Graham 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.
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