IndyCar: Overheard at Watkins Glen – Bourdais to Coyne and more (5th Update)
10/09/16 Dale Coyne has confirmed that Sebastien Bourdais is on the brink of being announced as a DCR driver in 2017, and is set to make his return to the team in the eight-car test on the Gateway oval this Thursday.
The four-time Champ Car title-winner has been linked with Coyne since late August, when his former engineer at Newman/Haas Racing, Craig Hampson, departed Andretti Autosport for Coyne's Plainfield, Ill. – based squad.
Bourdais has raced for Coyne in the past – a partial season in 2011 – before joining Dragon Racing's now defunct IndyCar team, for whom he scored three podium finishes in 2013.
Bourdais' past three seasons at KVSH Racing have yielded four wins and two tenth places in the championship. But this year inconsistent results saw him slip to 14th in the standings, and with KV's future direction looking uncertain, Bourdais elected to jump ship.
Coyne told Motorsport.com: "We're going to Gateway with a 'TBA'! But your guess is pretty good. The deal isn't completely done yet, but we should be able to announce Sebastien in the next couple of days. And yes, Craig [Hampson] will be at the test.
"It's going to be nice; they're a strong combination, as we saw year after year back in Champ Car.
"But like I said, it's not finalized yet, I guarantee you that." David Malsher/Motorsport.com
09/04/16 Regarding the Bourdais rumor below, AR1 hears that Craig Hampson will be Bourdais' engineer at Dale Coyne Racing. Hampson was of course the engineer for Bourdais' four Champ Car titles with Newman/Haas Racing from 2004-2007. Most recently, Hampson was the engineer for Townsend Bell's 2016 Indianapolis 500 effort.
09/04/16 We hear Michael Printup is very happy with the attendance at Watkins Glen and we hear 40,000 are in attendance.
RACER is rumoring that American Honda/Honda Performance Development is seriously pursuing Ganassi for 2017. They are also rumoring that Andretti Autosport is pursuing Josef Newgarden to form an all-American 4-car team.
"We would be remiss if we neglected to explore any option which could strengthen our program in either the short or longer term," said Art St. Cyr, president of HPD. "This is the time of year when we are talking to all the teams in the paddock, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything is imminent."
When asked on Sunday if he would be open to switching back to Honda, Ganassi sarcastically replied: "Yeah, and I'm switching to Toyota in NASCAR too. I have no idea where this stuff starts."
We hear Takuma Sato is negotiating to renew with the Foyt team for last year.
09/04/16 AR1 sources have learned Bourdais is signed at Coyne so we updated our IndyCar Silly Season page to reflect that as 'fact,' even though the team continues to deny the deal is done yet. Matt Brabham is here looking for a full-time IndyCar ride for next year and if not, he wants to at least do the Indy 500.
RC Enerson might just be the next American IndyCar star. Impressive in his debut at Mid-Ohio, Enerson has been equally impressive this weekend putting the Coyne Honda 11th on the grid, making it through to round 2 in qualifying, and then he was 2nd quick in race trim in morning warmups. Keep your eye on this kid. Will Coyne pick Enerson to race alongside Bourdais in 2017? Coyne now has two very good race engineers in the form of Mike Canon and Kyle Brannan and could do big things in 2017 with Bourdais and Enerson.
But where does that leave Conor Daly who also is doing a good job and who we thought was already signed with Coyne for 2017. Would Coyne run 3 cars? That is what we hear will happen.
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| Bourdais headed to Coyne? |
09/03/16
Word in the IndyCar paddock here at beautiful Watkins Glen is that there may be zero passing on Sunday. The downforce is so high the drivers are going to shatter the lap record, but the racing could be horrible.
The drivers are pulling over 5Gs lateral load through the Carousel and it’s a wonder to watch the IndyCar close-up in the corners. You can hear the tires on the limit of adhesion as they chatter across billiard-table smooth asphalt.
But the huge downforce means very short braking zones – making it near impossible to pass under braking. And because the straights are not long enough to use push-to-pass and pull off the pass, it may be follow-the-leader on Sunday. We also hear the G-loads are so high some drivers are going to be struggling to finish the race from a physical standpoint.
Low downforce separates the good drivers from the poor drivers. High downforce masks driver weakness and takes talent out of the sport. While high downforce may break track records, track records do not put people in the grandstands, good racing does.
We hear Dale Coyne will run 2 cars again next year and rumor has it that Jonathan Byrd will hopefully return. We also hear that Sebastien Bourdais is in play at Dale Coyne Racing along with Conor Daly and RC Enerson. Apparently KVSH Racing has no sponsorship for 2017 (because of low TV ratings on NBCSN) to retain Bourdais and will have to rely of ride-buyers to prop up the team financially. So Bourdais has been talking to other teams and we hear there is a good chance he will land at Coyne. Coyne refused to comment specifically only saying "we are talking to everyone."
The Byrds were devastated by the loss of Bryan Clauson. They supported Clauson for years in USAC short track racing and also his Indy 500 effort. Speaking with David Byrd here at The Glen you could see he was fighting to hold back tears behind his sunglasses.
We talked to him about bringing another short track driver to Indy but he explained such a process is a minimum of 3 years to get the driver ready.
Graham Rahal is still on a high after winning at Texas. "In that moment, you’re loving it," said Rahal, who scored his fourth series victory and first since an emotional win at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in August 2015. “When you’re battling wheel-to-wheel like that, there’s nothing better than racing somebody mano-a-mano, doing everything it takes to get the win. Obviously, very fortunate that we came out on top.
“If anything, I noticed this week, I’m sleeping a lot better. My wife (Courtney Force) will probably tell you I’m a lot nicer. I feel like the monkey is off my back. It had been a year since we had won, or just at a year. Felt like this year we were just knocking on the door constantly. I saw today we were third-most top-five finishes of the whole series, yet still just had a lot of disappointments. It was nice to get that win out of the way.
“Special race. Glad everybody came out in one piece. Glad to be here. Two races to go. See how it goes."
As we heard before, the rumor is getting stronger that IndyCar will freeze the current IndyCar aero packages for 2017, thereby assuring that Chevy dominant IndyCar again in 2017. Either allow Honda and Chevy to make some changes for 2017 in say, just one area, or risk losing Honda after 2017. Their contract with IndyCar is only through 2017.
For the meantime, it appears Honda is resigned to finding more horsepower to make up the deficit in drag to the Chevrolet.
Word is that the Andretti team has renewed with Honda, but we do not know for how many years. We also hear that Michael Andretti and Bryan Herta are confident of re-signing Indy 500 winner and most likely 2016 IndyCar Rookie of The Year Alexander Rossi, hopefully with sponsorship from NAPA and Castrol. However, Racer.com reports that Marco Andretti will move over to Herta’s side of the garage and Rossi will move over to Andretti’s side of the garage. Marco Andretti has been a backmarker too long and the change of pace might help him. We asked Bryan Herta about this and although he would not deny those discussions have taken place he told AR1 he "does not want to be distracted with that right now and we are going to look at where every person is in the team in the offseason to improve the team. Obviously we are struggling and we need to improve."
Talk about stupid, why do the teams do their own shock program? It does not put a single new fan in the grandstands, costs the teams a lot of money, and gives the big budget teams an added advantage because of the additional shock R&D they can do. Talk about insane! Does IndyCar want Penske and Ganassi to win every race?
Rumor has it that Oriol Servia might drive the final IndyCar race of the season at Sonoma for Sam Schmidt. Recall, Servia ran this year's Indianapolis 500 for Schmidt, finishing 6th. We also hear the Spaniard in the fire for a full-time ride in 2017.
Rumor has it that Lon Bromley, who is from Oregon and is the COTA medical and safety director, is returning home and Roy Spielmann of the IndyCar Holmatro Safety Team will move to Texas to become the Texas Motor Speedway medical director.
We talked to Zach Veach, who won Saturday’s Indy Lights race and his #1 choice for 2017 is a fulltime IndyCar ride if he can raise the money, and if not at least an Indy 500-only deal. A sports car gig would be his 3rd choice.
We also spoke Ed Jones who has tested with the Rahal IndyCar team and spoken to some other teams. Of course, in the end it comes down to bringing sponsorship.
Andre Negrao, who finished third in today's Lights race also has IndyCar aspirations, But unlike the other two Indy Lights drivers, Negrao has yet to test an IndyCar, but will do so for Sam Schmidt at Sonoma this week. Mark C. reporting from Watkins Glen.