IndyCar hybrid ‘lays foundation’ for more manufacturers to join

The IndyCar veteran is optimistic that it will be the catalyst for more manufacturers to join the series.

Honda and Chevrolet have been staples of the post-unification era. Multiple brands have been rumoured to join but none have made the commitment.

So what might get them over the line? Rossi reckons the hybrid element could be the ticket.

“The biggest thing is – I truly believe this, this isn’t a marketing PR line – it lays the foundation for future manufacturers to come into the sport,” said Rossi.

“It’s no secret that the car market, the automotive market, the world market, in terms of automobiles has changed over the past decade.

“With the current format of engine that we have, it also makes perfect sense that a manufacturer wouldn’t want to necessarily come in and try and catch up to 10-plus years of development of an existing power train, right?

“The hybrid, while might not be that attractive in its current guise, I think in terms of what we’ve done from a reliability standpoint is pretty impressive.

“What we did last year in terms of implementing a hybrid mid-season and the lack of failures, you’re going to have failures in race cars in every capacity. There weren’t mass hybrid failures in the championship season. That was a huge win.

“You bring that forward to this year, and because the reliability has been so robust, we can start to incrementally increase the performance, increase the load and duty cycle on it throughout a lap and get more power, which we already saw at St. Pete.

“St. Pete, it was already a much more effective tool than it had been at any point in 2024.”

Rossi noted that the car’s ability to start itself on track was a bonus of the hybrid system, but stopped short of giving many more positives.

The system’s effectiveness has been questioned by drivers but Rossi believes the best is yet to come.

“While I think the list of pros now from a performance standpoint is short, I think it’s going to grow,” he explained.

“I think for the long-term future health of the series, it doesn’t matter what the cons are at this point because it’s pretty clear that manufacturers want hybrids to be involved.”

What has been a noticeable change is how much heavier the cars have gotten with the weight of the system.

Its mid-season introduction in 2024 means drivers are still coming to grips with how cars behave having only raced on half the circuits with the ballast.

That’s had a knock-on effect to tyre life, which has coincided with supplier Firestone experimenting with softer compounds

“It’s a hard job because I don’t envy what they’re having to do in terms of IndyCar has requests to make a bigger differentiation between the primary (hard compound) and the alternate (soft compound) which in principle I don’t have any disagreement with,” said Rossi.

“They’re trying to do it at tracks that we haven’t had the hybrid before. I think people underestimate – not saying Firestone – but everyone globally underestimates how much of an impact adding that sort of weight, that sort of torque on corner exiting, regen capabilities under the braking zones, there’s a lot of longitudinal demand that wasn’t there before, on top of the weight.

“In a lot of ways I think the separation would have come without the tyre change. So what you saw in St. Pete was an alternate that was already fairly fragile in certain scenarios, burdened with extra weight. The result is what you got.

“Did it change the show? I don’t think so. I think it would have been very interesting had that first yellow not happened, how the race would have unfolded.

“I think if the guys that started on the alternate had to do a pit stop under green on that 10 to 15, I think it would have certainly advantaged the primary guys way more than it ended up doing. Ultimately the alternate tire starters got a free stop.

“I will hold further opinion until Long Beach. Hopefully it’s a race that doesn’t have a yellow at the start, and we can have a better understanding of how the primary versus alternate starters fare throughout the race.”

The IndyCar Series continues with the Thermal Club Grand Prix on March 24. That race gets underway at 6am on Monday.