Road to Indy feeder series discussion

[John]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Lundqvist wins at Nashville. Holds a 95 point lead in the championship. Off to Indycar we go!

[MonteCristo]

Lundqvist wins at Nashville. Holds a 95 point lead in the championship. Off to Indycar we go!

Nice! Just for turning up he'll get about 70 points in the remaining four races (rather generous points system!).

So he just needs to find another 35~ points for the title. Easy.

[MonteCristo]

Brabham .

Moves into P2 in the standings.

Lundqvist still well in charge though. Basically he just needs to start and park to win the title now, lol.

[MonteCristo]

Flinn Lazier, son of 2000 IndyCar champion Buddy, will debut in Indy Lights in next weekend’s Portland round.

https://formulascout.com/indycar-champi ... ghts/97833

There had been talk of him being groomed to go into Indycar in time with the family team.

But as he got older and older any tag of 'prodigy' was falling by the wayside, and I totally forgot about him.

We'll see how he goes, and I don't have high hopes. But hopefully he goes well - I want an extra car .

[Everso Biggyballies]

Not really sure if this is the right place to post this but I setttled for it, given the name, being newsworthy enough to be included in the junior development area of Indycar....





Dan Wheldon’s son Sebastian drives open-wheeler for first time

Sebastian Wheldon, son of the late Dan, has driven an open-wheel race car for the first time as part of his junior programme with Andretti Autosport.

Dan Wheldon twice won the Indianapolis 500, in 2005 with Andretti and in 2011 with Bryan Herta Autosport, months before his death in a crash at Las Vegas.

In April 2021, Sebastian and his younger brother Oliver were announced as the youngest members of Andretti’s development programme and the former, 13, has now cut his first laps in a Formula 4 car, at the Putnam Park Road Course in Indiana.

“Dan was family to us, and we had a lot of on track success together, we see a lot of Dan in both Sebastian and Oliver and are very proud to officially welcome them into our racing family,” said team owner Michael Andretti upon the announcement of their move into the junior programme.

“No one will ever be able to replace Dan in their lives, but we’re happy to offer a network for mentorship to help the boys grow their careers.

“Karting is the first step, but we have hopes of helping foster promising Road to Indy, and eventually even IndyCar opportunities.”

On the F4 drive, a team social media post read, “Sebastian Wheldon got the first taste of open wheel racing today behind the wheel of a F4 car.

“Can’t wait to see where he goes.”

https://www.speedcafe.com/2022/08/27/da ... irst-time/

Im guessing that Sebastian, if he is 13 now, would have been just a couple of years old when he lost his Father.

[John]

CHAMPIONSHIP WINNER.

Attaboy Linus.

[MonteCristo]

CHAMPIONSHIP WINNER.

Attaboy Linus.

Well deserved .

[John]

https://racer.com/2022/09/22/indy-light ... e-slashed/

What a fucking scandal. Linus, instead of recieving a million bucks and three guaranteed starts including the 500, was just given 500k and a painting as his advancement prize.

[Everso Biggyballies]

https://racer.com/2022/09/22/indy-light ... e-slashed/

What a fucking scandal. Linus, instead of recieving a million bucks and three guaranteed starts including the 500, was just given 500k and a painting as his advancement prize.

So wrong that the FF2000 Pro champion gets a bigger prize than the Indylights Champion. Sounds like the downcale of the IL prize money is a Roger or Penske thing.

Plus none of the last years ride guarantees for Lundqvist.
The painting would want to be bloody good!

Just wrong.

[John]

With Penske slashing the funds in half and killing Indy Lights, no doubt the painting was Saturn devouring his son.

[MonteCristo]

Some Indy Lights news:

Juncos Hollinger Racing will make its return to Indy Lights with a two-car entry next season.

“We are very excited to return to Indy Lights full time with two cars,” said JHR co-owner Ricardo Juncos. “We have had great success in the past within the Indy Lights series but made the decision last year to focus on the expansion of our first full time NTT IndyCar Series program during 2022, with the plan to rejoin the Indy Lights in 2023. Instead of running in three series and stretching our resources and personnel this year, we knew that we had to take the time to build the basis of our NTT IndyCar Series before returning to Indy Lights.”

So far, JHR has signed one promising Road to Indy race winner for the venture, who will be announced at a later date. The move to Lights will see JHR shutter its longstanding Indy Pro 2000 effort and shift its personnel to the top step of the RTI.

https://racer.com/2022/09/29/juncos-hol ... o-entries/

Nice.

Danial Frost and Christian Bogle will return to the expanded eight-car HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing Indy Lights team.

Frost, a first-time race winner with HMD in 2022, should be among the championship contenders in his third season of Indy Lights. Bogle, who steadily improved in his second season atop the Road to Indy ladder system, will have everything he needs to pursue his first podium after coming close with a run to fourth place last season in Detroit.

https://racer.com/2022/09/29/frost-bogl ... dy-lights/

EIGHT FLIPPING CARS? That's like the whole 2019 field!

Nolan Siegel will move up to Indy Lights full-time with HMD Motorsports next year, after making his series debut in the 2022 season finale.

The 17-year-old joined the team at Laguna Seca last month, qualifying ninth and finishing 10th in his first race and following that up with a ninth place finish in the second race. He is HMD’s fourth signing for 2023.

https://formulascout.com/nolan-siegel-m ... ghts/99408

Jamie Chadwick’s first run in an Indy Lights car with Andretti Autosport was met with positive takes by the two-time W Series champion, and Andretti’s 2021 Indy Lights title winner Kyle Kirkwood.

The Briton logged 210 miles of learning in the 450hp turbocharged four-cylinder Dallara IL15 chassis around Sebring International Raceway’s outer loop on Wednesday, and after catching a flight home and having some time to think about the experience, Chadwick was filled with encouragement.

https://racer.com/2022/09/23/chadwick-e ... ghts-test/

Hopefully she gets a ride next year. But apparently F2 in 2024 is the goal...

[John]

I'm all for a woman in F1, but Chadwick ain't it. Even if she would make it all the way, I fear the results would just be detrimental to women racers everywhere. Go for Indycar instead.

[MonteCristo]

Kyffin Simpson will stay at HMD Motorsports for his second year in Indy Lights, after joining the team halfway through this season.

The 17-year-old, who is from the Cayman Islands, arrived at HMD after his relationship with TJ Speed worsened. Simpson got two top-five finishes from eight races with TJ Speed, and finished no higher than eighth in the six races that followed with HMD which resulted in him coming ninth in the standings in his rookie season.

https://formulascout.com/ganassi-junior ... ason/99581

Oh, and things on the ladder have changed, name wise.

Indy Pro 2000 changes name as IndyCar support ladder gets rebranded

The IndyCar support series will run under a new banner in 2023, with Indy Pro 2000 also changing name to USF Pro 2000.

Known as the Mazda Road to Indy until 2019, when Mazda’s sponsorship of the support ladder came to an end, the Road to Indy did include Indy Lights, Indy Pro 2000 (formerly known as Pro Mazda) and USF2000.

IndyCar bought the promotional rights of Indy Lights this year from Road to Indy operator Andersen Promotions, which introduced a new Formula 4-spec series called USF Juniors as a pre-step to the two championship it continued to run.

As USF Juniors adopts a new chassis for 2023, which has the same underpinnings as the two series above it, it will become a fully fledged part of the Road to Indy.

But as IndyCar “reassesses its overall branding with dual management of the ladder steps” with Andersen Promotions, it has now been decided to drop the Road to Indy branding and run the three series under the ‘USF Pro Championships’ banner.

To fit in with the new branding, IP2000 has been rebranded to USF Pro 2000 for next season.

“Although we are rebranding the Road to Indy, our goals remain the same – to develop drivers, teams and crew to advance to Indy Lights and ultimately the IndyCar series,” said Andersen Promotions’ CEO Dan Andersen.

“With IndyCar taking over the operation of Indy Lights this year, the Road to Indy designation really doesn’t work moving forward for all steps on the ladder. We are proud of our accomplishments under the Road to Indy banner and intend to further develop the full USF Pro Championships as the only real place for talented young drivers on the open-wheel path.”

https://formulascout.com/indy-pro-2000- ... nded/99728

But screw it, we'll still call it the road to Indy .

[John]

https://racer.com/2022/10/17/lindh-retu ... -with-hmd/

Rasmus Lindh is back. Replacing Linus at HMD.

[MonteCristo]

HMD not wasting time in Indy Lights.

Ernie Francis Jr also signed: https://racer.com/2022/10/19/force-indy ... -umbrella/

And Josh Pierson also, also signed: https://racer.com/2022/10/18/pierson-si ... dy-lights/

Eight-car team, because seven isn't enough.

They currently have... two-thirds of the field .

[MonteCristo]

13 now for Lights with Jacob Abel back: https://formulascout.com/indy-lights-re ... son/100266

Might make it to 16 cars in the end? That would be very nice.

Most in 2022 was 14 entries in three rounds.