The RACER Mailbag, October 22

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.

Q: What are the chances Mick Schumacher drives for Rahal next year? To do this they would have to do something with Devlin DeFrancesco’s contract. Can they get out of that?

What about ovals? If I remember correctly his father and uncle Ralf are not fans of ovals.

David

MARSHALL PRUETT: If Mick wants to become an IndyCar driver, he’ll have a car and team to call home at RLL. It’s up to him to decide whether to make the switch to America.

Whatever his dad and uncle thought about ovals has nothing to do with him. He’s his own man. The fact that he came to test an IndyCar would suggest he’s interested. His post-test comments in a media session hosted by IndyCar included comments from Mick that his next test would need to be on an oval to get a proper feel for the series.

DeFrancesco’s contract is believed to contain performance clauses that needed to be hit in order to trigger a return in 2026. If that’s true, placing 26th in the championship – next to last – would not have met any minimums I can think of.  

Q: Well, how about this. I guess it is possible for a racing series other than NASCAR to thrive in October. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. 

Derek

MP: I was so happy to see that average viewership of 2,065,000 people for the post-NFL-game NHRA race, and yes, it confirmed – as much as something happening once can confirm – it’s possible for IndyCar to get the same kind of lift by wedging races in right after the last NFL game of the afternoon… which I seem to recall saying wasn’t possible from a programming standpoint when someone asked about it here in the last month or so.

Excited to be wrong, and as you noted, all it takes is a willingness between FOX and IndyCar to cook up the 2027 schedule, since the 2026 calendar is done, to include some September and October Sunday dates where IndyCar follows immediately after the final NFL on FOX game airs.

Having grown up working in IndyCar and its feeder series where it was normal to race into October – it happened as recently as 2013, when the season finale was on Oct. 18 – I’d welcome breaking free from the NFL-inspired programming jail we’ve had since 2014.

Q: I’ve written before about my hope that IndyCars would return to Phoenix. Glad they’re doing so, and I think it’s a good idea for them to do it with a NASCAR weekend. Just hoping that the promoters will actually promote it!

I’d suspect they’ll have a test day ahead of time. Have you heard anything about that? I’d also hope that it would be open to the public to help build interest in the event.

Nick Plenzick, Clarkdale, AZ

MP: First run, which is a tire test, is slated for early November (I don’t have the exact date) and another is planned for January, likely for the full field. I was recently told by someone who knows that the Saturday Phoenix race date will not have IndyCar in a late morning slot, but rather in more of a featured afternoon broadcast window. 

Q: I just watched practice for the U.S. Grand Prix and I noticed a hint of flow visualization, or ‘flow-vis’ paint on a Ferrari. It’s common to see flow-vis paint in F1, but what about other series? I asked online about IMSA, NASCAR and IndyCar. It seemed to indicate that IndyCar uses flow-vis paint but we never see it, or maybe we don’t get a chance to see it. I googled for pictures of IndyCars with flow-vis paint on them and I got nothing. RACER has a vast collection of photographs. Do you have any pictures of IndyCars, or any series other than F1, with flow-vis paint on them?

Tim Davis, Detroit, MI

MP: Struggling to think of the last time I saw flow-vis on an IndyCar. With the spec bodywork used from 2012-1014 and 2018-today, there’s been no need to use it in public tests since there’s nothing new in need of flow visualization. But I might be forgetting a team or manufacturer using it late in 2011 or early 2012 when the Dallara DW12s were new.

I’m sure the custom manufacturer aero kits saw flow-vis applied during private offseason testing in 2014 through the next few years before the freedoms were locked down leading into 2017.

Q: Do you know, or know somebody who might know, the whereabouts of the ceremoniously-placed gold plated brick that completed the 1909 paving of IMS?

Rick

MP: I do not, but I’m sure a Mailbag reader might know.

Q: Assuming Colton Herta does in fact have an F2 seat for next season, which may be announced before the next Mailbag is published, his racing calendar is still wide open in the month of May. Also assuming he doesn’t have test or practice sessions for F1 during the handful of Indy practice, qualifying, and race days, are there any plans in motion for Herta to attempt the 500 in 2026? Or am I assuming too much?

Pete, Rochester, NY

MP: He’s headed to the Hitech Grand Prix team. I asked the team about the Colton/500 angle on Monday and they said it’s still a topic of discussion for Herta, and whether Marco Andretti makes a return.

Herta’s extremely smart and versatile, which would make it easy for him to add a 500 program into his F2 and F1 testing season, but with two Indy 500 winners on the full-time roster, I’m not sure I see the need to reinsert Colton beyond the basic appeal of doing another 500.

Since Herta’s career is being rerouted to Europe to get to F1, throwing an Indy 500 program and all of the intense preparation it requires would do nothing to get him closer to the primary goal. There’s an open window in the schedule, as you mention, but I can’t find the value or logic in such a move. Importing Herta for Indy wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I also like the idea of letting the new trio of Power, Kirkwood, and Ericsson build on their chemistry without too many one-off voices in the room.

Q: I know my two questions have been discussed in the past, but experiencing it was significant in my mind! I had not attended an IMSA race since the early ‘80s at Road Atlanta, until this year’s Petit Le Mans. What an outstanding event! It was the largest crowd I have ever seen at Road Atlanta, with all the camper spots taken!

But the biggest wow were the fan areas; the large size, with multiple food trucks, the merchandise for sale with large tents from manufacturers Ford, Lexus… very impressive.

My question is, why can’t my favorite series, IndyCar, duplicate this? I usually attend the Barber race, and the fan area does not compare to IMSA’s at Road Atlanta. IndyCar management needs to attend next years Petit Le Mans to get a better idea what fan-friendly support is all about! IndyCar can do much better – it should be the best!

Secondly, during the autograph session, I asked Scott Dixon, “Why not IndyCar at Road Atlanta”? His answer; “I have never received a good reason why they cannot race IndyCar at Road Atlanta, it would be a great venue.” I encouraged him to keep asking! Having witnessed several F5000 races at Road Atlanta in the 1970s, I think it would be an epic event to watch at my favorite track! 

TSS, Germantown, TN 

MP: It would be epic. Probably gotten this question in the Mailbag 20 times and the answer is the same: An IndyCar is too fast in some sections to race without significant safety changes to the circuit. GTP cars and LMP2s are super-fast as well, but they’re also fully enclosed and have the equivalent of an extra IndyCar tub’s worth of crushable structure or more on both sides of the drivers.

I wouldn’t use Road Atlanta’s big vendor midway real estate atop the hill as an example that can be replicated at every track, but there are some long or large stretches like it at select IndyCar venues – Laguna Seca, Portland, Indy, Long Beach, Mid-Ohio, Road America, and Nashville come to mind, and I’m sure there are others.

The key difference with IMSA’s big midways and some of the smaller ones seen in IndyCar is the manufacturers. Chevy and Honda rarely pay for a large plot for big displays where three to five new car and truck models are presented for fans to peruse – like a mobile dealership brought to the race track – but it’s the exact opposite in IMSA, where there are 18 manufacturers competing across the range of series. A number of those brands need large footprints to erect their displays and present their road cars, and that’s why the average IMSA midway is a sizable thing.

I spent time at Petit Le Mans drooling over BMWs and Cadillacs in those displays… knowing I had no chance of taking one home…

The other fun aspect of the IMSA vendor midways is the variety of sellers that I rarely see at IndyCar events. Plenty of auto/racing book/magazine/poster retainers, lots of model sellers, artists doing live art and selling prints, and general merch sales with hats, shirts, stickers, and so on. I bought a Rexy hat from the AO Racing merch trailer, and a few of the stickers at three for $5. I also found a framed photo of Bob Leitzinger’s IMSA GTU Nissan 280 ZX from 1982 or 1983 for $4 and had to take it home.

Q: I thought you might get a kick out of this: IndyCar vs NASCAR at Road America.

I have no idea if this is reasonable or wishful thinking. What do you think?

Doug Mayer, Revelstoke, BC, Canada

MP: That’s fun! No doubt it’s possible. After F1, an IndyCar is the fastest open-wheeler in the world on road courses, and a Cup car would probably rank 10th to 12th after all the Indy NXT and F2 and similar junior open-wheelers and GTPs and LMP2s and quick GT classes, so there’s no surprise here.  

I vote that we ditch the simulators and settle these sorts of questions the old-fashioned way. Swope/Getty Images

Q: In the Mailbag last week, you wrote, “Of the 27 full-time drivers from 2025, I count 17 as being properly paid by a team, as in, being 100 percent hired for their talent, which leaves quite a few who wake up every day searching for more money to continue their careers in 2026 and beyond.”

Of those drivers who search for money, how do they make ends meet during the six month off season? Similarly, how do the pit crew members survive the long off-season? I know there is no way I could go six months without pay.

Jerry, Houston

MP: Paying drivers like Conor Daly, who bring millions of dollars to a team, sign agreements where they receive a percentage of what they bring, so it’s not a case of getting a paycheck every two weeks during the six-month season and being without an income the other six. Conor has also been paid to drive by teams, which makes him a bit of a unicorn.

But in the years where he’s brought sponsors and their dollars in exchange for a race seat, those like Daly go into the season with a six-figure income (or more) baked into their contract, and get paid on whatever interval they’ve arranged in the contract. On the crew side, teams hire their employees for the year. 

The only issue, which happens more than you’d think, is teams and sponsors in those arrangements can be slow to pay, or simply fail to pay the driver. Sometimes, drivers do their deals directly with the sponsor and are subject to the same slow-pay or outright failure to get paid.

It’s a brutal deal since drivers in the pay-to-race situations who bring sponsors (instead of family money) tend to live modest lives and aren’t wealthy –not by racecar driver standards. Some teams/sponsors are fully aware of it, and know the driver has limited funds to fight them in court, so the driver gets screwed. I know a few drivers who are chasing their percentage from two or three years ago and always seem to be owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. It makes me sad.

Sometimes it happens to the teams, as well, where a driver brings a sponsor, an initial payment is made, the sponsor appears on the sidepods for a few races, the second payment was due to arrive, but gets ‘delayed,’ and since most teams taking paying drivers are desperate for funding, they’ll keep the sponsor on the car in the hope of maintaining a positive relationship – to get the money they need and are owed – and it never shows up.

This happened in 2025 with a joker who pulled the same stunt on a team about five years ago. He showed up this season with a different company – I saw him in the paddock at Barber and couldn’t believe he had the gall to show his face since the team he scammed is still in the series – and he found a new mark that fell for the same routine. I told the team about the previous stunt, and they said they were aware of it.

Classic ploy: Pay a little bit of the big deal up front, string the team along, get multiple races of exposure, and then disappear when they realize it was vaporware. Embarrassing.

Q: You have many friends and sources in the IndyCar world. What engine design do team owners want assuming no team had a factory deal or support, or fear of Roger Penske? Level playing field, 2026 and beyond.

Dave

MP: CART turbo V8s or F1 V10s and V12 from yesteryear. A few have told me they’d like to see if IMSA GTP engines could be use, but they know all but the Acura wouldn’t come close to fitting in that tiny space.

Q: In Chris’ response to a Mailbag question two weeks ago, he said that he thinks Colton Herta is doing two years of F2.

My understanding of how the F1 Super License system works is that a driver has to earn 40 points over a rolling three years.  Colton Herta has 30 points from second place in IndyCar in 2024, and four points from 2025 for a total of 34.

If Herta’s rookie F1 season is going to be 2028, then the 2024 Super License points will expire and Herta needs to score 36 points during 2026 and 2027.

Am I correct in saying that Herta can’t afford to finish worse than fifth, worth 20 Super License points, in F2 in 2026 if he wants a 2028 shot at F1?

Will, Indy

CHRIS MEDLAND: Not quite, Will, but you actually illustrate my point for me. If Colton had a learning year that left him finishing outside the top 10 in F2, then he could finish in the top three in 2027 (worth a full set of 40 Super License points), or fourth and still have 34 points. He could also pick up points through FP1 appearances for Cadillac.

Of course, the same is still true next year, so a top eight finish in the championship would be enough for Colton to get the Super License points, and he told me this week his target is just one year and then stepping up, but that there’s no rush to decide if a second could be an option.

Herta would like to be one and done in F2. Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

Q: I’m in the minority and like the sprint races better than another practice session.  But I think two qualifying sessions is too much, especially the sprint qualifying which feel rushed.

I would prefer two practice sessions on Friday with the results from the second practice session used to line up the sprint race, then the sprint race and qualifying on Saturday.

What are your thoughts on this?

David, Hilton Head, SC

CM: I don’t mind the idea of having a different way to set the grid, but if the results of the second practice session were used, then it would still turn into a qualifying session. So I think it would need to be a structured qualifying session rather than a free-for-all hour when you’re not sure when a lap could prove to be one setting the grid.

One reason that shorter qualifying exists, is to make sure there’s a competitive session on every day of the race weekend, which I also think is a good move. And the two sessions can sometimes deliver different grids as teams learn through the weekend, whereas if you dropped that shorter qualifying completely you’d end up with more chance of repeat races from the same starting line-ups.

Maybe the timings can be tweaked to make it feel less rushed, but I do think that’s just going to be a byproduct of the first qualifying session coming so early in a weekend, when there’s usually a bigger build-up to a Saturday afternoon.

Q: After Singapore, Lando Norris said he would face some consequences for his collision with Oscar Piastri. Zak Brown confirmed there would be some sporting action, and that it would “probably not be noticed.”

I think I noticed what that might be. During the COTA race Martin Brundle commented on how long Lando’s pit stop took, suggesting that McLaren needs to work on pit stops.  I looked at the McLaren post-race stuff they published online and Oscar’s pit stop was 2.3 seconds while Lando’s pit stop was 3.9 seconds.  I think that the ‘consequences’ for Lando are going to be some slightly slowed pit stops for a race or two (or more!?).

What do you think?  Am I just looking too hard and finding evidence to support my theory?  Considering Lando was faster on track, I can’t imagine they added extra ballast. The only thing that McLaren can actually control would be how long it takes to do a pit stop, and it would certainly be a very cleverly hidden but real consequence for Lando.

David Volk, Oregon, Ohio

CM: I certainly don’t think it’s that, David, as that would be a major sporting hit and in the Austin case just hurts Norris’ chances of beating a Ferrari rather than helping Piastri in any way.

There are a number of other ways the team can favor Piastri – for example, the way the drivers execute their run plans, the timing and order the cars leave the garage, the priority the team gives in strategy calls – rather than something that is as severe as a race time loss that I’m certain no team would ever consider.

McLaren does need to improve in the pits, though! That was another slow tire change on one corner and there have been a few delays in recent weeks that could prove really costly in the fight against Max Verstappen.

THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, 23 October, 2013

Q: As an IndyCar lifer, I get very sensitive whenever NASCAR claims to be the greatest, most-skilled, best, fastest, etc. In light of that, I need someone to explain to me (like I’m a five year-old) how Talladega is the ‘world’s fastest racetrack’, as we were reminded yesterday with unabashed fervor after every commercial break.

I understand that the track’s size and high banking lends to higher speeds for NASCAR and that the restrictor plate controls speed, but I’m not finding the statistics that back up the claim of being the ‘world’s fastest track’. Is it a mentality of ‘if it didn’t happen in NASCAR, then it didn’t happen’?

My brother, who has drunk the NASCAR Kool-aid, looked at me like I was an idiot and, dripping with contempt, told me, “It’s the fastest track in NASCAR, and if the IndyCars ran on it, the drivers would pass out, so it’s the fastest racetrack,” to which I responded, “But that hasn’t been proven.” Uncomfortable silence for several minutes. In all sincerity, please help me understand where I’m ‘off track’.

Cyndy Riordan

ROBIN MILLER: First of all, smack your brother because he’s wrong. Gil de Ferran set the all-time, one-lap oval-track record of 241mph at Fontana in 2001 in an INDYCAR!!! Last time I checked, the speeds at the Indy 500 were 20mph quicker than Cup cars at ‘Dega (and IndyCars lap IMS 40mph quicker than Cup cars do). So smack him again.