An Entry Into Indy
An F1 fan walks into a bar...
A season breakdown
After three races, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson leads the championship with 110 points. His fifth year in IndyCar follows a standout 2022 season, winning the Indianapolis 500 and coming in sixth in the championship. The former Formula 1 Sauber driver kicked off 2023 with a top-step podium finish in St. Petersburg, Fla. — the first race of the year.
The second race of the season, hosted by the Texas Motor Speedway, saw Josef Newgarden win in his Team Penske Chevrolet. The American driver swapped places throughout the race with McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, providing an action-packed 250 laps with cars grazing each other at speeds over 200 mph.
The excitement continued as the Andretti Autosport rookie, Kyle Kirkwood, won his first IndyCar race on the streets of Long Beach, Calif. The race also featured multiple tight-corner collisions, one involving O’Ward and six-time IndyCar champion, Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing). Previously leading the championship, O’Ward dropped to second place in the standings following a 17th-place finish.
A case for IndyCar
F1 has become mainstream in the United States thanks to Netflix’s Drive to Survive and the on- and off-track personalities. Is IndyCar next?
Despite its origin, team headquarters, and nearly half of the drivers hailing from the United States, IndyCar is far less popular than F1 among American viewers. Roughly 1.3 million Americans tune in to see IndyCar’s European counterpart each race while IndyCar draws the same number of total viewers on Sundays, according to NBC Sports and ESPN.
This difference in spectatorship seemed obvious when trying to find a place to watch the Long Beach Grand Prix come last Sunday. The highly regarded and unofficial NYC IndyCar bar, according to Reddit, was permanently closed following the pandemic. At an Irish bar on the Lower East Side, it took asking three times for a barman to turn on the race, and, with 30 laps to go, the channel switched to horse racing. All the while, a two-story bar dedicated solely to F1 sat a block away, Ferrari flags and all.
The new series, 100 Days to Indy, drops this week. The show, giving viewers a glimpse into the professional and personal lives of drivers, is an unsurprising move in light of MotoGP and F1’s reality TV success. As the F1 to IndyCar pipeline builds, I’m pleading my case for the sport.
IndyCar is surprisingly refreshing in its authenticity. It’s a show for sure, with gun-wielding and cowboy hat-wearing podium finishers. But F1 has become, and arguably has always been, about the spectacle, not only of fast cars and high-speed crashes but of opulence and image. It’s attractive because its untouchable and an aesthetic spectators can only dream of achieving. F1’s biggest race winding through the streets of Monte Carlo versus Indianapolis paints a vivid picture of the contrast — from celebrities roaming the paddock to yacht-lounging spectators.
IndyCar is fast and a sight in its own right. However, it’s the approachable cousin of F1 — from its lower price tag entry fees to on-track personalities.
The biggest race of the year, the Indianapolis 500, starts at $42 for grandstand tickets to Sunday’s race. The Paddock Penthouse runs at $339 and one of the most expensive tickets, the Tower Suites, costs fans over $2,000. In comparison, weekend-long grandstand tickets for the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix will go on sale for $500 after price complaints, but current tickets start at $1,819.08, according to the official F1 website. In classic Vegas style, Caesars Entertainment is offering a lavish race-week experience totaling $5 million.
Prices aside, the on-track action is appealing as well. A wreck that would surely result in a trip back to the garage or an on-track tow in F1, is casually brushed off by IndyCar drivers as they continue to race. Two drivers, Simon Pagenaud (Meyer Shank Racing, finishing 26th) and Kirkland (finishing 15th), were airborne on separate occasions during the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
IndyCar also provides an opportunity for overlooked F1 drivers to shine. Roman Grosjean (Andretti Autosport), the former Haas, Lotus, and Renault F1 driver, only stood on the podium 10 times over 181 races in his 11-year career and retired from F1 in 2020 with zero wins. In IndyCar, Grosjean has finished on the podium five times over 33 races and started on pole in two races. In the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, he led the race for 31 laps and finished second in Long Beach.
Action also comes in the form of overtakes.
F1 hit an unprecedented 161 overtakes in one race at the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix, trumping the record-breaking 79 at the 2011 Turkish Grand Prix, according to Motosport.com. Comparatively, the 2018 IndyCar St. Petersburg Grand Prix made history with 366 overtakes.
Although many would argue IndyCar has nearly double the number of laps in certain races compared to F1, the Chinese Grand Prix circuit is 190 miles whereas the St. Petersburg Grand Prix is 180 miles. IndyCar also counts lapping or unlapping as an overtake.
The sheer number of overtakes reflects the competitiveness of IndyCar. F1 fans have expressed discontent with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen as he continues to dominate race after race with a car constructed to be faster than the rest of the grid. IndyCar does not focus on the construction of the cars, unlike F1’s Constructors Championship, and follows a spec car format. Cars have a similar build and engine, meaning a more even playing field.
In F1, even if the best of the best start in the back of the grid, the pure power of their engines makes a top-five finish more than likely, unless they retire. In IndyCar, anyone could win. Kirkwood’s first-place finish on the Long Beach street circuit was a prime example of the thrilling and unpredictable nature of the series.
“You could qualify 20th on race day and you turn up here and know you could still win, if things go your way, you could win,” Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske) said in an interview on the Red Flags Podcast.
“It’s IndyCar, you can’t predict it.”