“I’m gonna go fast and turn to the left!”
That’s ridiculous.
Any Indy fans here to refute this slander or alternately explain this madness?
Nope its definitely accurate!
Indycar does not have a constructors championship, and the format encourages each car to operate as its own team, and since all the teams (except McLaren) are owned by one random guy, that encourages them to make each car they field to have more sponsors. And the brand appeal of like, one guy, isn’t as powerful as something like McLaren, a famous car company with the color Orange.
Anyone heard of Penske? RLL? Meyer Shank? Dale Coyn? No. Aside from Penske, those other names are only big names within Indycars history, just like Hendricks is only big inside Nascar history.
IndyCar is pretty popular, but because of the company split in the 90s, there was no one to compete with Nascar throughout the 90s and 00s in terms of US popularity. So essentially the entire series is really behind and hasnt built up financial appeal to sponsors.
Thus, in order to keep staying in business, the teams sell ad space on the cars anytime they can, leading to teams running special liveries for one race, a driver bringing a big sponsor so the team changes the car to accomodate, and all the cars look different.
Different enough to warrant a spotters guide for a few races.
IndyCar could change that by enforcing a team liverie, but I bet the teams wouldn’t like that.
For an average race, the teams don’t really do team orders. It’s VERY rare. And teams usually allow their own drivers to fight hard all the time. Since teams as a whole don’t affect the race, you don’t focus on that much.
Team owners only care if one of their drivers causes another to crash, and they don’t care who wins because each driver they field is another chance at a win.