=:>)

Great to see him do well. To do it with a smaller team will make it that much sweeter.
Also great sportsmanship was shown throughout the paddock.
Tough luck for Rahal. Thank goodness he never got hit.

Awesome race and a fantastic finish. Helio is one of the immortals now.
I wonder how Penske feels about his decision to give him the bums rush.

I only watched a small amount of it. Today, I searched for the winning engines.
Honda edged Chevy for the final results.

My question is...are Honda and Chevy the only makers involved? I didn't see any other brand listed.

Yes..Indy car very much spec racing..2 engines, same chassis. Unlike F-1, an attempt to keep car costs down.

Poor Graham Rahal...winning the F**ked by the fickle finger award. Gawd, I'd hate being the tire changer who messed up!

Pretty good race, I think. No car on car crashes. Only real screw ups were on pit road and the Rahal wheel thing. Last 50 laps were real good. Much better than the last Indy 500 I watched.

The wrecks on pit road were because the driver had no breaks and had to stop before they hit something/someone so they throw it in gear and lock up the wheels to get stopped.

Rahal's tire guy? Prolly unemployed.

I wonder why some cars had brake pedals go to the floor ? It's not like they use the brakes during a normal lap . So brakes/pads should be pristine don't you think ? I am sure Rahal's tire guy feels awful for making a mistake , but Rahal Sr/Jr should gather the entire crew and say we win or lose as a team . Could be a powerful team building exercise . I don't think any team should have a philosophy of make one mistake and your history . Or if you are going to have that philosophy then it needs to include the driver . Just my opinion .

I agree with the whole team thing but I know the Rahals demand excellence from themselves and wonder if they are like Roger Penske and cannot tolerate anything other than borderline perfection.

Brakes: I suspect there was a commonly used component that had a leak allowing air in the lines. One commentator wondered, if they were pulling the pads back too far to reduce drag. Maybe the pads were not spec'd correctly?

I also heard one of the commentators talk about the possibility of teams pulling the pads back too far . How do you do that ?

I heard talk about them using springs to retract the pads. I think they said it was illegal too.

Seems to me you could avoid the situation by working the master brake volume vs linkage set up to get around NOT having brakes during a critical time, like entering the pits. I think the problem is not being able to push enough brake fluid volume to get the pads out where they need to be. It's not air in the lines.

I don't know how you get around having a mission critical thing like a wheel nut not being put on correctly except to slow down a tad on the pit stop to insure they are all on correctly.

They use the brakes so infrequently on ovals that the brakes are always going to be cold. That can be handled by a few pumps. When the brake goes straight to the floor even after a few pumps there is a malfunction. Moisture in the fluid? Air in the line? Bad master cylinder? Something that is a major component failed.

I think the master brake volume can't push enough fluid to cause the retracted pads to touch the rotors in a meaningful way. No air, no moisture, just not enough volume.

I feel bad for Rahal too but he deserves some type of acting award for going on and on after getting out of his car. Maybe the Drama Queen award. :rolleyes:

Interesting article with some theories on the brake issues some teams experienced .

https://racer.com/2021/06/03/insight-what-was-going-on-with-the-brakes-at-indy/amp/

That article sure makes it sound a it's a volumetric problem, ie the master cylinder can't move enough fluid in one pump.
Simple solution, put in a bigger master cylinder.
Oh, wait. That would add weight wouldn't it.
Seems like they've gone a little too far in reducing the weight if that is a reason not to put a big master in.

The issue is guys using a qualifying setting in the race. In qual, they pit off of 3 and the limit cones are more or less at the pit wall. In race, they pit off of 4 and the limit cones are at the first stall. The race retraction setting is not as far back as the qual, but some folks lacking speed apparently wanted to me more aggressive in drag reduction. The mc was never designed to deal with this.

Thanks for the link to that article, great info.

Will Power might have been tempted to open up his pads! Didn't the whole Penske team get its collective hand slapped a few years ago for trying this exact thing?