Sebring set to host final IndyCar pre-season test
Yesterday at 09:37 AM
The full NTT IndyCar Series field will convene on Monday and Tuesday at Sebring International Raceway to conduct the final pre-season test of the year before returning to Florida the following week to go racing on the streets of St. Petersburg.
All 11 teams and 27 drivers are set to attend the two-day outing on Sebring's short course — the decades-long location for CART, Champ Car, and IndyCar testing — in a split format. With the field split into two groups, 14 drivers will run from 9am-1pm on Monday and hand the track over to the second group of 13 who will run from 1:30-5:30pm.
Group 2 will take Tuesday morning from 9am-12:30pm, and Group 1 will close from 1:30-5:00pm, giving each group track time in cooler and warmer conditions which combine to deliver one full day of testing for the 27 crews.
"It’s always interesting coming into it because you’re out of the car for such a long period of time that you almost think that you’ve forgotten how to drive an IndyCar until you actually get back in and realize it’s second nature," Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood told RACER. "There's obviously lots of development to our cars over the last five or six months, so there's a lot of learning that that you have to do prior to the season, that you only get essentially one day of testing to figure out.
"This will also be the first time that we’ve gone into the season with the hybrid system, so that’s another big learning curve. Sebring does a good job of mimicking street courses for the most part, until it grips up a little too much, so it’s good in that sense. It's not the most glamorous track, especially the short course with an IndyCar, but it gets the job done very well."
RACER understands Chevrolet and Honda have been asked to work with the series on the testing of a new deployment strategy with the spec energy recovery systems (ERS) made in partnership between the two auto manufacturers. The supercapacitor-based hybrids charge from and release power back to the rear wheels in a few second, and with the short bursts of extra acceleration in mind, IndyCar intends to try and extend the deployment duration at Sebring.
At the moment, there are no plans to increase the power output of the units that contribute a peak of 60hp, but the Sebring test will allow the series to determine if it can squeeze more deployment time out of the supercapacitors before they are depleted.
In 2024, IndyCar and its ERS partners preserved approximately 30 percent of the battery capacity to save for self-starting the cars in case of an on-track stall. It meant drivers actually had 70 percent of each charge to use as a performance boost, and was done to ensure an ample amount of energy was held in reserve to start the cars.
At Sebring, a less cautious approach will be taken with more of the overall charge made available to extend the deployment bursts. If the series and ERS partners are satisfied with the results, it could be used at St. Petersburg.
