Everything was pretty much cancelled and it is getting worse. As much as we need to talk about it, let's tackle that tomorrow. A few races have been rescheduled. Others are still hanging up in the air. Most series are not going to be back until April at the earliest, some not until May, some perhaps not until June. Trying to be positive, people are playing video games. Dario Franchitti made a funny. Super GT was able to test in Okayama. Most of Rally México took place even if the final day was called off so teams could travel back home. We are getting closer to spring in the Northern Hemisphere for whatever that is worth. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Is S5000 a Solution?
Unfortunately, there was not much racing this weekend so this is going to come off a little thin and lacks data but it came to me about a month when I was reading an article that a full season of Australian S5000 would cost $200,000.
I was stunned. Only $200,000? Then I read further and found out that was in Australian dollars. A full S5000 season in US currency is $135,000!
Flabbergasted at the cost I wondered how this championship has not caught on. I know it is in its infancy after two exhibition rounds were held last year but there are not many championships where you can get away with a full season for under $150,000.
Now, Australian S5000 is not a long season. The 2020 season was scheduled for six rounds with an exhibition round following at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst. Each of the exhibition rounds last year featured three races and three races were scheduled for this weekend at Melbourne's Albert Park. It was going to be much more than six races over 2020 but six rounds is still quite low.
However, let's say you double the number of rounds and the cost doubles, it would still be $270,000 for a 12-round season, in theory. That is still remarkably affordable. Even if the costs tripled it would only be $405,000! Still a bargain in single-seater racing.
For the Melbourne round, 15 cars were entered. Compare that to the Indy Lights weekend scheduled for St. Petersburg where only ten cars were entered, two of which have only been announced as part-time entries and the Indy Lights championship costs over a million dollars for a full season and has ten rounds.
Not every S5000 entry at Melbourne was going to be full-time. Rubens Barrichello, Giancarlo Fisichella, James Davison, Jack Aitken and Alexandre Prémat were only one-off entries. That is a third of the cars entered but you can run a full season of S5000 for what it costs for a round of Indy Lights and that is startling.
Indy Lights has been struggling with grid size for a decade, outside of 2015 to 2017 when the Dallara IL-15 chassis was introduced. Over that three-year period the grid got up to 16 cars for some races and stayed above a dozen entries for 46 of 50 races. The last two Indy Lights seasons have seen no grid eclipse 12 entries. Only three races have had double-digit car counts.
One reason for Indy Lights struggle is costs. There are more expensive championships out there but it is hard to put together a million dollars for a championship that gets zero television coverage outside of the Freedom 100. Indy Lights and Andersen Promotions have done a lot to try and draw in teams and drivers. The scholarship to IndyCar is something many series do not offer. There have been incentives put in place for IndyCar teams to participate in Indy Lights. A lot has been done but little has worked.
Juncos Racing has left the series for 2020. Carlin dropped out of the series when it expanded to IndyCar. HMD Motorsports was Team Pelfrey, which was 8 Star Motorsports before that. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was once the leading team for in Indy Lights but it backed out fo the series after 2015. Andretti Autosport and Belardi Auto Racing are the only consistent parties in the series. The two teams provide a good base but the series needs more than five to seven cars to survive.
Indy Lights could be an attractive option for many drivers. If enough entries are out there it awards FIA Super License points and it could be a good start for a driver looking to go to Europe or it could provide those last few points needed for a Formula One hopefully but one who does not necessarily have the budget for Formula Two. On top of the Super License points, a championship in Indy Lights can get a driver a shot at IndyCar. It could provide an avenue for many careers who are stuck in Europe.
One way to help make the series more appealing is to make it more affordable and if S5000 costs a fraction of Indy Lights and draws more cars that might be the solution for Indy Lights.
It would still be a development series for IndyCar but different and, perhaps looking at what S5000 was going to be at Melbourne, Indy Lights could become some hybrid series between developing drivers and an alternative for those without IndyCar rides.
We had ten drivers competing at St. Petersburg for Indy Lights. If Indy Lights adopted the S5000 formula hopefully it would attract a few more drivers hoping to get to IndyCar but hopefully it would also be a place for the IndyCar free agents who do not have a full-time budget but want to keep racing and stay on the scene.
Consider that Spencer Pigot, J.R. Hildebrand, Gabby Chaves, Carlos Muñoz, R.C. Enerson, Kyle Kaiser, Sage Karam and even James Davison are all drivers that have been hanging around IndyCar but none are full-time for 2020. Most of these drivers will be at the Indianapolis 500, some will get to run some additional races, but for the most part their 2020 will consist of one race, maybe two or three if they are lucky.
That is not a good thing. Racing the Indianapolis 500 is nice but drivers need more than one race a year to sharpen their skills. These drivers should be out there as much as possible to be ready if a substitute is needed. They should want to be ready to step into a car and be competitive immediately and IndyCar teams should want that as well.
If you took the ten Indy Lights drivers from this weekend, added a few more drivers with IndyCar aspirations (Aaron Telitz anyone?) and added the eight IndyCar veterans listed above all of a sudden you have a wonderful series full of familiar names and young hopefuls competing together and all with a shot at the IndyCar scholarship.
Dan Andersen has talked about wanting IndyCar drivers competing in Indy Lights similar to NASCAR Cup drivers running the lower two NASCAR national touring series races in hopes of increasing interest in the Road to Indy series. That is not going to happen, nor should it, but this is close to that and perhaps in the 2020s that is what Indy Lights should be. It should be an affordable option for drivers that brings together those who have IndyCar experience but lack the funding for full-time IndyCar or lost that game of musical chairs (James Hinchcliffe, Sébastien Bourdais) and the drivers moving up the ladder who get to develop but will only be tested against IndyCar veterans.
I do not know if the S5000 car could run on ovals and that is a little bit of problem considering Indy Lights' biggest race is the Freedom 100 but we can figure something out. Indy Lights runs ten rounds as it is and Indianapolis and Gateway are the only ovals. If it cost $135,000 to run six rounds running eight rounds on road and street courses could not cost that much more. Hell, the S5000 engines are Ford V8 engines built in American. That should help with costs immediately!
This is a pipe dream for now but whenever 2020 gets started we are going to be looking at another year with a minuscule Indy Lights grid. We are going to have another summer full of questions about "how can we fix Indy Lights?" and "why aren't more IndyCar teams running Indy Lights?" and so on. It has been the same song since 2011. It is not going to change now without doing something entirely different.
There is no guarantee Indy Lights adopting S5000 regulations will be the answer but it is worth a shot and it has to be willing to accept an identity change. It has to still be a development series but promote itself as an alternative for veteran drivers without full-time IndyCar rides. It has to be a serious that caters to both the youngster hoping IndyCar is the future and the veteran who still wants to race more than one weekend a year.
We are in year six of the IL-15 chassis. It had a few good years and it is a good car but ultimately it was not able to keep Indy Lights at a healthy grid size. Come 2022, when IndyCar plans on introducing a new engine formula and chassis, Indy Lights must consider the same and S5000 could be the answer.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about everything that was cancelled but did you know...
Sébastien Ogier won Rally México, his first victory of 2020, his third consecutive victory in Mexico with his third different manufacture and it was Ogier's sixth Rally México victory.
NOT Coming Up This Weekend
There will be no 12 Hours of Sebring (Rescheduled for November 14th).
We will not have the second 1000 Miles of Sebring.
No Bahrain Grand Prix.
No MotoGP from Thailand (Rescheduled for October 4th).
NASCAR will not be making its first spring visit to Homestead... well at least for the Cup Series. Trucks once ran with IndyCar in the spring.
Formula E is not in China.
Supercross is not in Detroit.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
