Do IndyCar teams build their own cars? All you need to know

IndyCar is America's topmost open-wheel racing series. Naturally, it boasts the world's fastest race cars, which can reach top speeds of 240 mph on the straights. However, unlike F1, its European counterpart, IndyCar is a 'spec series'. This means that all cars have the same basic characteristics with little room for innovation.

The chassis is created by Dallara and there are two engines which teams can choose from - Honda or Chevrolet. The only thing that IndyCar teams have full control over are the dampers. Here's the simple explanation given by ex-F1 and Juncos Hollinger Racing driver Romain Grosjean.

"Everybody has got the same aerodynamic," Grosjean said about IndyCar in a YouTube video in 2022. "It's not the most developed aerodynamic for performance. But it's developed for racing, and the racing is very cool. Dampers is the only part that teams can change. They can build their own dampers. There is a lot of setup you can do on the car, but everyone's got the same options of setup."

The job of dampers, in simple terms, is to convert the energy developed during the compression of the suspension springs into heat. Without it, the springs would keep compressing and expanding whenever the cars went over a curb or bump till the point the force dissipated, leading to unnecessary bouncing. The dampers have a direct effect on the tires.

The current generation of Indy cars uses the Dallara IR-12 chassis, which has been in play since 2012. In 2024, the engine saw a major change as hybrid technology was introduced. The cars are now equipped with 2.2-liter V-6, twin-turbocharged engines with hybrid technology.

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Dampers and Wind tunnel management - How IndyCar teams transform limited options into winning tools

AUTO: AUG 17 NTT IndyCar Series Bommarito Automotive Group 500 - Source: Getty

As mentioned earlier, IndyCar teams don't have a lot to play with. This standardization of cars makes the series more of a platform for drivers to showcase what they're made of. While that is mostly the case, the teams leave no stone unturned in maximizing the limited innovation space.

In 2022, IndyCar's vice president of competition and race engineering Bill Pappas divulged these details to The Race. He said:

"The evolution of where the dampers have gone is to optimize the tyre performance, whether that’s switching the tyre on and getting grip quickly, or keeping the tyre from wearing out."

Pappas also explained how the teams tailor the dampers to each circuit and the expected conditions.

"They spend a lot of time tuning the dampers, we have the use of inerters as well, that’s been something that’s come into play since 2012. The teams show up and can do a pretty good job of tuning in their dampers for the conditions, for the track, for the tyres. Teams have really opened up those departments quite a bit to optimize that to that device," he added.

With limited scope for aerodynamic development, the teams double down on the setup options by studying the actual cars in the wind tunnel.

"They do all these wind tunnel studies and they say, ‘OK, in a 30mph corner, the optimum ride height is this and the rake is that,’" Pappas said.

Unlike F1, the teams have a limited role to play in the car's performance, the parity promises neck-to-neck battles throughout the season with the championship often going to the final race on the calendar. The best part is, on a given day, even a rookie can upset legends of the sport.