Saturday Evening IndyCar Notebook from Phoenix

Leist caused multiple yellow flags tonight

The IndyCars are running under the lights again at ISM tonight, testing the new Dallara car on the tricky oval. The weather is perfect at 69 degrees tonight. The evening session had a yellow flag at 7:20 pm for Matheus Leist, Foyt Racing's rookie driving their number 4 car. The young Brazilian managed to just brush the wall with no damage to the car. Leist also had a moment on Friday night where he also saved the car from damage.

Just as the field was becoming racy, the yellow came out at 8:29 pm for Scott Dixon, the Ganassi Racing number 9. Dixon had an incident in the infamous turn two, which seems to be a popular place for drivers to make mistakes. The car was towed back to the garage with some minor damage to his back wing and left rear suspension. Dixon was unhurt.

Dixon commented, "We were just in traffic. It was our second or third lap out of the pits. A couple of the Andretti cars got by and were a little bit slower. I got low in turns 1 and 2, touched the throttle and had a bit of a run and lost the rear. Kind of late in the corner but just touched with the rear."

Another yellow came out for rookie Matheus Leist at 8:41 pm. Leist made light contact with the SAFER barrier in turn 4. Then Leist caused the another yellow 8:50 pm when he again made light contact with the barrier in turn 4.

The final yellow flag came at 8:57 pm when Josef Newgarden, the 2017 series Champion, brushed the wall slightly in turn 4. The checkered flag ended the session shortly after that.

Jay Frye was asked what kind of feedback the drivers are giving him regarding the new car. Frye replied, "Yeah, I think one of the big goals and missions I think we've already accomplished here, if you notice cars are going into the corners and they're lifting, so that's not necessarily something that was happening before. So yeah, the car we think aesthetically looks really good. It so far has performed like we thought it would here, and this was one of our bigger challenges was this racetrack. So far, so good."

Will Power was 2nd quick in the final night session

"We talked to 10 of the drivers last night after the session. There were probably 10 different opinions, which was really good. I mean, really, because the cars — they have to do different things. The cars were set up differently. So it's going to be more of an à la carte situation, I think, and different driver styles. I mean, this is our first group test we've had this year, so, so far, so good."

The grumble I heard from teams the last 2 days is that the electronics on the new car are not quite right yet. We have seen the cars run without issues but apparently the teams were not given much advance notice on the changes and all the boxes and wires are quite different from the old car.

Spare parts for the cars is the other big issue. The Andretti Autosport team were asked this question in the Friday afternoon press conference. Alexander Rossi, driving the number 27 Napa Auto Parts car and 2016 Indy 500 winner, was a bit surprised at this issue. Rossi commented, " I just found this out 20 minutes ago, that there weren't parts. That was an eye opener for sure. It's not a good thing at all. I mean, there's one set of parts that isn't available till April. I don't know what that means."

There were mixed comments on whether we had parts or not. The new team owner for Carlin, Trevor Carlin, also expressed his concern. He feels that all teams are in the same place with spares not being available to any team. Carlin joked, 'If we don't crash a car today, we will have two cars start at St. Pete."

I am off to the winter wonderland at home. The first race is March 11th in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Lucille Dust reporting live from ISM in Phoenix.