http://www.bleacherreport.com/articles/280...ake-Formula-OneGraham Rahal says finishing in 15th place “isn’t cool.“ Marco Andretti’s still wary of the sport’s politics after his father’s disastrous 1993 season. Danica, Helio, are Dixie are all committed to American ovals for the foreseeable future, as opposed to the European road courses of Formula One.This season is much different for the Indy Racing League.
As opposed to 2007, when the series' two top drivers’ departures made the biggest headlines of the season, the IRL finds itself in a much more comfortable position in 2008, especially against Formula One. With the sudden ability to retain all of its drivers, the league appears poised to build a solid foundation of drivers and teams that may last 10 years down the road.
The reunification of the IndyCar Series and the Champ Car World Series this season, as well as the continued domination of Ferrari and McLaren in Formula One, hint that the top American open-wheel racing series may soon claim superiority over its more expensive European counterpart.Many Formula One supporters will scoff at the mere notion of any open-wheel series ever overtaking the FIA’s longtime crown jewel. Only Formula One boasts the best drivers in the world, they might say, and any driver who can’t make it in the series just isn’t committed enough to run the best cars in the world.
How can a series based around a budget of $3 million compete with a racing industry that boasts billions of dollars worth of technology?The answer is simple: The IndyCar Series provides actual competition.
Forget Max Mosley’s sex scandal and any other matters of racing politics across the pond; they’ve been discussed at great length already. Formula One has been little more than a parade for the past decade or so, with the only question being which Ferrari or McLaren driver would take the top spot on the podium (Fernando Alonso being the lone notable exception).
Michael Schumacher won five consecutive championships from 2000 to 2004. The last constructor to win a race besides Ferrari or McLaren was Renault: with Alonso driving, the team won the Japanese Grand Prix on October 8, 2006. That was 20 months ago.In the 12 IndyCar Series seasons that have been completed since the series’ first race in 1996, only one driver has won multiple championships: Sam Hornish Jr. won in 2001 and 2002 with Panther Racing, and again in 2006 with Penske Racing. Counting the history of Champ Car as well, since 1996, 18 drivers have won major open wheel championships in the United States.
In that same period of time, six drivers have won Formula One championships. Three of those drivers won more than one, with Schumacher‘s five the mark to beat.
It’s not rocket science that domination does not make for good racing, and neither do parades. This is exactly why the IRL—despite taking its knocks from the viewing public for years—puts out a better on-track product than Formula One does at this point.
Even before the unification with Champ Car, bringing the decade-plus schism to a merciful end, the on-track product was more entertaining, and more drivers had a chance to win races. At least nine teams—both Penske cars, both Ganassi cars, all four Andretti-Green cars, and Panther Racing’s lone entry—found their way into victory lane between 2005 and 2007.
Accounting for the fact that two drivers, Dan Wheldon and Marco Andretti, scored victories in Andretti-Green’s No. 26, a total of ten drivers accounted for these wins. For reference, the IRL had an average of 18 cars each of those years.
Meanwhile, 10 Champ Car drivers found their way into victory circles with six teams during that time frame—Sebastien Bourdais, Oriol Servia, and Bruno Junqueira with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing; Nelson Philippe and Robert Doornbos with Minardi Team USA; Paul Tracy and A.J. Allmendinger with Forsythe Racing; Cristiano da Matta with PKV Racing; Justin Wilson with RuSport; and Will Power with Walker Racing. For reference, Champ Car also had about 18 cars per race in each of those years.Accounting for the fact that Servia and Junqueira shared a car in 2005, 18 different entries and 20 different drivers won the 48 IRL races and 41 Champ Car races contested in the last three years. Adding Rahal, Danica Patrick, and Ryan Briscoe this season, 23 drivers have won the 96 races put on in total.
In that same time frame, eight drivers have won 54 Formula One Grands Prix: Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella, Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kimi Raikkonen, and Michael Schumacher.
As Raikkonen replaced Schumacher at Ferrari and Alonso replaced Raikkonen at McLaren, those 54 wins have only occurred in seven different cars. Button’s win with Honda at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix was the only race of those 54 not to feature a Ferrari, McLaren, or Renault driver on the top step of the podium. After six races in 2008, no driver or team has added his name to this list.Eight drivers in 60 races with four different teams; 23 drivers in 96 races with ten different teams.
The numbers don’t lie.
But are those numbers skewed by the fact that two open-wheel series existed in the United States at the time? Absolutely. One cannot assume that had the Champ Car World Series and Indy Racing league run a combined 18-race schedule in those three years, a total of 23 different drivers would have won races—although many of them would certainly have come close. (To mention the winners is to speak nothing of the drivers who have come close to victory. Vitor Meira, Tristan Gommendy, Dan Clarke, and Scott Sharp most readily come to mind.)
Yet of those 23 winners, the only defections have been Hornish, Allmendinger, and Dario Franchitti to NASCAR, and Bourdais to Formula One. Philippe, Doornbos, and Tracy are all actively seeking rides in the unified series. Da Matta is an exception to the rule - after nearly being killed by a collision with a deer in a 2006 testing accident, he is racing sports cars for Bob Stallings Motorsports.
That still leaves 15 different race winners from the past three years, out of 27 entries. Subtract Enrique Bernoldi, Jaime Camara, Jay Howard, Mario Moraes, and E.J. Viso-the series’ five true rookies this season - from the equation, and the tally is 15 out of 22 experienced drivers with wins in the past three seasons.Only eight of Formula One’s 22 current drivers have ever even won races - forget the past three years. Although the sport goes through drivers like a baby through diapers sometimes, shuffling out consistency and experience for youth and quickness, it should be noted that only three of this season’s drivers were not in the series’ paddock last year.
Which series sounds more competitive to you?
If Formula One fans are not dismayed by the fact that IndyCar Series racing offers more drivers and teams a chance to win races, they also have the Champ Car unification story to consider. With 10 drivers and six teams having switched series for this season, the IndyCar Series has two distinct marketing advantages: one, that American open-wheel racing can finally define a single true champion; and two, that they can play up any major gains by Champ Car drivers in the new series, with Rahal’s win in his first start at St. Petersburg only the first big story.
Watching the Champ Car teams get accustomed to (and perhaps one day dominate) the ovals of the IndyCar Series is an occurrence many fans can look forward to. By 2011, when new cars and engines are introduced, both Champ Car and IndyCar teams should be on even footing.The facts don’t lie. IndyCar racing is simply a more competitive and more entertaining form of open wheel racing than Formula One at this point, and it appears destined to continue on its upward swing for a very long time.
The Indianapolis 500 undeniably is a legitimate race again, despite years of claims from purists that series owner Tony George tainted the race by creating the IRL to feature it.
Drivers are excited to compete in the new series, with many of them no longer even considering NASCAR offers. Fans are excited to see all of their favorite stars competing in the same place again. Perhaps most of all, executives are excited for the series’ future prospects, with many projecting an eminent boom for the series—more sponsors, more chassis and engine manufacturers, more teams and drivers, more races in more locations.Truth be told, it’s only a matter of time before Formula One fans grow tired of the sport’s politics and parades and shift their allegiances to the Indy Racing League.
Things are different now.