Newgarden says 2018 IndyCar retains traits of previous-gen car

Newgarden, who won the IndyCar championship in his first year with Team Penske-Chevrolet, set pole position here at Sonoma Raceway last September. However, he said that his new car, now sporting the #1, still had the basic traits of an IndyCar, despite the universal aerokit’s removal of approximately 2000lbs of downforce.

He told Motorsport.com: “Obviously you notice a lot less grip on this car, a significant drop. It’s moving around a lot more, we were way more stuck. But I’d say the traits, the overall balance and feel, is not that different.”

Even more surprisingly, given Kanaan’s comments, Newgarden said tire degradation – around Sonoma Raceway, at least – had not increased significantly.

“The tires feel similar to what we were getting before,” he remarked. “They degraded a lot last year, from Laps 15-20 you could really feel it, and now I’d say it’s the same… but it’s offset by having less grip overall.

“I wouldn’t say the downforce was helping the tire live that much; I think you were just ultimately quicker in overall lap time. But I don’t think the rate of drop-off now is significantly different. Around here, the rate of drop off was really high anyway – you’d drop three seconds over a stint, and I think you’ll see the same thing now.”

This test, he said, had highlighted the difference between what the 2018 car requires for a natural roadcourse such as Sonoma, and what it requires for street courses – as simulated at Sebring. Sonoma, he said, did not require a back-to-the-drawing-board approach to setups.

“The setup [from the old car] has maintained some significance here,” he observed. “I think a lot of us today started where we finished [last year] just to see the difference, and for a lot of teams that worked OK.

“There are other tracks where you are starting from a clean sheet – Sebring seems very different, and I think street courses will take a bigger step. But it seems like here you can start from a decent baseline [from the old car] and work on changes from there.”