Why do IndyCar teams spray water on cars after a pit stop?

IndyCar is separated from its various counterparts through some peculiar practices. This includes the cars being sprayed with water after a pit stop has been completed, generating curiosity in the fans' minds regarding why the pit crew engages in such a practice.

The premier class of open-wheel racing in the United States has a varyingly different pit stop procedure than its European counterpart, F1. While F1 services each car in just above a second with 20-plus people servicing a single car, an average IndyCar pit stop would be around seven seconds with around half the workforce.

F1 primarily focuses on changing four tires as fast as possible, with front wing changes becoming a rare sight during a season. However, this is not the case for IndyCar as teams have to change the front wing setup and refuel the car at almost every pit stop.

Moreover, this refuelling is the sole reason that cars are sprayed with water. IndyCar engines run on pure ethanol. Though this provides great power with remarkable cut down on carbon emissions, ethanol causes invisible fires due to a clean combustion process taking place.

This has led teams to take precautions on various levels. The pitcrew is decked out with fireproof safety gear, but a gold old spray of water when the fuel hose is released helps dilute the ethanol if any of it leaks when the hose is detached.

This prevents the ethanol from igniting due to the high temperature of the energy cover or surrounding body cover of an IndyCar and helps avoid invisible fire scares in the paddock.

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Meyer Shank Racing could potentially make a change in IndyCar's traditional pit crew layout

Hélio Castroneves at the IndyCar - Bommarito Automotive Group 500 - Source: Getty

While IndyCar teams have relied on a traditional pit crew layout, with the crew members essentially being the mechanics of the cars and cutting down on yearly expenses for the teams, some teams have been pondering on hiring specialists for this job. Moreover, Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Mike Shank expressed his intention of taking the step.

The 58-year-old looked over to the hectic schedule of his mechanics, and said (via PlanetF1):

"It’s just a lot to put on these guys as the schedule gets tighter and busier. We ask them for perfection on the cars with car preparation, and then ask for perfection on pit lane performance, right? That’s just a lot to ask of anybody.”

Shank further admitted that he was looking at the possibility of getting athletes that could shave off precious milliseconds or even seconds to replace the old layout, and said:

“A thing that I think is coming is professional pit crews. It’s trying to creep in. Now I’m trying to figure out ways to pay for it. As an example, instead of paying a driver all the money you have left, maybe some of that budget could go towards a pro-spec pit crew that come in."

“I think that’s definitely on its way in, and we’re talking about D1, D2, D3 athletes that are super competitive and make a decent living doing other things but also come in on the weekends. But we’re not there yet though. We’re looking at it. There’s already teams doing a couple of positions that way, but not all of them. But I think it’s going more in that direction over the next year or two."

IndyCar debuted a new hybrid component for the engine last year at Mid-Ohio and is slated to continue running the same power unit for the foreseeable future, so any changes in the refuelling system also remain highly unlikely.