TBK-Light.com

On the commercial side, the biggest change for 2025 is the change of domestic broadcast partner, as FOX takes over from NBC with all races to be shown on network TV for the first time in Indycar history.

On the technical side, following the successful introduction of the hybrid unit last year there should be a boost to the amount of power available from the supercapicitor.

On the sporting side, the introduction of a charter system brings with it a hard cap of 27 starters at all races apart from the Indy 500, with the 25 Chartered cars automatically qualifying for those races. There are 27 full-time cars, so most of the time all entrants should start, although if any part-time cars do appear then someone will be watching from the grandstands.


Calendar

Streets of St. Petersburg - March 2nd
The Thermal Club - March 23rd
Streets of Long Beach - April 13th
Barber Motorsports Park - May 4th
IMS Road Course - May 10th
109th Indianapolis 500 - May 25th
Streets of Detroit - June 2nd
World Wide Technology Raceway - June 15th
Road America - June 22nd
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course - July 6th
Iowa Speedway - July 12th & 13th
Exhibition Place - July 20th
Laguna Seca - July 27th
Portland International Raceway - August 10th
Milwaukee Mile - August 24th
Nashville Superspeedway - August 31st

Every venue from 2024 returns, with 2 minor alterations in status; the race at the Thermal Club has been upgraded to a full round of the championship, whilst Milwaukee shrinks to a single race.
There is also a degree of date shuffling - the biggest change is a relative swap between WWTR and Laguna Seca, whilst the calendar as a whole is shrunk by 2 weeks to avoid losing TV time to the NFL. The most drastic consequence of this is the scheduling of 8 races across 7 events on 10 weekends from the 15th June to the 10th August.


Entrants (R - Rookie, NC - No Charter)

Full Time

Chip Ganassi Racing
#10 - Alex Palou
#9 - Scott Dixon
#8 - Kyffin Simpson

Andretti Global
#26 - Colton Herta
#27 - Kyle Kirkwood
#28 - Marcus Ericsson

Team Penske
#3 - Scott McLaughlin
#12 - Will Power
#2 - Josef Newgarden

Arrow McLaren
#5 - Patricio O'Ward
#7 - Christian Lundgaard
#6 - Nolan Siegel

A.J. Foyt Enterprises
#14 - Santino Ferrucci
#4 - David Malukas

Ed Carpenter Racing
#20 - Alexander Rossi
#21 - Christian Rasmussen

Meyer Shank Racing
#60 - Felix Rosenqvist
#66 - Marcus Armstrong

Dale Coyne Racing
#18 - Rinus van Kalmthout
#51 - Jacob Abel (R)

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
#15 - Graham Rahal
#30 - Devlin DeFrancesco
#45 - Louis Foster (R)

Juncos Hollinger Racing
#77 - Conor Daly
#78 - Sting Ray Robb

Prema Racing 
#90 (NC) - Callum Ilott
#83 (NC) - Robert Shwartzman (R)


Part Time

Andretti Global with Herta/Curb/Agajanian
#98 - Marco Andretti (Indy 500)

Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Motorsports
#17 - Kyle Larson (Indy 500)

Meyer Shank Racing
#06 - Helio Castroneves (Indy 500)

Ed Carpenter Racing
#33 - Ed Carpenter (Indy 500)

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing with Cusick Motorsports
#23 - Ryan Hunter-Reay (Indy 500)
#24 - Jack Harvey (Indy 500)

The full-time car count remains at 27 as Prema join the series and Ganassi mothball their Charterless cars.

In holiday season news, a new steering wheel design has been made available for the new season. At least 8 drivers will be making use of it.

https://racer.com/2024/12/27/upgraded-s ... -for-2025/

Coyne is moving fairly swiftly towards his driver choice. He hopes to have everything firmed up by the middle of January and intends to run a single full-time driver in each car.

https://racer.com/2024/12/29/last-team- ... ions-open/

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Rossi to Ed Carpenter? Thats new for me.

The schedule is ridiculous. Shrinking the overall period by having it dictated by other sports' calendar seems counter-productive. It gets Indycar forgotten, as if it was just a summer-series, making it feel like a part-time job.

FOX has the rights to show Sunday afternoon NFL games, which means that if Indycar were to schedule an event after the end of August, it would be on FS1 at best and it would almost certainly clash with whichever game was on FOX. Last year's finale drew 480,000 viewers on network NBC because it clashed with an NFL game. If it had been on a cable channel, it would be quite a bit worse than that. That is why there will not be any championship races in September until Indycar restores its former level of popularity (i.e. never).

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Mark Miles' leadership is inept, he needs to go.

_________________
Follow me on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/135625678@N06/

looks like McLaren bought the SP part of SPAM. I guess the team will no longer be a magnet for gruesome crashes

_________________
Advocating for sportswashing GPs to be held at Portimão, Mugello and Nürburgring

The owner of RACER has written a very fair appraisal of Indycar's current position.

https://racer.com/2025/01/06/indycar-20 ... hats-next/

-----------------------------

Disney have agreed to merge with Fubo, which will end Fubo's lawsuit against Venu Sports and therefore allow it to launch.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

100% agree

They tried this tactic with CART/ChampCar to a degree, and it never worked.

People never learn!

On the other hand, the NFL is just absolutely, incredibly, overwhelming popular these days here in the USA. TV ratings absolutely TANK once NFL season starts. For example, Nashville was on NBC, but had 483,000 viewers which is abysmal for a network TV broadcast. Even other stuff like NASCAR sees very significant drops during NFL season.

Indycar is talking to potential new engine suppliers for the 2027 ruleset as well as Chevy and Honda.

https://racer.com/2025/01/07/positive-t ... ontinuing/

------------------------------

Marco has decided to give the 500 at least one more go, keeping the same sponsor from last year.

https://andrettiglobal.com/news/2025/01 ... -for-2025/

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

FOX lineup news. Buxton is likely to be Diffey's replacement, Hinch and TBell remain where they are, and Kevin Lee might be kept as lead pit reporter, but RHR, Harvey and Kimball are all under consideration as well.

https://eu.indystar.com/story/sports/mo ... 550915007/

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Dam, going for Buxton! That'll be a bit of a coup for the series. Whether you like him or not, you'd imagine a lot of DTS/F1 fans will be spurred on to watch clips/interviews and then hopefully full races because of him

_________________
"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

But will be be able to referee the bitchfest between Hinch (the good one) and Townsend (batshit crazy egotist?)

OR will he just be trying to talk in memes, which he's most famous for

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Bluesky now:

https://bsky.app/profile/paulhadsley.bsky.social

Buxton is a good presenter but a mediocre play-by-play commentator.

A fair smattering of news this afternoon;

-PREMA have launched their livery, which is basically identical to all of their other liveries (red with white and green). No major sponsorship visible. Grosjean has been signed as a reserve driver and might be trying to get a seat for the 500, although this would require Chevy to add a 19th lease which historically they have drawn a line at.

-Dedicated streaming in the US remains up in the air as the partners behind Venu have now pulled the plug entirely.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Speedcafe did an article about it. Seems it's hit the mark!



https://speedcafe.com/indycar-news-2025 ... -analysis/

_________________
"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

That ad is a masterclass