On Thursday afternoon, the IndyCar Series decided to postpone its plans to debut the hybrid technology – paired with its current 2.2-liter twin turbocharged V-6 engine – from the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10 until after the Indy 500 on May 26.
There have been 13 drivers representing four teams – Andretti Global, Arrow McLaren, Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske – that have combined for over 15,000 miles in testing over the last three months. Newgarden was among those that pounded laps in the hybrid unit and didn’t see the decision to delay inevitable based on the readiness of his learnings.
“No,” Newgarden told Motorsport.com. “Looking at it, it’s really down to the circumstances and the way this has progressed.
“A lot of this was shifted to the manufacturers and having been a part of the process, I’ve seen the tremendous effort that’s been put in from the manufacturing side to try and make this happen for everybody globally across the field. And they’ve done a really good job.
“For IndyCar, I’ve driven the car, I’m sure that we could just go ahead, and we could run it and we could put them everywhere, but I think they want to do it in the best way possible. It’s probably prudent to say, ‘Look, we’re, we’re going hybrid in 2024, but we think the best opportunity for that is after Indianapolis.’ And they can still have that transition.”
The defending winner of the Indianapolis 500 further stressed the hybrid will arrive, but like everyone else, is uncertain as to when.
“It’s really just a timing thing and what’s going to be the best opportunity for it to succeed at the highest level,” Newgarden said.
“I think they’re right that that’s probably the best thing to do, but they’ve done over 10,000 miles of testing on this thing. I’ve driven it pretty extensively and it works.
“It’s absolutely coming. I think they just have to think of the interest of the entire championship, not just one team or the other. This has got to be fair and robust and completely correct for everybody. So, it definitely makes a lot of sense.”
Additionally, though, the smaller teams such as Dale Coyne Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan, among others, haven’t had any running at all with the new components.
“I think that’s part of it, too,” Newgarden said. “Yeah. And then you have a compressed and crammed timeline and so you know, why try and rush it at the last minute?
“We can still go hybrid in 2024 and we can pick the opportunity that’s going to be best for the entire field and that makes a lot of sense to do it in that way.”
