INDIANAPOLIS — IndyCar Series officials hope this week’s rule change on the push-to-pass button creates more intrigue in Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix.
Whether it works will depend on how fast Chip Ganassi Racing star Alex Palou — who has won the past three IndyCar titles as well as the past three editions of this race, which is held on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway — and his fellow drivers adapt.
And, naturally, how much risk they’re willing to take on the first lap.
The move comes in the wake of last month’s software failure on the street circuit in Long Beach, California, where a dozen drivers illegally used extra turbo boost during a midrace restart. That led series officials to make the modification that allows drivers to use their push-to-pass on all restarts once Saturday’s race has started and they’ve reached the alternate start-finish line in the 11th turn on the first lap. An early push will result in a penalty, even if there is another malfunction.
And that has caused confusion in Gasoline Alley.
“If I push it and it works because someone else does a mistake, it’s my fault? Yes?” Palou asked, jump-starting a minutes-long debate among the top five drivers in the championship points standings. “I didn’t read the rule, sorry.”
Drivers will still get 200 total seconds of green-flag racing to give their cars a boost of close to 60 horsepower throughout the race, though the button is not supposed to be operable until they pass the alternate start-finish line, potentially making the race into the 11th turn as harrowing as the first one of the race. Then drivers can allocate their turbo boost however they choose around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile course at IMS.
The change essentially eliminates a possible repeat of the 2024 controversy that cost two-time series champ Josef Newgarden a season-opening victory on the street circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida, when officials determined he used push-to-pass on a restart.
At Long Beach, nearly half the field took advantage of the software error. Others insisted they weren’t even aware the push-to-pass button was working on the restart.
During last week’s test session on Indy’s 2.5-mile oval, where the Indianapolis 500 will be held May 24, Santino Ferrucci told reporters he realized the button worked only when he tried to fend off Marcus Armstrong’s pass on a restart for the 61st lap. Ferrucci said he tried it and continued using it.
Neither Armstrong nor Ferrucci was penalized and Palou wasn’t either, even though he said he used it three times on the restart. Palou wound up racing to his third win of the season.
“Let’s set the record straight,” Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood said. “Everybody would have used it if they’d known it was active. Every driver would have. I wish I’d have known it was on. I would have used it.”
On Saturday, everyone has — or should have — a strategy for how to deal with the new rule.
Palou, the four-time series champ from Spain, begins race weekend as the favorite. He has a 17-point lead over Kirkwood, an American, after winning the past two races, has six straight top-five finishes at IMS, including last year’s sweep of the GP and the Indy 500, and is trying to become the second driver in Brickyard history to win the same race four straight times.
The only other driver with four straight wins is seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher. He won the U.S. Grand Prix every year from 2003-06. His son, IndyCar rookie Mick Schumacher of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, is scheduled to make his IMS debut Saturday albeit on a differently configured road course.
Palou had the fastest lap in both of Friday’s practice sessions, posting a top speed of 124.953 mph in the morning and a best lap of 124.632 in the afternoon before rain arrived, forcing qualifying to be moved to Saturday. Kirkwood had the second-fastest lap in the afternoon, 124.443, as he tries to change his road-course reputation.
“So why do I suck on road courses?” Kirkwood joked Thursday. “That’s a good question. Appreciate that. Quite honestly, we just haven’t been that good on road courses. That’s been across all of our cars in recent years.
“But Barber was much better,” he added, referring to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, where he finished fifth in late March. “I can’t say there’s been any other ones, but I feel like we’re constantly improving.”
And getting a little power boost on Saturday’s restarts certainly won’t hurt.
“You might want to save it a little bit more and maybe not use it as much on in-and-out laps, trying to overtake people knowing if a restart comes at any point, you need to have it, or else you’re going to get passed,” Kirkwood said. “So people might be hoarding it a little bit more.”