Tony Cotman Talks about The Aero Kits Flap

Extensive Q&A with Tony Cotman here from Racer.com about the aero kit flap. He's for the introduction of said kits at teh 2011 Indy 500.

Key exerpt:

R: If the IZOD IndyCar Series does stick to the plan of introducing them at Indy in 2012, do you think all the current team owners will turn up, or will there be casualties?

TC: Oh, I don't think it's the difference between them showing up or not. Whether they buy a manufacturer's aero kit or not is their own decision. Nobody has to build them, nobody has to buy them. It's optional: no one's forcing anything down the team owners' throats. If you're happy to run with the Dallara because you think Dallara has done a good job and can't be bettered, then perfect. Stick to it. I think the whole thing has been blown up more than it needs to be and at the end of the day, it comes down to IndyCar making a decision and moving on – and allowing us all to move on.

Read it all HERE.

Comments

[redcar]

hate to sound like robinmiller, but cotman is a pretty smart dude.

so the plan was that the owners would run a dallara chassis for the first four or so races with a choice of three engines, then they would have the option of buying/not buying an OPTIONAL aero kit for Indy. simple enough.

but now the owners don't want to be "forced" to buy an aero kit?

the owners (as usual) are up to something, we just don't know what it is. I look forward to hearing something from RBernard.

[GeorgeK]

Great interview, answered all my questions as to where the issue lies.

The only remaining unanswered question I have is: Will the new aero kits be tied to the new engine manufacturers, or can they be mixed and matched? If I start out with a Honda engine and base Dallara kit, will I have the choice of using any of the three other kits to try at Indy or later?

The aero kit cost of 70K seems to be a non starter, so what are the team owner's real concerns?????

[SkipinSC]

It appears that Mr. Cotman and I are on the same page. Love the idea of debuting the new kits at the 2012 Indy 500; My only concern, however, is that with 3 variables (tub, engine, and aero kit all new to ovals at that time,) there needs to be a test session at Indy somewhere in April. That way, everyone can get acclimated to how these variables are going to perform on high speed ovals.

I can almost envision this as a "selling" test session, where the different aero kit manufacturers have the opportunity to show their wares/sell their wares to the various teams.

[The Speedgeek]

What a great interview with Tony Cotman. He said basically every last thing that I've been thinking or was hoping was going to come to pass with the aero kits, so either he read my mind and is lying to make me feel better, or they really do have a great plan in place. Now, they just need to stick to it.

Thanks for the heads up, 'Dog.

[Concerned Fan]

@Speedgeek: You were hoping for spec main wing planes?

Kinky.

[The Speedgeek]

@CF
Well, sure, why not? Have there been major breakthroughs in the last 10 years on wing aspect ratios? I haven't followed every last wing spec change that every F1 team has done in the last few years, but most of the main planes look pretty darn similar to me. Seems to me that the main areas of development, in F1 at least, have been in endplates, second (or third or fourth or whatever number) elements and built-in barge board-y type pieces. If those are where the main gains are to be made, then why leave the main planes open for "wheel re-invention"? Pick a main plane that works well, produce it in massive quantities to hold the production costs down and let the kit manufacturers develop all of the other little pieces (though hopefully the rules will be written such that there's a limit to how many of those little peices the kit makers can hang on the wing assemblies, in order to hold down development costs there, too). That's my thought, anyway.