{"id":65394,"date":"2019-09-24T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=65394"},"modified":"2019-09-24T12:22:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T19:22:00","slug":"honda-wins-indycar-engine-title-for-second-straight-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/honda-wins-indycar-engine-title-for-second-straight-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Honda Wins INDYCAR Engine Title for Second Straight Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Honda<\/p>\n

The NTT IndyCar Series crowned its champions at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca this past weekend. Josef Newgarden earned his second driving title, his first achieved in 2017. Team Penske thieved its 14th entrant championship and Honda eclipsed Chevrolet to take the engine manufacturers accolades.<\/p>\n

The NTT IndyCar Series is considered a \u201cspec\u201d series because all teams use the same chassis and tires. Teams are hugely restricted in what they can do outside the parameters of series rules with regards to changing anything, with the exception of dampers (shocks). Engine manufacturers have certain \u201cboxes\u201d they can work within during each season, with only a few items, like pistons, being free.<\/p>\n

\"Honda<\/p>\n

As with the driver\u2019s and entrant\u2019s titles, the engine manufacturer championship came down to the wire this past weekend at Laguna Seca, a hilly, 2.238-mile permanent road course where neither manufacturer has competed in Indy car competition (Honda, through its Honda Performance Development engine development division – HPD – has raced here in the CART\/Champ Car series).<\/p>\n

Because each car is allowed 10,000 miles for its engines, each team is allocated four engines for the season – and that includes testing as well as racing. The engines are dispensed by INDYCAR, so that each team has no idea which engine is assigned to them. Once a car uses a fifth engine, it is no longer eligible to compete for the engine maker\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

Every team experiences changes during a 17-race season and engines are part of that process. Sometimes a fifth or more engine is required following an accident. Failures can happen and sometimes there are maladies that can affect a manufacturer\u2019s entire group of teams.<\/p>\n

\"Honda
Scott Dixon’s P3 result sealed Honda’s title.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year, Chevrolet (with its Ilmor partnership) and Honda\/HPD came into the 17th and final race neck and neck, with Honda leading the championship with 1351 points to Chevrolet\u2019s 1317. That\u2019s tight. A mere 34 points. Chevrolet had three cars that had used more than four engines; Honda had six, but still led the competition.<\/p>\n

It was Scott Dixon\u2019s third-place result that beat Chevrolet and gave Honda two titles in a row, as that Chip Ganassi Racing driver is still on his fourth engine (Colton Herta is using his fifth). Marcus Ericsson\u2019s 11th place result added 35 points to give Honda this victory, 1436 points to Chevrolet\u2019s 1387, as Honda\/HPD increased their advantage to 49 points.<\/p>\n

Simon Pagenaud\u2019s fourth-place finish along with Max Chilton\u2019s 13th place result sealed the deal for Honda over Chevrolet. Honda was unable to capitalize on winning the pole position and the race because of Herta\u2019s fifth engine in play. Only the top two runners for either engine maker receive points.<\/p>\n

Post-race, HPD president Ted Klaus talked about the achievement, even as he followed former president Art St. Cyr, who presided over HPD when it earned the engine title in 2018. \u201cTwo in a row is extremely gratifying,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all know that everything you do in life tends to be incremental, so I had the pleasure of joining and stepping up on top of what my predecessors have built before me. I\u2019m just really pleased to have earned this second championship. It was very tight, so it\u2019s very gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Honda
Ted Klaus, HPD president.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Klaus is hoping for a new engine manufacturer to join Honda and Chevrolet by the 2022 season, when the structure of engine competition changes to a 2.4-liter internal combustion engine with externally sourced electrification. \u201cWe are a bit anxious about attracting a third manufacturer because we believe this is the perfect time, level playing field and electrified formula that won\u2019t be the responsibility of that manufacturer, and the internal combustion engine that will. It\u2019s a perfect time,\u201d Klaus said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited,\u201d he added, \u201cabout the technological challenge of integrating an electric motor, a motor generator unit (MGU) with a small turbocharged engine,\u201d in the 2022 INDYCAR season. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about electric power and battery power, but we can consider fuel and low-carbon fuels, so that\u2019s also a possibility for our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klaus also discussed the plausibility of driving the engine and MGU with either turbocharging or supercharging. \u201cWe can separately drive a supercharger or we can electrically add energy to a turbocharger. The biggest difference between a supercharger and turbocharger is how you manage the temperature\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

Honda celebrated, Chevrolet ruminated after the 90-lap Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. The upcoming season may not begin until March 15 in St. Petersburg, Fla., but the engine makers have work to do, upgrades to make to their mills, which just experienced an eighth season and have reached the end of their power curves. The goal, for these next two years, is to win, of course, but also to prepare for the next generation of Indy car power players.<\/p>\n

\"Honda
Marcus Ericsson helped Honda take title.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, Chevrolet (with its Ilmor partnership) and Honda\/HPD came into the 17th and final race neck and neck.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":65396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470,3699,5029],"tags":[5614,4686,963,143,4172,4459,41,1632],"class_list":["post-65394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-other-racing","category-racing","tag-anne-proffit","tag-awards","tag-engines","tag-honda","tag-indycar-racing","tag-indycars","tag-news","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Honda-HPD-personnel-and-drivers-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-h0K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65400,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394\/revisions\/65400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}