There's a huge thread about Formula 1 here but nary a word about Indy Car.

Me? I much prefer watching Indy Car races to the staid formulaic F-1 fare. Am I alone?



And as an aside, I equate NASCAR with amusement park bumping cars of my youth... hence my retort to their events is PASS.

Ive long been an F1 fan, and have only on occasion caught an Indy race.

COTA in Austin is one of the only tracks to host both, and MotoGP, NASCAR & WEC.

IIRC, F1 is still the fastest lap at COTA out of all those.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Ive long been an F1 fan, and have only on occasion caught an Indy race.

COTA in Austin is one of the only tracks to host both, and MotoGP, NASCAR & WEC.

IIRC, F1 is still the fastest lap at COTA out of all those.

Fastest isn't the criteria I embrace. Rather the interaction among drivers on the track. Indy car seems to mix things up much more than F-1 which again I say has become rather boring in comparison.

If I were to stray from open wheel racing, many of the road racing events are quite entertaining.

At Cota, the F-1 cars were about 12 seconds a lap or so faster than Indy cars.
I watch both and there are a lot more opportunities to see an Indycar race in person. Unless you were to see them at the same track, I doubt you'd notice the speed difference that much. Both are really fast.
As a reference, the NASCAR cars average speed at the Indy Oval was around 180-185 as I recall, the Indycars average around 230 in qualifying.
If you've never been there you have to go to Indy at least once in your life, regardless of your opinion on oval racing. TV does not do it (the speed) justice.
There is a good youtube video of Eau Rouge corners at Spa from '09 when they were non-turbo with the sound that's amazing too. Taken from the support series pit lane. Put that on full screen and turn up the sound. If that doesn't give you goosebumps, not much would.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfoVqAt0lIM


I've been standing at the pit wall at Indy (years ago) and the cars enter turn one and turn 3 at close to 240 during qualifying. Those F-1 cars get to around 200 at the end of the straight well after Eau Rouge but are probably more like 170-180 as they go through those uphill esses in this video.
Both are things you'll never forget.

Oh I go back quite a ways... attended the 1970 F1 Gran Prix at Watkins Glen when Emerson Fittipaldi won. But these days, since I don't travel well, attending racing events is no longer an option.

I do agree that there is a lot more disparity in F1 between the top 2-3 teams & the bottom.

Even MotoGP has more of a mix from race to race.

They're [F1] seemingly closer at the start of the season, then the top teams outdevelop the rest.

I haven’t watched Indy car racing in a long time, going clear back to the USAC/CART battle, which cost the 500 (in particular) a lot of fans.

I watched Indycar races for many years, but now only watch the Indy 500. I have followed F1 for more years than I can count. I love road racing and the amazing development that F1 does for their racing cars. I have made it to a large number of F1 races in the past, but those days are pretty much over for me.

NASCAR is no longer of any interest to me.....but in days gone by, I followed it closely. Too many "all a like" cars these days.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: GT-40DOC,

I happened to be in Singapore for the 2012 F1 night race. My company contracted out rooms from The Marina Mandarin and I stayed there for two weeks. The F-1 race happened to be in the middle of my trip and my hotel was inside the racetrack, at the end of the longest straightaway. From my room balcony I watched all the qualifying and practice runs for the whole 3 day event. I'll never forget that experience. Truly amazing machinery.

Tony.

Much prefer IndyCar over F1. We did have an IndyCar thread, but I got tired of being the only one posting in it. We’ve got a 6 drivers with a shot at the championship this weekend at Laguna Seca. About the only certainty about that race is Colton Herta will be hard to beat as it is probably his most successful track.

^ And silly season rumor is Herta to F1/AlphaTauri if he can get a superlicense & the AT seat is vacated by Gasly going to Alpine.

Further, is that Red Bull may pull out if Matesich retires, selling RBR to Porsche & AT to Andretti.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:
Much prefer IndyCar over F1. We did have an IndyCar thread, but I got tired of being the only one posting in it. We’ve got a 6 drivers with a shot at the championship this weekend at Laguna Seca. About the only certainty about that race is Colton Herta will be hard to beat as it is probably his most successful track.

F1 and IndyCar are two open wheel series with fast and agile cars, I gotta watch.

I've tried to open a couple IndyCar threads over the years and they just don't get much traction. Too bad, on average IMO IndyCar is the most competitive and entertaining motor sports series.

First and foremost, you need to watch enough to know the drivers, their skills, tendencies and personalities. Heroes and villains is as much the draw as the technical marvels they drive.

Die hard Indy (Champ car) fan here. Hoping to see an American, Newgarden, win this year.

And, Am I the only one annoyed by that blathering announcer Townsend Bell? He talke's about his opinions and is many times proven wrong and he is just annoying.

quote:

Originally posted by urbanwarrior238:
And, Am I the only one annoyed by that blathering announcer Townsend Bell? He talke's about his opinions and is many times proven wrong and he is just annoying.

He’s still better than anyone on Sky Sports F1.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:

quote:

Originally posted by urbanwarrior238:
And, Am I the only one annoyed by that blathering announcer Townsend Bell? He talke's about his opinions and is many times proven wrong and he is just annoying.

He’s still better than anyone on Sky Sports F1.

I don't mind the Sky broadcast team. A step up from the NBCSN F1 coverage, IMO. Though, I do like Buxton.

Indycar’s road races are much better than F1. I used to watch every F1 race that I could between 1988-2007ish and todays f1 is almost unwatchable in comparison. I really feel for the younger fans that have no idea how great f1 used to be.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I don't mind the Sky broadcast team. A step up from the NBCSN F1 coverage, IMO. Though, I do like Buxton.

I much prefer NBC’s group over Sky Sports. NBC doesn’t play any favorites and get excited when exciting things happen while everyone on Sky Sports is a British nuthugger whenever one of their drivers do something. And if they’re going to use Paul di Resta for anything that involved commentating, either Subtitles are required or he needs to spend several months with cousin Dario on how to speak English.

This weekend with Croft and Jenson Button was pretty good, but Martin Brundle needs to retire and Sky really needs to hire Steve Matchett (an actual F1 mechanic) to explain all the technical matters.

Thinking back, I did enjoy Matchett's commentary.
I bought The Mechanic's Tale a few years ago & really enjoyed it.

Brundle I can take or leave, but Button does a good job.
Croft can get a bit loud at the start with the first lap or two, but settles down to a manageable level after that, usually.

Sadly, I missed out on the M Walker commentary days.

I do like that the current F1 “harassment” issues with the F1 Twitter twats are that Yuki Tsunoda intentionally took a dive to help Max were started by Sky Sports F1.

https://racer.com/2022/09/06/a...conspiracy-theories/

My wife and I watch both Indycar and F1. But we much prefer Indy due to the competition and the fact that almost any driver can win on a given weekend.

My old employer sponsors an Indy car, so we got to meet a few drivers as well as Chip Ganassi. Every driver was very nice and personable. Another difference from F1 in my opinion.