LEO PARENTE: We're here at 2012 Toyota Grand Prix of Long
Beach on Saturday.
ALMS, American Le Mans day, not IndyCar day.
I'll explain.
But we came to watch the racing, not
get into rules roulette.
There are three things going on with the rules.
Number one, IndyCar has an engine change rule, and 14 of
the cars have to go back 10 places because
they changed engines.
Number two, yesterday American Le Mans qualifying was red
flagged, and we'll explain what that was all about.
And number three, we're going to focus on American Le Mans,
because we can't show you IndyCar action on track,
there's a new rule about videoing it.
But you know what?
We're here to talk about the good things, like the American
Le Mans GT class, which is really the
racing in that series.
Talk to the drivers about how those cars are being adapted
to this street course.
And number two, we'll talk to the IndyCar drivers, like
Rubens Barrichello, and get their comments on what it's
like to drive this new IndyCar.
We're on the ground at the ALMS paddock, it's driver
autograph signing time.
We're in front level five, we should see if Scott Tucker,
the owner/driver of that team, is signing autographs.
He's the guy involved in that FTC investigation, because if
I was the government, I'd slide a
subpoena under his cam.
Shakedown 2012, we haven't spoken a lot about IndyCar.
But we're here at Long Beach, and Long Beach is IndyCar.
So here we go.
Except when Tommy and JF went to the photographers briefing,
they learned that IndyCar no longer allows videotaping of
the cars on track.
It's all about the big networks like F1 and MotoGP.
So we can't show you the IndyCar action.
What we can do, though, is still talk about what's going
on with IndyCar here at Long Beach.
And it starts with the engine rules.
IndyCar with the new car is trying to control costs.
They've got three engine manufacturers now, so each
team is getting five engines for the 16 race season for
their $690,000.
Plus or minus some engines for Indy and testing.
But the bottom line is, those five engines have to run a
minimum of 1,850 miles before they change.
And if they change an engine before then, it's a 10
position penalty on the grid of the next race.
So Chevy had 11 engine changes, because one engine
blew up in testing and they were concerned
about all of them.
So they changed all 11 engines.
Plus, three other teams had changes, too,
in Lotus and Honda.
So 14 of 26 cars at Long Beach are starting 10 places back.
What you're hearing behind us--
hearing because we can't show you-- is IndyCar qualifying.
I wonder what it's going to be like for those 14 racers
knowing that whatever good time they lay down, it means
nothing, because it's 10 places back.
So we're not going to show you IndyCar action.
I wonder if IndyCar has figured out that they really
could use the promotion that shows like
Drive could give them.
But that's for another time.
What we're going to do now, the real
story of the new IndyCar.
And we talked to some of the drivers to understand what
it's like to drive this new piece of equipment.
After that, we've got a few more tidbits that we've
discovered, and we'll talk about that and the new car.
You mentioned the new car.
Different in terms of how your approaching driving it, versus
again, your past experience.
RUBENS BARRICHELLO: Very different.
It's no power steering in it.
Tires go from cold, to hot, which is very different to
Formula One.
And the car itself, very, very hard steering
with a lot of kickbacks.
And a heavier car with a turbo engine.
So altogether, if I had to tick boxes, I would be ticking
boxes all the way through and saying how different it is.
It's very different.
LEO PARENTE: Where's the balance in the car?
Is it under your butt, or is it nose?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO: No, the tendency of the car, obviously
with a heavy weight, it has some weight transfer on it.
But the car, it's not on the nose, it's a little bit tricky
on entry, and it picks up some understeer.
So that's a general, I don't know if there's only a KV
thing, I don't know if the Penske guys would
say the same thing.
But we're trying to get better on that
balance and to move forward.
TAKUMA SATO:You know, it's a lot of unknowns in an area
because it's a new car, you're trying to find
the best setup ever.
Every time jumping in the car, we're finding some new
[INAUDIBLE], which is a very exciting.
From a driver's point of view, it's not much different,
because you just drive it and you feel it, in that compared
to the previous session, or last year.
And it's making the car faster.
So I always like driving the new car.
LEO PARENTE: I don't want to fully decode what the drivers
told you, but there's more going out with this IndyCar,
and it starts with what they implied about weight.
When Dallara designed the car, they calculated a weight
balance front to rear, they missed by 5% too
heavy in the rear.
But racecar experts tell me if you miss by 1%, it's
catastrophic.
5, oh my god.
So what they did is lighten the gearbox and other pieces
back there, and then redid the suspension arms to move all
the weight of the car, to shift the entire body forward
on the wheel base.
It's healthy, but it hasn't fixed the problem.
Number two, if you watched the IndyCar broadcast, you're
hearing about a battery problem with the
car shutting down.
It ain't the battery.
The generic ECU is turning off the engine, and screwing up
the gear selection.
And they need to get that right before
they go to Indy 500.
The car shuts down to 100 miles an hour.
Finally, Honda want to put a new turbo.
They run single turbo, versus the twin turbos on the car to
improve driveability.
It was an approved IndyCar part.
But suddenly, IndyCar said no, and they had to pull that part
off the car.
Not because it was illegal-- they were afraid of the
slippery slope of encouraging all sorts of running changes.
But here's the bottom line, that's IndyCar.
Let's go over and look at ALMS where their problem wasn't
technical, just the weather.
Let's talk about American Le Mans, and yesterday's
qualifying session.
It had an impact on how the car were prepped for
qualifying and the rules.
Let's start with the conditions first.
Yesterday was rainy, and dry.
Qualifying started in the dry.
ALMS qualifying does their job by classes.
So the GTC cars went out and completed their
qualifying in the dry.
The rest of the field did not, and that immediately brought
it to affect the rules, red flagging
in the entire session.
Because the rules say, once you have deemed that a dry
session-- which they did, and stick with the dry tires--
once that condition change, everything's off, because
everyone has to qualify together.
Now there are a lot of teams pissed off in the paddock.
One was my Alliance associate, JDX racing, that qualified on
the poll in GTC.
But the bigger disappointment was all the fans that stuck
around to watch the ALMS cars compete and race, and qualify,
they have to go home alone.
But we also talked to Doug Fehan, because that situation
is something that's not unique, and sets up the
scenario of how these teams adapt to wet qualifying, wet
conditions, and dry racing.
Let's listen to Doug Fehan.
DOUG FEHAN: We're going to use our standard MO.
We run what's given to us, and we've got enough experience
and we can deal with most any track surface.
LEO PARENTE: OK, correct what I'm right or wrong about.
You can change setup between qualifying and race.
You can only run three tires and what you qualify on.
So if it goes dry, you have to keep those tires on, but you
can change setup?
DOUG FEHAN: Well, they'll declare it whether or not it's
a wet qualifying session.
And once they do that, then that exonerates you from
having to hold you to any sort of rules base.
Ordinarily, what happens in these cases is they'll declare
it a wet qualifying, you can make your tire choice, and
then you're free to run tires that you want to start the
race, assuming it's a dry race.
LEO PARENTE: Now we're going to show this on Monday, so I'm
going to ask you, are you running a wet setup, or some
type of compromise or expecting dry?
DOUG FEHAN: Well, we have to wait to see.
We've got way too much time, and there's going to be way
too many cars on this race track.
As breezy as it is and as clear as it's looking right
now, I'm expecting the lines going to be pretty dry, so
it'll probably be our dry setup.
There's not a huge difference between the two, I can tell
you that the most important aspect of what goes on here is
the traction control system, how effective it is, because
there's various levels of traction control.
LEO PARENTE: You can dial in.
DOUG FEHAN: You can dial in to driver.
It's driver adjustable.
So that's where the effectiveness of traction
control role is going to play huge role.
Secondarily to that, the wetter it is, the rear engine
cars are going to have a distinct advantage to that.
And you could see that in morning practice, they can get
the power down very, very, very quickly.
LEO PARENTE: One thing to say that Long
Beach is a unique track.
More importantly, we're going to talk to each of the drivers
of each of the cars and find out how those cars work on the
conditions that are uniquely Long Beach.
PATRICK LONG: Porsche is always good on the street
course, any small road courses.
And especially the ones that are low grip like the Long
Beach are good for us.
We're great in the breaking, we're pretty agile because
we're small in wheelbase, so we can turn quickly.
And then, of course, traction on the rear axle coming out of
the final corner with the rear engine 911 is always good.
For me, it's about the battle and navigating the traffic,
trying to make a break and run for it come the last 30, 45
minutes of the race.
But a big, big emphasis on strategy here.
Certainly, those guys are sweating it out two days
before the race, trying to decide when they're going to
dive into that one and only short pit stop.
JOEY HAND: Well, I mean, any street course, when you show
up, you've got to have a car--
I like the car that has a little bit of push, but you
have to have a car that's got a strong front.
It has good front grip, especially to the center of
the corner.
And so it's a fine balance because you need that front
grip, but you also be really good traction here, especially
at Long Beach.
Leading on the long straightaway, of course, you
do all the passing, you have the tightest
hairpin in racing really.
And we really need first gear, what I call power down grip.
And so we set up specially for this track,
with a special setup.
So you're always, always monitoring that, traction,
front grip, what do you want more?
MALE SPEAKER: You need a car that really can turn,
especially these tight corners.
But also, you need a car that can pull off quickly out of
the corners so you can have a good run for
the guys on the breaking.
SCOTT SHARP: Due to the rules nature, the restrictions and
all that, we're probably a little down in power, but I
would say one of the best breaking cars here.
The Ferrari overall, as the series goes for the season, is
very good high speed corners.
Just to think the downforce and balanced nature of the
mid-engine car, and the breaking.
That's really what our strengths are.
LEO PARENTE: As we know, the car is but
one part of the equation.
As Takuma Sato reminded us, the driver makes all the
difference.
Let's hear from some of the drivers about what they have
to do to make it work and go quick around Long Beach.
JOEY HAND: I think more so on the street course, it's more
about your muscle memory.
Of course you can't see around the corner, and normally what
you would say, textbook driving-wise is when you're
turning, you're looking at the apex, when you're heading to
the apex, you're looking out the track out.
Well a lot of these corners, you can't see the track out
when you're even at the apex.
So definitely it's a little different, but for me I think
that's why there's a little bit of advantage if you've
been here a lot.
You have that muscle memory, you know you turn in at this
point at turn three or four, and you turn in your roll
across center, and you know where you're going to go.
PATRICK LONG: You kind of have to know from the previous
years what to do on the car setup.
But certainly you're still turning in early, picking up
the throttle early, and kind of sliding across the apex to
the outside wall.
And you never get every last hundredth here Long Beach,
maybe that golden lap in qualifying, but what's on the
other side of that golden lap is a barrier
and a hurt race car.
So I like this place.
It's a thinking man's game.
You've got to conserve the tire, and
certainly work the traffic.
SCOTT SHARP: Critical to have a good breaking car.
That's really where you're going to get a pass back here.
So many of the GT cars are like speeded.
Obviously, going down into turn one is probably the
number one passing zone.
It's three, four cars easy wide.
You really get drafting, and tuck underneath somebody.
LEO PARENTE: OK, we've heard from Corvette, BMW, Porsche,
Ferrari, Aston Martin, who's here with the WEC [INAUDIBLE]
is getting ready for their Le Mans trip.
But what we haven't heard from are people at Lotus, who
brought the GTE Evora to American Le Mans.
And to do that, they picked the Alex Job Racing Team, an
old school guy that's been around this sport a long time.
The Evora has been tuned by Lotus, and updated for 2012
with a bottom bottom line.
There's a lot of development work necessary to adapt a car
was fundamentally built for European tracks to work on
American tracks, including street races like this.
So let's hear what Alex Job had to say about the car and
the development that goes behind it
to make it all happen.
ALEX JOB: This is a development year for us.
We've got a pretty big work list so far.
But the first day that we had the car on track was Monday
and Tuesday at Buttonwillow this week.
And we only got the car three weeks ago.
We had to the whole package together in three weeks.
So it's been busy.
But the starting package is really good.
Lotus has done an outstanding job with this car.
And we're starting with a really good starting package.
But we know Lotus and us in the series.
We all know that this is a development year and that
we've got a lot of work to do.
It's not a lot to develop, really, handling-wise.
We've got to develop engine.
We've got develop aero package, and then just
basically the whole mechanical package of the car.
LEO PARENTE: Now I understand that Lotus updated the car
from last year.
But, they're counting on you to make this
car work on US tracks.
So tell me a little bit about where that focus has to put
your team working.
ALEX JOB: Well as you know, the US tracks are very bumpy
as compared to the European tracks.
LEO PARENTE: Like Long Beach.
ALEX JOB: Yeah, exactly.
And that's why it was a good reason to go to Buttonwillow,
because it's very bumpy too.
And we fortunately found something, found a flaw in the
rear suspension that caused a failure at
Buttonwillow the first day.
Fortunately, we found it there and not here
LEO PARENTE: Saturday end in Long Beach.
IndyCar qualifying finished, and 7 of the top 10 got
penalties to go back 10 places.
I have no idea who was on the poll, I think it's Dario
Franchitti in the Honda.
But the real action was the American Le Mans race.
And I got to tell you, while it was good all through the
grid, the real story was the GT racing, once
again, proving its pace.
Corvette won the race, but Scott Sharp called his pass
for P3, the wide track allowing him to take that
position from the other Corvette.
We got some great video of Aston Martin passing Falcon,
as you saw.
It was all very, very good.
But I gotta tell you, I wonder if American Le Mans should
really start concentrating on GT, and maybe have those other
smaller categories of classes go away.
But that may be too ambitious for them.
At the end of day, I hope you liked the race car pron, all
that rain racing, on the trackside
we showed you Sunday.
We're going to cover F1 on our Friday Shakedown.
That's it from Long Beach.
Not sure we're coming back on Sunday, because, since IndyCar
doesn't want us to video, I may not
watch them out of protest.