IndyCar ramblings from Barber test
The rookies seem to be showing fairly well on the time sheets so far, but buzz seems to indicate that the top teams have nothing to prove here and are working on specific tuning and other things. We might see some time sheet showing toward the end though.
The Ganassi team, with their satellite team will have limited sharing between the teams we hear. Dixon and Franchitti said they don’t want the new team to change anything that they have been doing the past couple of years. So don’t expect to see Rahal and Kimball in the same debriefings as Chip's marquee drivers. It seems that data sharing will take place though but that the second team will run with more of its own autonomy.
Oriol Servia says he is all set at Newman-Haas. It is the James Hinch ride that is in question, as the deals for the funding have not been signed. It is not certain that he will be in a car in St. Pete.
Alex Zanardi's name is being tossed around the rumor mill for one of the "outsiders" to catch the $5 Million bonus for the Vegas race. Randy Bernard denies it however, but that is his job after all…
Talking about James Stewart getting in the mix, when asked what is to be thought of a totally inexperienced driver from motocross hopping in an IndyCar, Randy Bernard said "Well, yeah…he would have to do a lot of testing before we could really talk seriously about that happening…" We would think so, or else we will put our own Scott Morris in for that prize, since he has raced karts for AR1 in the past, which is more experience than Stewart has in an open wheel car…
It was also said that it would be very surprising not to see the NASCAR Bush names in there, since that is their home town. Everyone in the media room seemed to all nod when talking about Kyle Busch. One person from one of the networks even stated "You could probably give Kyle one of those 3-wheeled cars and he could give it a good run" We suspect they were talking about the Delta Wing…