Overheard at Watkins Glen – 2 (Turbo V6 for the IRL)
08/23/08 As AutoRacing1.com told you in our rumors posted from Infineon yesterday – The sweet sound of turbocharged engines is expected to return to Indy-car racing in 2011, officials said Friday at Infineon Raceway. The plan to switch from the rougher-sounding normally aspirated V-8 engines — used in the Indy Racing League since 1997 — will be shared with industry executives during a meeting next month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
IRL presidents Brian Barnhart and Terry Angstadt said they expect auto manufacturers interested in participating in the series to embrace this decision because it was their consensus at a meeting in June. The decision left to be made centers on engine size. Two are being considered, Barnhart said.
Erik Berkman, president of Honda Performance Development, said the debate "is over four (cylinders) or six." "But both of them include turbos," Barnhart said. "One of them includes twin turbos."
The IRL is seeking to increase engine power from 650 horsepower to about 750. The IRL's next roundtable meeting will be Sept. 16-17 at the Speedway. The event, like the initial one in June, will be closed to the public. More than a dozen manufacturers attended the June meeting, and Barnhart has said he expects "three or four," including Honda, the only current participating manufacturer, to show serious interest and perhaps commit. IndyStar
08/10/08 Per this Hot News article, Ford will turbocharge 90% of its engines by 2013. More evidence the IRL will need to copy Champ Car's turbo formula to stay current with engine trends.
And now we learn that Mercedes will turbocharge 100% of its engines by 2010.
07/16/08 GM will turn to small four-cylinder power plants, such as the 1.4-liter turbocharged engine. That engine will arrive with the Chevrolet Cruze, the replacement to the compact Chevy Cobalt, which is also reworked as a Pontiac G5.
The turbocharged four-cylinder engine fits perfectly with the way Americans drive, said analyst Jim Hall, the president of 2953 Analytics. "We don't drive flat out on the autobahn," Hall said. "Americans like cars that launch well."
On the Cruze, the turbo will allow for a quick start, but once it hits highway cruising speed, the turbo will stay off and the small displacement engine will sip fuel all the way to Chicago and back, averaging around 45 mpg.
GM also plans to unveil a new engine next year in the Chevrolet Equinox: A 2.3-liter direct injection four-cylinder engine that promises high gas mileage. There's the potential to see these engines work their way into current models, boosting fuel economy. Think Saturn Aura and Astra and Pontiac G6.
In the meantime, introducing more hybrids and improving transmissions will also bolster mileage. GM recently became the first carmaker to mate a four-cylinder engine with six-speed automatic transmission on its new Malibu, boosting its mileage to 32 mpg on the highway. "You're going to see a lot more cars using six-speed transmissions," Lutz said. Detroit News
07/07/08 As we reported/rumored below, it's likely that the next IndyCar engine will be a turbo V6 and this Auto Observer article appears to substantiate this as almost all manufacturers will be rolling out an abundance of turbocharged engines in the next several years (more power from a smaller displacement engine for increased fuel mileage) and a turbo V6 layout is going to be quite common. Will the V8 be dead?
07/06/08 AutoRacing1.com has learned that this is not the last year on the contract between McDonald's and Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. In fact this weekend Justin Wilson is featured on McDonald's cups and tray liners at 95 McDonald's restaurants in central New York. Good to see them finally starting to activate around their driver. We also learned that Graham Rahal is still under contract to NHLR next year so he isn't going to Team Penske. Mark C.
07/04/08 Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Fiat, Mazda and Volkswagen sent representatives to the IRL's recent engine forum to discuss the future specifications for Indy car racing. Engine builders Cosworth, John Judd, Ilmor and AER were also in attendance. A source that asked to remain anonymous told AutoRacing1.com that the afternoon format was interesting in that everyone sat around a square table and each representative had a button to push to vote anonymously on a whole range of questions around IndyCar's future engine formula. "I was surprised at how much agreement there was in the room given the diverse number of entities represented. There was a general agreement that the next engine should be turbocharged. However, it was the last two votes of the day that surprised a lot of people."
- Given what you heard today, would you be interested in participating in the series with the new engine formula? 93% voted yes, which underscores how well the forum went and the future support the series can anticipate.
- Given what you heard today, will you participate in the future meetings on this topic? 100% voted yes.
From another source we heard Brian Barnhart favored a 4-cyclinder engine format but the engine reps appeared to gravitate toward a turbo V-6 arrangement.
Another rumor we heard today was that with just one car sponsored (Wilson with McDonald's) and ailing Paul Newman and Carl Haas getting up there in age and losing their focus on racing, the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team may be down to one car in 2009 and Graham Rahal could go to Penske Racing. Rahal is Roger's kind of guy – young, fast, well spoken and very polished.
We also hear that there will be less than 20 races on the 2009 IndyCar schedule and that the schedule will be announced at the end of July.