Things have just got interesting
How Super GT could change Indycar forever
When a German touring car series and a Japanese sportscar championship decided to share a common rulebook last year, few people realised the implications.
The reasons for this Japanese-German collaboration became clear this evening with the announcement of a move into North America. The cars in this new series will all use a common chassis (as is discussed elsewhere) but more importantly they will use modern turbocharged direct injection four cylinder engines (dubbed NRE’s) which will produce around 600bhp in ‘boost’ mode.
These engines could have great potential in other applications, and indeed this has already become evident with Super GT’s open wheel sibling Super Formula. This class will run new all new Dallara’s in 2014 to in place its existing fleet of Swifts. This new car was designed to be faster than any other open wheel class including Indycar, indeed Formula Nippon cares were already quicker than the old Dallara IR07 around Motegi, and not that far off the back off the F1 field at Suzuka.
So could it be that with the arrival of six big manufacturers on the shores of North America next year with their extreme GT cars they may also bring along their open wheel concept to boot, and if all six manufacturers decide to support the open wheel class then it would be more than a threat for Indycar.
Of course there is no indication this would happen and indeed the Germans have shown no interest whatsoever in the open wheel series. But it could make sense, the DTM teams have been very keen to attract one or more of the big three US auto makers (or Mazda) to the new North American series.
Indycar immediately starts to look a lot less attractive to car makers, the DTM/GT500 alliance already has six manufacturers and the giant PR machines that go with them, not to mention the backing of NASCAR. But what if Indycar adopted the NRE engines then suddenly it could get five more automakers over night. Yes Honda is already involved but that does not matter, they are already building a NRE compliant lump but where would that leave Chevrolet?
In the perfect place to be honest, GM already sells plenty of cars using the two litre Ecotec so to have a racing engine that at least has the same dimensions is simply logical. Ford and Dodge would also be in a similar position. For Toyota and Nissan the lure of the Indy 500 is clear, but for Audi, BMW and Mercedes it must hold real appeal too. Especially if they did not have to build anything new.
But why not go the whole hog, why bother with the ugly DW12 anymore, the promised aerokits have yet to materialise, manufacturer interest is waning and the series is still miles away from where it should be. Why not adopt the SF14 already designed for the NRE, Dallara would’t care as they build both. Whilst the SF14 is built for road courses and meets 2010 F1 safety standards an oval racing version should not be all that hard to develop.
Indeed the only people who would object would be the team owners (who seem to object to everything) but the manufacturers can shout much much louder. Imagine the Indy 500 with the three Japanese automakers taking on the three from Germany and the three from the USA.
It´s from testing, 