The thrust of the first day of the 91st Indianapolis 500 Media Tour on April 4 represented the questions about what changes and what stays the same.
100 percent fuel-grade ethanol will be used for the first time in the race and will have an effect on pit stops. Danica Patrick comes to Indy with Andretti-Green Racing, a new team. Michael Andretti decided to run the 500 again, giving his team five cars bidding for spots in the 33-car starting field.
Its A. J. Foyts 50th year at Indy as a driver and/or owner. Englishman Darren Manning is back, and learning to speak Texan with Foyts team. Sam Hornish Jr. and Helio Castroneves come back with Penske Racing and three victories among them, the last being Hornishs breathtaking win at the wire last year. And Sarah Fisher said the difference in her approach to Indy now is, in a sense, growing up.
All of them talked about it Wednesday as the month of May approaches for the annual Memorial Day weekend classic.
A lot was said about Danica two years ago, said Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Joie Chitwood, but we had 27 lead changes in that race, and 22 were on the race track, not in the pits. Last year, the 500 had never had a lead change on the last lap, and we had one in the last 200 yards. Im not sure what the 91st Indianapolis holds for us, but its up to us to set the stage.
The ethanol fuel, according to Brian Barnhart, president of the competition and operations division of the Indy Racing League, could present a new change in scenarios on pit stops, although it probably wont change the number of them.
In oval-track mileage, they get 3.1 to 3.3 (miles per gallon) on ethanol compared to 1.8 to 2.0 on methanol a few years ago, Barnhart said. With the smaller fuel cell (22 gallons instead of 30), it may take longer for the tire changers than the fueler.
Les Mactaggart, the Indy Car Series senior technical director, said the switch to ethanol was seamless.
I dont think it really could have gone better, Mactaggart said. It was about this time last year when we started to look at it seriously as an alternative fuel source. The major burden was on Honda to run the fuel and really, it just became an adjustment rather than major changes. They had to do simple adjustments in mapping to run the way we wanted it to. Weve adjusted the size of the fuel tanks because were using 30 percent less fuel. The other major change is were putting a little more heat in our water so we had to look at cooling system efficiency. Really, thats the sum total of the changes.
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Five cars for AGR: Andretti-Green Racing has some changes, but co-owner Michael Andretti said the chemistry the team has strived for is still in place. Danica Patrick is added to the driver lineup of Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Marco Andretti, and Michael will run a fifth at the Speedway.
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