The 43-year-old spoke out his frustrations after being collected in a last-lap crash that additionally noticed AJ Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb get airborne within the second leg of the doubleheader spherical at Iowa Speedway final Sunday, which got here after being an harmless bystander in one other late incident within the first leg the night time earlier than.
A mix of things, headlined by a current repave to the corners of the 0.894-mile oval, led to what Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward known as “a snoozefest” and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou stating the race weekend was “probably the most boring factor I’ve ever achieved.” Throughout a mixed 500 laps, there have been zero on-track passes for the lead, with Race 1 that includes 100 overtakes for place and 95 for Race 2; in comparison with final 12 months when there have been 319 passes in Race 1 and 379 in Race 2. It additionally didn’t assist that qualifying endured a weird state of affairs attributable to points with the hybrid unit for a number of drivers, together with Race 1 pole-sitter Colton Herta.
When talking with a small group of the media after the second race, together with Motorsport.com, he went a step additional and recommended the brand new hybrid unit, which was launched midseason to start with of the month at Mid-Ohio, isn’t doing something to boost the on-track product and hurting issues total.
“I’m in all probability going to get in hassle for talking as candidly as I’ve, however I like this sport and I like our followers,” stated Carpenter, a three-time pole-sitter within the Indianapolis 500.
Ed Carpenter, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, Colton Herta, Andretti International w/ Curb-Agajanian HondaJosef Newgarden, Group Penske Chevrolet
Picture by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Photos
“We will repair this. We’re spending some huge cash to make our racing worse. Present me the third OEM that’s coming in. Present me that Honda’s leaving. We have now an excessive amount of momentum to make choices which can be hurting our sport. That’s my feeling.”
With 4 of the final six races being on ovals, together with the season-finale at Nashville Superspeedway, Carpenter, the one driver/workforce proprietor within the collection, despatched a transparent message to the followers.
“I feel this was exaggerated just a little bit due to the brand new asphalt, however on the similar time get used to this,” Carpenter stated.
“Get used to this. I examined at Nashville and Milwaukee, talked to Alex (Rossi) after he examined at Gateway, the ovals are gonna seem like this.
“Till we work out the right way to get the downforce, tire package deal proper and get some weight again off of them… to me, I perceive why we’re doing the hybrid, so we will say we’re a hybrid collection, however it’s costing us a bunch of cash making the product worse. I don’t see the purpose.”
Ed Carpenter, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet
Picture by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Photos
That sentiment has been shared by a number of members of the paddock throughout a number of groups privately to Motorsport.com all through the season, however Carpenter is the primary to talk publicly concerning the matter and believes it shouldn’t have been launched.
“It (the on-track racing product) wouldn’t have been nice,” he stated, “however it might have been higher as a result of it’s the costliest 100 lbs I’ve ever bolted on my race automobiles.”
And Carpenter doesn’t attribute blame on Firestone for the tire compound as a part of the rationale for the dearth of passing this previous weekend.
“It’s simple to bag on them,” he stated. “I feel they made good changes from the check till now. You may solely ask a tire to take action a lot.”
Troublesome to move
Whereas Carpenter believes the racing will enhance because the monitor floor degrades, the largest challenge with the hybrid is the way it hinders an opportunity to comply with and move others.
“To me, and from speaking to folks, with the burden of the automobiles now, it’s so laborious to comply with and I feel that’s what you’re going to see within the subsequent occasions,” he stated.
“It’s very laborious to comply with, which when you’ll be able to’t comply with shut you’re not capable of get a run to make passes; it’s a problem. It’s one thing we’re going to have to determine as a sport as a result of we’ve received too good of a product to take a decisive step again in our product by one thing of our undoing.”
And he went a step additional to notice the sensation of getting a hybrid unit within the collection was extra of a box-ticking train than the rest.
“, there was a ton of testing achieved to get the hybrid to the place it’s right this moment, which they did a superb job,” Carpenter stated.
“It really works. It capabilities. We’re a hybrid collection. However, it’s not impacting the racing and it’s asking loads out of the automotive after which the tires, and thru all that testing they did, I don’t know that they actually did sufficient tire testing and we’re testing on the fly now at plenty of these locations; we’re getting what we requested for, I assume.”
Total, Carpenter wouldn’t thoughts seeing IndyCar management making the selection to drag the hybrid unit for the rest of this season.
“I feel so, yeah,” he stated.
“I imply, I in all probability simply purchased two of them this weekend. Don’t know the way a lot it prices, actually. You inform me.”
