The somewhat maligned and controversial implementation of hybrid power regularly made headlines in recent years. The system was thrice delayed and eventually debuted midway through the 2024 season after last year’s Indianapolis 500.
With this year’s race being the first to use hybrid power, it’s another consideration for teams and drivers across the month of May.
Drivers charge and deploy hybrid power at their leisure by pulling a paddle on the back of the steering wheel. One paddle deploys while the other paddle regenerates energy by harvesting.
How drivers will use it in the feature event is a mouthwatering prospect, with the system essentially working like push-to-pass by giving drivers an added boost of horsepower.
“It’s a cool innovation for the series – one that people didn’t really think we were gonna use a lot of on the ovals but we’re actually tending to use quite a lot,” said Scott McLaughlin’s race engineer Malcolm Finch, speaking with Speedcafe at Indianapolis.
“Especially in the case of passing, especially when you’re one or two cars back and you’re in the tow already, it’s very, very effective. So definitely, come the end of the race, I think you can see some pretty exciting passing and a little bit of racecraft going on.
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“Even just through the race, we’re using it basically every lap just trying to get a little bit of performance out of it, save a little bit of fuel, it just helps everything so long as it stays together.”
Finch, who hails from New Zealand, has been a staple of Team Penske for eight years. He was a data engineer with Simon Pagenaud when he won the 2019 Indianapolis 500.
Since then, the Kiwi has worked his way up the ladder and was this week promoted in a somewhat bittersweet fashion after Team Penske swung its axe on three high-profile members.
How a driver uses the hybrid system in attack or defence could decide the outcome, according to Finch.
“I think you’ll see something quite interesting happen because the car in front’s gonna use it to defend and the car gonna use it to attack. No one knows when they’re deploying,” he explained.
“Obviously, if your car is just better, you’re gonna get a better run, you’ll still be in the tow from behind, but if the defending driver uses in the right spot, they can have an effect on whether they can actually get the pass done.
“For instance, the pass into turn three, you might make that incredibly difficult if you’re able to deploy and not have a car be able to fully clear you by the time you get to the apex.”
Australian Luke Mason will be Josef Newgarden’s strategist on the #2 stand come Sunday. He was also promoted in the wake of the staff changes at Team Penske.
Mason said the impact of the hybrid is noticeably more on ovals relative to road and street courses.
“Here especially, when you spend so much of the lap wide open when the tyres have the grip, you’re fighting that drag wall, the aeronomic wall because you’re just tapped out with the amount of downforce you’ve got,” Mason explained.
“So any little gain in horsepower, whether it be electric or in the engine, makes a big difference. Here especially is the first time in practice that we’ve seen how you’re using that hybrid or how the driver is maintaining a level of battery when he presses the button to use it.
“It is almost a push-to-pass here. That’s what they wanted when they first implemented the system is for the driver to be in control and be able to use it strategically.”
The sanctions to Team Penske and the #2 car mean it will start 33rd. Nevertheless, Newgarden has been among the fastest drivers in the days leading up to the race.
If he wins the race, Newgarden would become the first driver to win from lower than 28th on the grid and the first driver to win three consecutive Indy 500s.
Mason has full faith that it could come to fruition, and the team’s understanding of how to use the hybrid will play its part.
“I think you saw a lot of different teams try different things before qualifying. We were definitely one of them trying to use the maximum amount we could,” said Mason.
“That’s a lot of time we spent in traffic yesterday, specifically on our car on making sure we use it, deployed at the right time, making sure we’re charging it up at the right time,” he said.
“It’s gonna make a really big difference at the end of the race. We’ve seen the last three years, it’s come down to a shootout at the end and you’re gonna have to be on top, and that’s the teams, it’s the driver himself.
“You don’t want to use it too soon, but you don’t want to finish the race with some left in the tank. You want to give it everything you’ve got, so timing that pass is gonna be really important in seeing who actually wins the thing.”
The 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 gets underway on Monday, May 26 at 2:45am AEST with coverage live and exclusively on Stan Sport in Australia.
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