Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers might be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embody a query usually tend to be printed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday will likely be saved for the next week.
Q: What are the possibilities Mick Schumacher drives for Rahal subsequent 12 months? To do that they must do one thing with Devlin DeFrancesco’s contract. Can they get out of that?
What about ovals? If I bear in mind accurately his father and uncle Ralf aren’t followers of ovals.
David
MARSHALL PRUETT: If Mick desires to change into an IndyCar driver, he’ll have a automobile and workforce to name residence at RLL. It’s as much as him to determine whether or not to make the change to America.
No matter his dad and uncle considered ovals has nothing to do with him. He’s his personal man. The truth that he got here to check an IndyCar would counsel he’s . His post-test feedback in a media session hosted by IndyCar included feedback from Mick that his subsequent check would should be on an oval to get a correct really feel for the collection.
DeFrancesco’s contract is believed to comprise efficiency clauses that wanted to be hit to be able to set off a return in 2026. If that’s true, inserting 26th within the championship – subsequent to final – wouldn’t have met any minimums I can consider.
Q: Nicely, how about this. I suppose it is doable for a racing collection apart from NASCAR to thrive in October. The place there is a will, there is a means.
Derek
MP: I used to be so comfortable to see that common viewership of two,065,000 individuals for the post-NFL-game NHRA race, and sure, it confirmed – as a lot as one thing taking place as soon as can verify – it’s doable for IndyCar to get the identical type of elevate by wedging races in proper after the final NFL recreation of the afternoon… which I appear to recall saying wasn’t doable from a programming standpoint when somebody requested about it right here within the final month or so.
Excited to be fallacious, and as you famous, all it takes is a willingness between FOX and IndyCar to cook dinner up the 2027 schedule, because the 2026 calendar is completed, to incorporate some September and October Sunday dates the place IndyCar follows instantly after the ultimate NFL on FOX recreation airs.
Having grown up working in IndyCar and its feeder collection the place it was regular to race into October – it occurred as not too long ago as 2013, when the season finale was on Oct. 18 – I’d welcome breaking free from the NFL-inspired programming jail we’ve had since 2014.
Q: I’ve written earlier than about my hope that IndyCars would return to Phoenix. Glad they’re doing so, and I feel it is a good suggestion for them to do it with a NASCAR weekend. Simply hoping that the promoters will truly put it up for sale!
I would suspect they’re going to have a check day forward of time. Have you ever heard something about that? I would additionally hope that it could be open to the general public to assist construct curiosity within the occasion.
Nick Plenzick, Clarkdale, AZ
MP: First run, which is a tire check, is slated for early November (I don’t have the precise date) and one other is deliberate for January, doubtless for the complete discipline. I used to be not too long ago instructed by somebody who is aware of that the Saturday Phoenix race date won’t have IndyCar in a late morning slot, however slightly in additional of a featured afternoon broadcast window.
Q: I simply watched follow for the U.S. Grand Prix and I observed a touch of movement visualization, or ‘flow-vis’ paint on a Ferrari. It’s normal to see flow-vis paint in F1, however what about different collection? I requested on-line about IMSA, NASCAR and IndyCar. It appeared to point that IndyCar makes use of flow-vis paint however we by no means see it, or possibly we do not get an opportunity to see it. I googled for footage of IndyCars with flow-vis paint on them and I received nothing. RACER has an enormous assortment of images. Do you’ve gotten any footage of IndyCars, or any collection apart from F1, with flow-vis paint on them?
Tim Davis, Detroit, MI
MP: Struggling to consider the final time I noticed flow-vis on an IndyCar. With the spec bodywork used from 2012-1014 and 2018-today, there’s been no want to make use of it in public exams since there’s nothing new in want of movement visualization. However I may be forgetting a workforce or producer utilizing it late in 2011 or early 2012 when the Dallara DW12s had been new.
I’m certain the customized producer aero kits noticed flow-vis utilized throughout non-public offseason testing in 2014 by way of the subsequent few years earlier than the freedoms had been locked down main into 2017.
Hope McLaren’s aero workforce what they wanted to from the gallon of flow-vis they threw onto Norris’s automobile throughout follow at Imola final 12 months. Mark Sutton/Getty Photos
Q: Have you learnt, or know any individual who would possibly know, the whereabouts of the ceremoniously-placed gold plated brick that accomplished the 1909 paving of IMS?
Rick
MP: I don’t, however I’m certain a Mailbag reader would possibly know.
Q: Assuming Colton Herta does the truth is have an F2 seat for subsequent season, which can be introduced earlier than the subsequent Mailbag is printed, his racing calendar continues to be extensive open within the month of Could. Additionally assuming he would not have check or follow periods for F1 through the handful of Indy follow, qualifying, and race days, are there any plans in movement for Herta to try the five hundred in 2026? Or am I assuming an excessive amount of?
Pete, Rochester, NY
MP: He’s headed to the Hitech Grand Prix workforce. I requested the workforce concerning the Colton/500 angle on Monday they usually mentioned it’s nonetheless a subject of debate for Herta, and whether or not Marco Andretti makes a return.
Herta’s extraordinarily sensible and versatile, which might make it straightforward for him so as to add a 500 program into his F2 and F1 testing season, however with two Indy 500 winners on the full-time roster, I’m unsure I see the necessity to reinsert Colton past the essential enchantment of doing one other 500.
Since Herta’s profession is being rerouted to Europe to get to F1, throwing an Indy 500 program and the entire intense preparation it requires would do nothing to get him nearer to the first purpose. There’s an open window within the schedule, as you point out, however I can’t discover the worth or logic in such a transfer. Importing Herta for Indy wouldn’t be a foul factor, however I additionally like the concept of letting the brand new trio of Energy, Kirkwood, and Ericsson construct on their chemistry with out too many one-off voices within the room.
Q: I do know my two questions have been mentioned previously, however experiencing it was vital in my thoughts! I had not attended an IMSA race because the early ‘80s at Highway Atlanta, till this 12 months’s Petit Le Mans. What an excellent occasion! It was the most important crowd I’ve ever seen at Highway Atlanta, with all of the camper spots taken!
However the largest wow had been the fan areas; the big measurement, with a number of meals vans, the merchandise on the market with giant tents from producers Ford, Lexus… very spectacular.
My query is, why can’t my favourite collection, IndyCar, duplicate this? I often attend the Barber race, and the fan space doesn’t examine to IMSA’s at Highway Atlanta. IndyCar administration must attend subsequent years Petit Le Mans to get a greater concept what fan-friendly assist is all about! IndyCar can do significantly better – it needs to be the most effective!
Secondly, through the autograph session, I requested Scott Dixon, “Why not IndyCar at Highway Atlanta”? His reply; “I’ve by no means acquired a very good cause why they can not race IndyCar at Highway Atlanta, it could be an incredible venue.” I inspired him to maintain asking! Having witnessed a number of F5000 races at Highway Atlanta within the Seventies, I feel it could be an epic occasion to observe at my favourite monitor!
TSS, Germantown, TN
MP: It could be epic. In all probability gotten this query within the Mailbag 20 occasions and the reply is similar: An IndyCar is simply too quick in some sections to race with out vital security modifications to the circuit. GTP automobiles and LMP2s are super-fast as properly, however they’re additionally absolutely enclosed and have the equal of an additional IndyCar tub’s value of crushable construction or extra on each side of the drivers.
I wouldn’t use Highway Atlanta’s large vendor halfway actual property atop the hill for instance that may be replicated at each monitor, however there are some lengthy or giant stretches prefer it at choose IndyCar venues – Laguna Seca, Portland, Indy, Lengthy Seaside, Mid-Ohio, Highway America, and Nashville come to thoughts, and I’m certain there are others.
The important thing distinction with IMSA’s large midways and among the smaller ones seen in IndyCar is the producers. Chevy and Honda not often pay for a big plot for large shows the place three to 5 new automobile and truck fashions are offered for followers to peruse – like a cellular dealership dropped at the race monitor – however it’s the precise reverse in IMSA, the place there are 18 producers competing throughout the vary of collection. A lot of these manufacturers want giant footprints to erect their shows and current their street automobiles, and that’s why the typical IMSA halfway is a large factor.
I hung out at Petit Le Mans drooling over BMWs and Cadillacs in these shows… understanding I had no probability of taking one residence…
The opposite enjoyable facet of the IMSA vendor midways is the number of sellers that I not often see at IndyCar occasions. Loads of auto/racing e book/journal/poster retainers, plenty of mannequin sellers, artists doing reside artwork and promoting prints, and common merch gross sales with hats, shirts, stickers, and so forth. I purchased a Rexy hat from the AO Racing merch trailer, and some of the stickers at three for $5. I additionally discovered a framed photograph of Bob Leitzinger’s IMSA GTU Nissan 280 ZX from 1982 or 1983 for $4 and needed to take it residence.
Q: I assumed you would possibly get a kick out of this: IndyCar vs NASCAR at Highway America.
I do not know if that is affordable or wishful pondering. What do you suppose?
Doug Mayer, Revelstoke, BC, Canada
MP: That’s enjoyable! Little doubt it’s doable. After F1, an IndyCar is the quickest open-wheeler on the earth on street programs, and a Cup automobile would most likely rank 10th to 12th after all of the Indy NXT and F2 and related junior open-wheelers and GTPs and LMP2s and fast GT lessons, so there’s no shock right here.
I vote that we ditch the simulators and settle these types of questions the old school means. Swope/Getty Photos
Q: Within the Mailbag final week, you wrote, “Of the 27 full-time drivers from 2025, I rely 17 as being correctly paid by a workforce, as in, being 100% employed for his or her expertise, which leaves fairly a number of who get up day by day looking for extra money to proceed their careers in 2026 and past.”
Of these drivers who seek for cash, how do they make ends meet through the six month off season? Equally, how do the pit crew members survive the lengthy low season? I do know there isn’t a means I might go six months with out pay.
Jerry, Houston
MP: Paying drivers like Conor Daly, who carry hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to a workforce, signal agreements the place they obtain a share of what they carry, so it’s not a case of getting a paycheck each two weeks through the six-month season and being with out an earnings the opposite six. Conor has additionally been paid to drive by groups, which makes him a little bit of a unicorn.
However within the years the place he’s introduced sponsors and their {dollars} in change for a race seat, these like Daly go into the season with a six-figure earnings (or extra) baked into their contract, and receives a commission on no matter interval they’ve organized within the contract. On the crew aspect, groups rent their workers for the 12 months.
The one subject, which occurs greater than you’d suppose, is groups and sponsors in these preparations might be gradual to pay, or just fail to pay the driving force. Typically, drivers do their offers immediately with the sponsor and are topic to the identical slow-pay or outright failure to receives a commission.
It’s a brutal deal since drivers within the pay-to-race conditions who carry sponsors (as an alternative of household cash) are likely to reside modest lives and aren’t rich –not by racecar driver requirements. Some groups/sponsors are absolutely conscious of it, and know the driving force has restricted funds to struggle them in court docket, so the driving force will get screwed. I do know a number of drivers who’re chasing their share from two or three years in the past and at all times appear to be owed a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars}. It makes me unhappy.
Typically it occurs to the groups, as properly, the place a driver brings a sponsor, an preliminary cost is made, the sponsor seems on the sidepods for a number of races, the second cost was attributable to arrive, however will get ‘delayed,’ and since most groups taking paying drivers are determined for funding, they’ll hold the sponsor on the automobile within the hope of sustaining a constructive relationship – to get the cash they want and are owed – and it by no means reveals up.
This occurred in 2025 with a joker who pulled the identical stunt on a workforce about 5 years in the past. He confirmed up this season with a unique firm – I noticed him within the paddock at Barber and couldn’t consider he had the gall to indicate his face because the workforce he scammed continues to be within the collection – and he discovered a brand new mark that fell for a similar routine. I instructed the workforce concerning the earlier stunt, they usually mentioned they had been conscious of it.
Traditional ploy: Pay a little bit little bit of the large deal up entrance, string the workforce alongside, get a number of races of publicity, after which disappear once they notice it was vaporware. Embarrassing.
Q: You could have many associates and sources within the IndyCar world. What engine design do workforce house owners need assuming no workforce had a manufacturing facility deal or assist, or concern of Roger Penske? Stage enjoying discipline, 2026 and past.
Dave
MP: CART turbo V8s or F1 V10s and V12 from yesteryear. A couple of have instructed me they’d wish to see if IMSA GTP engines may very well be use, however they know all however the Acura wouldn’t come near becoming in that tiny area.
Q: In Chris’ response to a Mailbag query two weeks in the past, he mentioned that he thinks Colton Herta is doing two years of F2.
My understanding of how the F1 Tremendous License system works is {that a} driver has to earn 40 factors over a rolling three years. Colton Herta has 30 factors from second place in IndyCar in 2024, and 4 factors from 2025 for a complete of 34.
If Herta’s rookie F1 season goes to be 2028, then the 2024 Tremendous License factors will expire and Herta wants to attain 36 factors throughout 2026 and 2027.
Am I right in saying that Herta cannot afford to complete worse than fifth, value 20 Tremendous License factors, in F2 in 2026 if he desires a 2028 shot at F1?
Will, Indy
CHRIS MEDLAND: Not fairly, Will, however you truly illustrate my level for me. If Colton had a studying 12 months that left him ending exterior the highest 10 in F2, then he might end within the prime three in 2027 (value a full set of 40 Tremendous License factors), or fourth and nonetheless have 34 factors. He might additionally choose up factors by way of FP1 appearances for Cadillac.
After all, the identical continues to be true subsequent 12 months, so a prime eight end within the championship can be sufficient for Colton to get the Tremendous License factors, and he instructed me this week his goal is only one 12 months after which stepping up, however that there’s no rush to determine if a second may very well be an possibility.
Herta wish to be one and accomplished in F2. Joe Skibinski/Penske Leisure
Q: I’m within the minority and just like the dash races higher than one other follow session. However I feel two qualifying periods is an excessive amount of, particularly the dash qualifying which really feel rushed.
I would favor two follow periods on Friday with the outcomes from the second follow session used to line up the dash race, then the dash race and qualifying on Saturday.
What are your ideas on this?
David, Hilton Head, SC
CM: I don’t thoughts the concept of getting a unique technique to set the grid, but when the outcomes of the second follow session had been used, then it could nonetheless flip right into a qualifying session. So I feel it could should be a structured qualifying session slightly than a free-for-all hour while you’re unsure when a lap might show to be one setting the grid.
One cause that shorter qualifying exists, is to ensure there’s a aggressive session on day by day of the race weekend, which I additionally suppose is an effective transfer. And the 2 periods can typically ship completely different grids as groups be taught by way of the weekend, whereas for those who dropped that shorter qualifying utterly you’d find yourself with extra probability of repeat races from the identical beginning line-ups.
Perhaps the timings might be tweaked to make it really feel much less rushed, however I do suppose that’s simply going to be a byproduct of the primary qualifying session coming so early in a weekend, when there’s often an even bigger build-up to a Saturday afternoon.
Q: After Singapore, Lando Norris mentioned he would face some penalties for his collision with Oscar Piastri. Zak Brown confirmed there can be some sporting motion, and that it could “most likely not be observed.”
I feel I observed what that may be. In the course of the COTA race Martin Brundle commented on how lengthy Lando’s pit cease took, suggesting that McLaren must work on pit stops. I appeared on the McLaren post-race stuff they printed on-line and Oscar’s pit cease was 2.3 seconds whereas Lando’s pit cease was 3.9 seconds. I feel that the ‘penalties’ for Lando are going to be some barely slowed pit stops for a race or two (or extra!?).
What do you suppose? Am I simply trying too arduous and discovering proof to assist my idea? Contemplating Lando was quicker on monitor, I can not think about they added further ballast. The one factor that McLaren can truly management can be how lengthy it takes to do a pit cease, and it could definitely be a really cleverly hidden however actual consequence for Lando.
David Volk, Oregon, Ohio
CM: I definitely don’t suppose it’s that, David, as that may be a significant sporting hit and within the Austin case simply hurts Norris’ probabilities of beating a Ferrari slightly than serving to Piastri in any means.
There are a variety of different methods the workforce can favor Piastri – for instance, the way in which the drivers execute their run plans, the timing and order the automobiles depart the storage, the precedence the workforce provides in technique calls – slightly than one thing that’s as extreme as a race time loss that I’m sure no workforce would ever think about.
McLaren does want to enhance within the pits, although! That was one other gradual tire change on one nook and there have been a number of delays in current weeks that might show actually pricey within the struggle in opposition to Max Verstappen.
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, 23 October, 2013
Q: As an IndyCar lifer, I get very delicate at any time when NASCAR claims to be the best, most-skilled, finest, quickest, and so forth. In gentle of that, I would like somebody to elucidate to me (like I am a 5 year-old) how Talladega is the ‘world’s quickest racetrack’, as we had been reminded yesterday with unabashed fervor after each industrial break.
I perceive that the monitor’s measurement and excessive banking lends to increased speeds for NASCAR and that the restrictor plate controls pace, however I am not discovering the statistics that again up the declare of being the ‘world’s quickest monitor’. Is it a mentality of ‘if it did not occur in NASCAR, then it did not occur’?
My brother, who has drunk the NASCAR Kool-aid, checked out me like I used to be an fool and, dripping with contempt, instructed me, “It is the quickest monitor in NASCAR, and if the IndyCars ran on it, the drivers would cross out, so it is the quickest racetrack,” to which I responded, “However that hasn’t been confirmed.” Uncomfortable silence for a number of minutes. In all sincerity, please assist me perceive the place I am ‘off monitor’.
Cyndy Riordan
ROBIN MILLER: To begin with, smack your brother as a result of he is fallacious. Gil de Ferran set the all-time, one-lap oval-track report of 241mph at Fontana in 2001 in an INDYCAR!!! Final time I checked, the speeds on the Indy 500 had been 20mph faster than Cup automobiles at ‘Dega (and IndyCars lap IMS 40mph faster than Cup automobiles do). So smack him once more.
