IndyCar looked stale at the start of 2010, barely staggering through the economic recession and dwarfed by NASCAR. The excitement surrounding the 2008 unification of the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series, to form the new IndyCar Series, had dissipated. The schedule comprised nine road/street courses, eight ovals, and spectator numbers at most venues were falling.
The cars reflected this stasis. The Indy Racing League’s spec Dallara IR-05 was never accused of elegance even when it emerged in 2003, but it had been developed for a largely oval series, whereas the Panoz DP01 used by Champ Car in 2007 had never seen an oval. Thus when the series merged, the attractive turbocharged Panoz-Cosworth was rendered obsolete after just a year of competition, and the obsolete-looking Dallara complete with raucous 3.5-litre normally aspirated V8 Honda became ‘the IndyCar’.
The arrival of Randy Bernard as IndyCar CEO in February of 2010 was seen as exciting by those who had moaned about the series’ lethargy and lack of ideas in recent years. Over the course of the previous 15 years he had turned Professional Bull Riders Inc from making barely half a million into a $26m brand, and if he knew nothing about motorsport, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He wouldn’t have his hands tied by tradition and his head fogged by others’ agendas. And in a rare display of unity, the majority of the series’ competition department members, team owners and drivers informed him that one of his priorities should be new cars and
