Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Formula One returned with a sprint weekend, which saw Max Verstappen winning the sprint race from Austin, but Ferrari went 1-2 in the race with Verstappen taking third over Lando Norris after Norris was given a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. A tear-off nearly sabotaged a rider's Australian Grand Prix, but it set up one of MotoGP's best battles of the season. The World Rally Championship remains undecided heading to the finale by a single point. A few championships were decided. NASCAR has a finalist. There was some more promotion, and people continued to be easily impressed. However, we will talk about a rule, and whether or not its implication is greatly exaggerated.
Is the "Dale Coyne Rule" a Bad Thing?
There are multiple aspects to IndyCar's new charter agreement with the teams that require some time to analyze. Not everything will come to light immediate, but there are some parts that are apparent and understandable. There are pieces we will not be entirely understandable as well.
We get the limit of three charters to a team and 25 total charters. We understand the 25 charter entries will compete for the 22 Leader Circle spots, though it isn't clear why the Leader Circle is still around. Everyone can wrap their heads around a 27-car limit to every race outside the Indianapolis 500 with two spots for non-charter entries even if they don't like.
But there is another part to the charter agreement that should be explored because a majority of people have dismissed its inclusion. Each entry is limited to using three drivers during a season. It has affectionately been called the "Dale Coyne Rule."
The belief is this rule will prevent drivers from getting opportunities in IndyCar in one-off entries. Last year, Dale Coyne Racing ran six drivers in its #51 Honda. DCR's #18 Honda ran four different drivers. Coyne wasn't the only team the ran at least three drivers in one entry. Arrow McLaren had three drivers participate in the #6 Chevrolet while Meyer Shank Racing had three drivers run the #66 Honda and Juncos Hollinger Racing ran three drivers in the #78 Chevrolet.
This was an unusual season for midseason driver changes. Between injuries, lack of sponsorships, death threats and poor performances, IndyCar couldn't keep the same drivers on the grid week-to-week. In 2023, two entries had at least three drivers start a race. In 2022, no entries ran at least three different drivers. Two entries ran three drivers in 2021, but only one of those was a full-time entry. The other was Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's part-time #45 Honda.
Truth be told, three drivers in one entry is not unheard of, but it is rather uncommon and usually unplanned. Prior to this season, two of the three full-time entries in the previous three seasons to use at least three drivers did it after a driver injury. None of those entries surpassed three drivers. In fact, the last entry to use at least four drivers was Dale Coyne Racing's #18 Honda in 2017 after Sébastien Bourdais fractured his pelvis and hip during Indianapolis 500 qualifying. DCR had James Davison, Esteban Gutiérrez and Tristan Vautier split that seat while Bourdais recovered.
There had not been a seat shared four ways without a cause of injury since 2016 when, well, you guessed it, Dale Coyne Racing had Luca Filippi, Gabby Chaves, R.C. Enerson and Pippa Mann all drive the #19 Honda.
As you can see, this is a very Dale Coyne Racing specific problem. Five drivers split the teams #18 Honda in 2015 while three drivers split the #19 Honda that year. Five drivers also split the #18 entry in 2013. The last non-Dale Coyne Racing entry to feature at least four different drivers also came in 2013, when Panther Racing had four drivers in the #4 Chevrolet. After J.R. Hildebrand was fired after the Indianapolis 500, Ryan Briscoe and Oriol Servià split the seat, and Carlos Muñoz was a late substitute for the second race of the Toronto doubleheader after Briscoe broke his wrist.
If you want the last time a non-Coyne entry was split four ways with no injuries involved you must go back to 2011 when AFS Racing and Sam Schmidt Motorsports had four drivers run the #17 entry between Raphael Matos, Martin Plowman, Hideki Mutoh and Wade Cunningham. And even that season there was an injury-related driver carousel as Justin Wilson's back injury would lead to five drivers running Dreyer & Reinbold Racing's #22 entry.
With over a decade of multi-driver entry history in front of you, it is pretty clear it isn't a problem. It isn't a problem except for one team.
To be fair to Dale Coyne Racing, it only occasionally runs three or more drivers in a single entry in a single season. It is the only team to regularly do it, but it ran only two drivers in four of the previous five seasons, and in 2021 it had Romain Grosjean and Pietro Fittipaldi split the #51 Honda with Fittipaldi taking the first three oval races. In 2018, it had Zachary Claman DeMelo and Pietro Fittipaldi splitting the #19 entry and Santino Ferrucci got to run the Belle Isle doubleheader after Fittipaldi was injured in a sports car accident.
Coyne would have run only two drivers in 2017 if Bourdais had not gotten hurt either. For the better part of the last decade, DCR was focused on its pair of drivers. It had the resources set aside for those drivers to run for the championship. There were no doubts if a driver was going to see out a season. When Dale Coyne Racing tries its hardest, it is a proper team. But it is the only team that will become an open auction on a near weekly basis when that is the best business strategy for the team.
It has kept the lights on at Dale Coyne Racing for 40 years, but in this new era of IndyCar, that strategy is not what is best for the series.
There is no value in having an entry be a rotating cast of drivers with no ties beyond one race weekend. The grid is not at its strongest when each week there is one car with a driver that has next to no testing in the car and that driver is still learning how to turn the car on. For all the drivers DCR rotated through its lineup in 2024, none of them stepped in and made an impression on IndyCar.
The #51 Honda started outside the top twenty in 15 of 17 races. It didn't crack the top twenty until the 14th race at Portland, which was also Toby Sowery's third race in the car. The #51's best starting position was 18th in the first Milwaukee race, Katherine Legge's fifth race in the car, and four of the drivers that started behind her in that race were serving nine-grid spot penalties for engine changes.
As much as Dale Coyne Racing is praised for the opportunities its gives drivers, this is not the launching pad we make it out to be. Ninety-two drivers have made an IndyCar start for Dale Coyne Racing. Dale Coyne Racing has given 51 drivers their IndyCar debuts. However, of those 51 drivers, 24 of those drivers made fewer than ten career starts. Twenty-five of those drivers only ever drove for Dale Coyne Racing, and 32 of those drivers made majority of their IndyCar starts for DCR. If we expand beyond those that debuted with Coyne, 43 total drivers had majority of their starts come at Coyne.
Only nine DCR debutants reached 50 career starts. Seven DCR debutants only made one IndyCar start. Three seasons with 17 races a year is 51 starts. Basically one in five DCR debutants complete three full seasons in IndyCar. More telling is of the 51 drivers to make their IndyCar debuts with Dale Coyne Racing, only four went on to win an IndyCar race. Paul Tracy, Robbie Buhl, Carlos Huertas with a car that failed post-race inspection for having an illegally large fuel cell in a race that was determined by fuel mileage, and Álex Palou.
Dale Coyne does deserve credit because he has given some good drivers opportunities, but he doesn't have the Midas touch. There is not a trail of champions that starts at Dale Coyne Racing. There have been some nice stories. When this team tries, it can be competitive, as we have seen with Bourdais and Justin Wilson. Mike Conway stepped in and immediately won a race. Coyne is responsible for Mauro Baldi's only IndyCar start when Baldi was fresh off winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1994. He gave André Lotterer his only IndyCar start years before Lotterer became a sports car ace. The problem is most of these drivers are not flipping into IndyCar stars. These are opportunities that rarely lead to anywhere.
Take the four drivers that split DCR's #19 Honda in 2016. For Luca Filippi, those were his final starts in IndyCar, and Filippi only made 23 starts in his career. Gabby Chaves would get another chance at Harding Racing, but he would be booted in the middle of 2018 after being the darling in 2017 for the upstart team. R.C. Enerson made his IndyCar debut and ran well, finishing ninth in his second career start, but Enerson would go nearly three years until his next shot in IndyCar. Pippa Mann attempted the Indianapolis 500 three more times after that season.
Of the five drivers that ran the #18 Honda in 2015, for two of those drivers, it was their final IndyCar starts. One of those drivers was Huertas. The other was Rodolfo González. Did any of you honestly remember Rodolfo González made six starts in 2015?
The "Dale Coyne Rule" is being viewed as a negative because it will limit opportunities, but I would argue it protects drivers and gives them more than a lose-lose one-off. It provides a driver more leverage to negotiate for more races than to live on a race-by-race deal where it could come down to whether or not another driver shows up with more money. It also incentivizes a team to invest in a driver and give him or her testing time to make sure he or she is best prepared for making a race appearance.
Once a driver is in the car, he or she is one of the three options for the entire season. If that entry has two more drivers rotate through in the following two races, that team is tied to those three drivers. No one else can come in. There is no longer the possibility of 17 drivers for 17 races. Those three are only competing against one another for seat time and those drivers could end up getting more than if it was open to every driver under the sun.
Five drivers were able to make their IndyCar debuts this year with Dale Coyne Racing, but were any of those drivers given the best opportunities to thrive in IndyCar? Colin Braun was given the opening weekend almost as a case of charity for one of the most under-appreciated talents of the last two decades. Coyne made no serious investment in Braun adjusting to open-wheel racing after two decades out of open-wheel racing. Hunter McElrea was given one race and who knows if McElrea would have gotten that if Jack Harvey had been healthy. Luca Ghiotto received no favors coming in completely blind. Toby Sowery was Coyne's star of the season, but even after his impressive runs, all he got was three races, and we aren't sure if anyone will call Sowery for a serious chance in 2025.
It would be better for the drivers to get more of an opportunity than a one-off or living by whether or not Coyne calls them back between races. That strategy is not putting the best drivers on the grid. For the best of IndyCar, its teams should take a genuine interest in the talent on track. That means investing in the talent and making sure a driver has tested and is aware of the car before racing. That effort is a good thing for IndyCar. If a team must split an entry, it should be maximizing getting drivers that can do the best over seven or eight races. That is a greater opportunity for a driver than a one-off with no testing time.
A counterpoint to this will be, "Well, if Dale Coyne isn't getting the deal he wants, he will just go to the highest bidder even if it is worse talent." Coyne just might do that, but when has any entry in IndyCar that has seen four or five or six drivers rotate through been all that competitive? We have never seen an "all-star car" in IndyCar that has four different drivers in it over four consecutive races wind up finishing in the top ten once let alone all four times. That car is going to be finishing 18th or worse if it a driver who scraped together every penny he or she could find for a one-off at Mid-Ohio or some son of a billionaire who bought a full-time ride after not finishing better than 15th in Formula Two.
Even if Coyne takes the paycheck, we know those deals don't last long, and with how the Leader Circle works, there is an incentive to at least hire a driver who can compete for the top 22. It isn't transformational wealth, but that money does make a difference for an organization.
Not much is lost with the "Dale Coyne Rule." Teams don't run more than three drivers in an entry on a regular basis anyway. If it has happened, it is usually due to an injury. Very few drivers would lose out due to this rule, but drivers are more likely gain with such provisions. This rule makes it more likely a driver will get more than just one race. A team cannot wait and see who will bring the most money before each race. There is a limit. Once a team runs three drivers in an entry, those three drivers have an available seat for the remainder of a season. They have negotiating power they have never previously had.
With the Leader Circle spots still limited to 22 entries, it incentivizes teams to be wise when hiring drivers and do their best to hire the best drivers available. A team has only have two mulligans in the hiring process.
There is no point in hating this change because it is different from previous ways of operation. History shows nothing serious will be lost. A few drivers might not make one start in an IndyCar season or career, but we are not losing race winners. We are not losing drivers competing for top ten results. If the talent is there, one of the other ten teams in IndyCar will hire that driver. The grid is not weaker because of such a rule. This change should only strengthen IndyCar even if we don't get to see the likes of Colin Braun make one IndyCar start every four or five seasons.
Teams will be forced to carefully consider their hiring decisions. It will require more than a check clearing on a Tuesday morning.
Champions From the Weekend
The #14 AO by TF Oreca of Louis Delétraz, Jonny Edger and Robert Kubica clinched the European Le Mans Series LMP2 championship with a runner-up finish at Portimão.
The #15 RLR MSport Ligier-Nissan of Nick Adcock, Michael Jensen and Gaël Julien clinched the ELMS LMP3 championship with a runner-up finish.
The #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli, Hiroshi Hamaguchi and Axcil Jefferies clinched the ELMS LMGT3 championship with a victory.
Mikro Bortolotti clinched the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship with finishes of fifth and second form Hockenheim.
Toprak Razgatlioglu clinched the World Superbike championship with a second-place finish in the first race from Jerez.
Adrián Huertas clinched the World Supersport championship.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about United States Grand Prix, but did you know...
Marc Márquez won MotoGP's Australian Grand Prix, his third victory of the season. Jorge Martín won the sprint race. Fermín Aldeguer won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. David Alonso won the Moto3 race, his 11th victory of the season.
Nicolò Bulega (race one and SuperPole race) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (race two) split the World Superbike races from Jerez. Stefano Manzi swept the World Supersport races.
Kelvin van der Linde and Luca Engstler split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from Hockenheim.
The #37 COOL Racing Oreca-Gibson of Lorenzo Fluxá, Malthe Jakobsen and Ritomo Miyata won the 4 Hours of Portimão. The #17 COOL Racing Ligier-Nissan of Miguel Cristóvão and Manuel Espírito Santo won in LMP3.
Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup race from Las Vegas, his third victory of the season. A.J. Allmendinger won the Grand National Series race, his first victory of the season.
The #39 TGR Team SARD Toyota of Yuhi Sekiguchi and Yuichi Nakayama won the Super GT race from Autopolis. The #88 JLOC Lamborghini of Takashi Kogure and Yuya Motojima won in GT300.
Ott Tänak won the Central European Rally, his second victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One remains busy in Mexico.
MotoGP remains busy in Thailand.
NASCAR rolls into Homestead.
Supercars are at Surfers Paradise.
