Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers may 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: I do know it sounds fickle, however after watching Components 1 fumble throughout itself to all of the sudden discuss to Normal Motors now that Michael Andretti has stepped down, I’d like to see a complete energy transfer from GM as soon as negotiations are full:
“After cautious consideration we’ve determined Components 1 wouldn’t deliver sufficient worth to the Normal Motors model to warrant the upheaval of its addition to the collection.”
Third provider in IndyCar engines as a substitute?
Brad, Seattle
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’ve heard the GM-to-IndyCar rumor since 2010 however can’t discover any proof that claims it should occur. Fingers crossed.
Q: The announcement that Wayne Taylor Racing will function the Cadillac GTP program in IMSA for 2025 didn’t point out Andretti International as a accomplice. The RACER.com article famous that Wayne Taylor mentioned the crew title was modified from WTRAndretti to WTR on the request of Cadillac. Is Andretti International nonetheless concerned? Looks as if there may be extra to this when a major accomplice’s title is faraway from the crew title.
What’s the newest beyond-the-scenes developments with Andretti International/Cadillac’s efforts to get into F1? Is the Andretti International F1 facility actually persevering with to employees up and work on a 2026 automobile? I’ve learn hypothesis that with each Michael Andretti and Greg Maffei out of their respective roles, together with the US Dept. of Justice investigation continuing, that there could also be a compromise within the works to permit an eleventh crew on the grid. Feedback attributed to Mario Andretti and Eddie Jordan not too long ago suggest one thing is within the works sooner relatively than later.
David, Danville, CA
MP: You despatched this previous to Monday’s formal affirmation of the Cadillac F1 program being accepted for 2026, however as I wrote within the first Mailbag after Michael was uninstalled at his personal crew, all of my sources positioned this as a high-level transfer to weed out the problematic facets of Cadillac’s efforts to succeed in F1.
Liberty Media had main points with the Andretti. And Normal Motors, as I used to be informed, additionally took problem — far an excessive amount of drama and public-facing instability for its liking — and an initiative to maneuver ahead with out the Michael Andretti distractions was hatched to get Cadillac into that eleventh F1 entry slot.
The whole lot we’ve seen since then has fallen in keeping with what these sources spelled out in September as a result of that’s exactly what’s been unveiled.
We additionally famous how, in all the pieces previous to Michael’s exit, the F1 crew was introduced as Andretti+Cadillac, and the way in a post-Michael world, the brand new positioning was of Cadillac because the entrant, minus the Andretti title. However that by no means meant the Andretti crew went away.
Consider the Sauber F1 crew, which glided by Sauber or some model of Sauber eternally, and the way it fell again and renamed itself Alfa Romeo Racing from 2019-2023. All of us knew it was Sauber making the vehicles and operating the crew, but it surely was introduced as Alfa. That’s what’s happening with the elimination of Andretti from the now-it’s-Cadillac-F1 routine.
On the WTR facet, Andretti International is concerned, however largely by title by means of possession of WTR as a substitute of being intermingled within the crew’s each day actions. Andretti utilized a major layer of oversight and involvement of their first season collectively in 2023, and the result was removed from harmonious. Andretti pulled again and let WTR be WTR in 2024, which was tons higher, and that’s the way in which it should possible keep.
Regardless of being wonderful in sports activities vehicles for a short interval from 2007-2008 within the former American Le Mans Sequence, Andretti International should not specialists in IMSA or hybrid GTPs, whereas WTR are among the many greatest, making the current shift in the direction of being a standalone operation a wise one by its mum or dad firm.
If GM joins IndyCar as a producer, I’ll have fun by sporting one thing fancy like a bowtie to the press convention. Matt Fraver/IMS Photograph
Q: I’ve been to the Roush Automotive Assortment a few instances each time there was an open home when NASCAR got here to Michigan. There’s a Whistler Mercury Cougar IMSA GTO automobile, and shut by is Tommy Kendall’s All Sport Mustang that he raced in Trans Am. Simply by trying on the our bodies, it appears to me the IMSA GTO and Trans Am vehicles from the late ’80s and early ’90s look fairly related. What are the similarities and variations between IMSA GTO and Trans Am from that period, and will vehicles from these rivaling sanctioning our bodies compete in each collection?
Brandon Karsten
MP: Roush routinely rebodied his Bob Riley-designed tubeframe Ford/Lincoln Mercury/Merkur GTO and Trans Am vehicles to make use of in each collection. Engine displacement and configuration have been the principle differentiators, however the vehicles — minus paint and stickers — have been largely an identical.
Q: In your podcast two weeks in the past you mentioned that when a brand new chassis comes on the market will likely be solely 25 vehicles, not 27 like IndyCar has now. Why is that, and which groups will lose a automobile?
Paul, Indianapolis
MP: It’s not official, however each crew proprietor I’ve spoken with relating to charters has mentioned in some unspecified time in the future that they count on the discharge of latest vehicles to coincide with Penske Leisure trimming the sphere from a max of 27 vehicles to 25.
As for the place the 2 deleted vehicles would come from, there’s no reply, because it hasn’t been formally adopted. However I’d begin with the three-car groups (Andretti, Ganassi, McLaren, RLL, and Penske) as the primary candidates to cull one automobile. The opposite choice to handle is whether or not model 2.0 of the constitution, assuming the 25-car restrict is carried out, would permit extra non-charter entries to attempt to qualify for these 25 spots.
Would a kind of three-car groups trim to 2 chartered vehicles and attempt to bump their manner into the races with a 3rd and newly unchartered automobile, offered it was allowed?
Q: Good on FOX for not solely getting considered one of their extra widespread personalities into the five hundred Tempo Automotive, but in addition utilizing a superb chunk of prime NFL pregame present to announce it to the midday Sunday NFL viewers. Now, possibly Strahan may have been higher knowledgeable about a number of the particulars of the job forward of him, however to have Will Energy’s automobile and the tempo automobile there within the studio with them and to spend that a lot time on it – these are good indicators.
Aitch, Richmond, VA
MP: It’s the most recent instance of how the FOX deal is the largest achievement by Penske Leisure because it purchased the collection. The NFL pre-game present on FOX is sponsored by Verizon, so utilizing Energy’s Verizon-sponsored automobile through the shoot was a wise and apparent selection.
However I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t inform you that in a paddock that’s all the time on excessive alert for issues that might be a battle of curiosity in a collection owned by Penske the place Penske additionally competes, not each response to this has been optimistic.
A name from one particular person requested why Penske was utilizing the chance to profit himself with considered one of his vehicles on a giant nationally-televised present, as a substitute of serving to one of many different IndyCar groups — presumably one which isn’t as financially safe — to make use of the hit to land a large sponsor. I can see how Penske-helping-Penske was the takeaway for some, and if the present wasn’t sponsored by Verizon, I’d possible agree. However this made sense to me, so I don’t agree.
