grand Prix. The title is all but concluded and Jenson Button is making the claim to McLaren’s number one seat for 2012.
Read MoreIndyLights – Rusty Mitchell, Horses, and Horsepower
A curious thing crossed my virtual desk here at OpenPaddock this week, a press release. …no, that’s not especially unusual, but its content sure was. Normally, teams and drivers issue a release previewing their thoughts and expectations for the upcoming event, but this was a bit more than the simple “we hope to roll off the transport fast and win” type of hype and blase quotes. This was a nice little background piece on Rusty Mitchell, with whom we spoke prior to his running the Firestone Freedom 100 back in…
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