Álex Palou believes that hybrids will not change the forces in IndyCar: “We will continue at the top, fighting”
Dsince it was known that the hybrid single-seaters they would reach the IndyCar middle of this season, Alex Palou has always been in favor of innovation… despite the fact that he is surely the most harmed for the changes. It was at the beginning of the year like reigning champion and surely the strongest man before the start… and he is now, when he arrives leader to that inflection point in the 2024 season.
MARCA had the opportunity to discuss with the Catalan the details of the hybrid driving at the beginning of the season, but also to ask him just before facing the appointment of Mid Ohio (Sunday, 7:53 p.m.) due to this circumstance: “I don’t think the future of the championship will change much.sincerely. We will continue up therefighting”, reaffirmed the two-time champion, who after doing numerous test sessions with the Ganassi-Honda hybrid He is optimistic about the new development that is coming.
The one from Ganassi explains in MARCA how driving will change.
Cars that will change driving
And that, indeed, the arrival of the new cars yes you are going to have a greater impact in the ‘life’ of the pilots than the modifications that had been introduced until now to prepare hybridization (From a aeroscreen lighter a tires specifically prepared for the highest weight). “Now the weights and dynamics change quite a bit of the car compared to the modifications at the beginning of the season”, explains Palou who details what it entails within the cockpit for the pilot.
“In all other hybridized categories, such as Formula 1 or the IMSAthey use a system where everything is automatic: when you brake the engine charges, when you accelerate the engine it begins to give you the electrical part and you have maps to adjust it, which is decided by the engine engineers. This way you can determine where you recharge more or where you recharge less. or if you leave everything in one lap for qualifying or always maintain 50% battery to race, so that you always have the same pace.
In F1 regeneration is manual, here the driver can do it and thus make a difference
However, what he will use will be very different: “In IndyCar the system doesn’t give you that much power, but It’s all manual. If I am not pressing the regenerate lever, I do not regenerate anything. There will be a limit to what can be regenerated in a turn and what you can use and there the pilot has much more work“.
“Sounds fun… and it’s fun, but we already had enough with how the car moves without power steering. For example, You brake and you have to be with one hand pressing the button. But it is not activating it and that’s it, but rather you have to hold or hold a lever for a while. It’s complicated, and especially on tracks like Barber, where the car moves a lot, there’s a lot of grip and you have to do all the force with one hand. Newgarden and me we ended up dead there in the tests. But it’s going to be the same for everyone and maybe we can make a little difference there“.
A new asset in the ovals
In this last sentence is the key why Palou has always been so optimistic about this changedespite the fact that he is precisely who cares least change anything. Furthermore, it may be a differentiating factor, especially in ovals…and that is where Catalan has prepared thoroughly for that second half of the season: “It gives many more forward optionsespecially in Indianapolis. Depending on where and how you use it, it can give you an advantage. In the urban and permanent ones it will be less noticeable, it will be like the push-to-pass Yes, it is an advantage, but it doesn’t make a difference.
For Palou, hybridization will be an additional challenge which is not so frequent in a more technically static category like IndyCar: “Even if you have always been winning, I think that a change is good. We do not have, as in other categories, new funds, for example, that we can be there investigating. But if you give us a hybrid systemyou change the balance of weights, a aeroscreen that makes us change a lot setup… well we like that, because it is about tune to the limit and compare ourselves with others teams or pilots”.
