Many of the top levels of motorsports have traded or will soon trade their tried-and-true race cars for new racing machines.
NASCAR was first with the NextGen car that has dramatically changed the racing and the cost structure of the teams. Instead of building many of the pieces in the race shops, teams purchase a majority of the parts, including the composite body, from a single supplier. The cars were designed and developed by Dallara and the chassis are made by Technique, Inc.
The NextGen car began competition this season.
IMSA is rolling out the LMDh program next season, which means new racing machines for what is now the DPi class. That is perfect timing for Team Penske, which is in the midst of creating the Penske Porsche that will compete in IMSA and the World Endurance Challenge beginning in 2023.
Current DPi teams such as Wayne Taylor Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Meyer Shank Racing and Action Express will also transition to the new machines.
IndyCar is the only one of these three series that does not have a new car in its plans, but it has a new engine platform for 2024. IndyCar will use a 2.4-liter, twin-turbocharged V-6 engine with hybrid-assist in 2024. Combined with the burst of speed provided by the hybrid-assist, which stores energy from the car’s braking system, Indy cars will exceed 950 horsepower, a huge gain over the current formula.
It will also keep IndyCar as a primarily internal combustion engine series, while helping the automotive industry as it moves toward more hybrid and electric vehicles in the future. These programs are both very important to IndyCar’s engine manufacturers Honda and Chevrolet.
It can also help a potential third engine manufacturer consider IndyCar as a new partner.
Operations such as Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Meyer Shank Racing are involved in both IndyCar and the new LMDh Series in IMSA. Team Penske is the only racing operation with both an IndyCar and NASCAR Cup Series programs.
Tim Cindric is the president of Team Penske and spoke with SPEED SPORT at the team’s Mooresville, N.C., shop. He emphasized that new cars coming into racing are being overseen by the OEMs.
“Now, LMDh in particular is still limited to how many manufacturers you can have,” Cindric said. “It’s not an open playing field.”
The Penske LMDh was designed by Porsche and produced by Multimatic, while the Cadillac-designed car was produced by Dallara.
“The limitations in LMDh are much more than it used to be, but it is a significant challenge,” Cindric said.
Team Penske has created programs the last three times it has participated in sports car racing. It was with Porsche and the famed Spyder machine in the LMP2 division of the American Le Mans Series from 2006-’08 and the rival Grand-Am Series in 2009. Team Penske was part of the Acura program in DPi from 2018-’20.
After leaving sports car racing in 2020, it created a partnership with Porsche for an IMSA and WEC program.
“It’s a lot more than producing and designing parts; it’s what are the short- and long-term goals of those involved in the program,” Cindric said. “We went through that with Porsche back in the day. In the beginning, it was racing in LMP2 and then Porsche building customer cars in LMP2, but it evolved into a race against Audi and Porsche.
“Then Acura became involved, and it became a tight race between the Acuras and the Porsches.
“It’s an OEM-driven initiative in the beginning and someone like us is expected to deliver on the execution on the racing side,” Cindric added. “But the Porsche-Penske association going forward is a lot different than what we experienced with the Spyder.”
With the new Porsche program, the design is Porsche initiated but Penske has much more influence on the design and direction of the program.
“This is Penske and Porsche doing this together rather than the way it was put together in the past,” Cindric explained.
Jota in WEC and JDC Motorsports in IMSA will also campaign the Porsche LMDh at some point. The Penske Porsche Motorsport shop is located in Mannheim, Germany. Many of the top Penske team members are already working at the facility, with 40 to 50 people on each program.
The team will run two WEC cars out of Mannheim and two IMSA cars out of North Carolina. IMSA and WEC have different testing rules. In WEC, its unrestricted testing, but in IMSA it’s 16 days after the car has been homologated.
“The cars have not been homologated,” Cindric said. “It’s unlimited testing until it is homologated and that is typically November. After that, it’s 16 days of testing based on the current IMSA rules.
“We’ve done all of our testing in Europe at this time.”
Many race fans believe the heritage of Team Penske is in IndyCar, but in reality, it’s sports car racing. Penske Racing began in 1966 but didn’t begin an IndyCar program until 1969. The team dominated Can-Am and other forms of sports car racing, long before Mark Donohue won the team’s first Indy car race at Pocono Raceway in 1971.
“If you look at the Indy 500, it’s an endurance race relative to IndyCar,” Cindric said. “The sports car racing has to do with endurance and preparation. That has been one of our strengths over the years. People come and go, but the guy that has been here since the beginning, there is only one of us and he has an attention to detail like no one else.”
When it comes to creating a new car and program, sports car racing may be more user friendly than NASCAR and IndyCar in terms of testing.
“The expectation for the series in NASCAR is to run 30-40 of the same specification,” Cindric said. “That is not what happens in sports car racing.
“It’s a different mindset relative to the expectation of the participants. You have class racing in sports cars. The class racing in some cars goes from a handful of cars to 20 cars in other classes with an overall field of 60 cars.
“NASCAR is a roof-top series with street-car influence on those series.”
NASCAR tightly controls testing as does IndyCar.
“What you test and use on a Cadillac is different than what you test and use on a Porsche,” Cindric explained. “But in NASCAR and IndyCar, you are using the same race car that are all within a certain performance box.”
NASCAR has had great success with its NextGen car, with improved racing at many of its tracks while standardizing the car itself. IndyCar has used the same Dallara chassis since 2012 with a variety of iterations in terms of body work and aero kits.
Many race fans and even some engineers in the paddock would love to see a new race car. IndyCar officials remain steadfast that with a new engine package on its way, now is not the time to increase team expenditures with a new car. IndyCar starting lineups are at their highest since the pre-split days with most races on the schedule featuring 27-car starting fields.
“We don’t need a new car right now,” IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske told SPEED SPORT. “We need to do one big job at a time. We’re coming out with a 2.4-liter engine. Both manufacturers have run them successfully at this point. The hybrid will be the next piece of that. We’re going to continue. It’s going to be evolutionary for the cars. We’re going to add things to make them safer, potentially faster.
“To me, we’re talking about the team and we’re talking about the driver, I’m not sure the people in the stands care about what car it is, they want to see their driver and team on the track.
“I’m not in a hurry,” Penske continued. “We pushed the rules in Indy Lights out a few more years. We need to have cars and lower costs. If you took the 33 cars times two, that’s 67 cars and each car is $400,000 to $500,000, you are talking $25 to $30 million to come up with before you have any spares.
“I don’t see that happening in today’s economy.”
IndyCar President Jay Frye outlined many reasons why a new car is not a high priority.
“There has been conversation of a new car, but what is the new car?” Frye asked. “Is it where we continue to work on what we have and update it to make it better, lighter, that type of thing?
“There are 100 things we are working on. The first part is the engine and hybrid piece, how it is going to fit in an existing car and how it is going to work moving forward.
“Our racing product has been very good. Why would a new car make what we are currently doing better?” n