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INDYCAR: Tony Cotman 2012 Q&A
ICONIC panel member Tony Cotman answers a variety of technical and procedural questions, bringing the 2012 car into sharper focus.
Marshall Pruett  |  Posted July 27, 2010  
Michael Andretti's Reynard (R) in 2001 looks little different than Gil de Ferran's Reynard (L) in 1996. In the rich and wild days of CART, aero development was still an incremental thing -- as seen across this five-year span. (LAT)
As SPEED.com continues to be inundated with emails asking for more information on the 2012 IndyCar rules and regulations, we spoke with Tony Cotman -- one of the seven ICONIC panel members tasked with crafting IndyCar’s future -- to clarify a number of things and to expand on a few others.

While the IZOD IndyCar Series distributed a brief list of facts about the 2012 car during the launch on July 14th, and later followed that up with a transcription of the ICONIC panel Q&A session a few of us participated in, many of us have read enough conflicting statements from panel members on a variety of topics to warrant going to Cotman for some straightforward answers.

“What exactly does the 2012 aero kit consist of?” has been a steady question, as more than a few readers (and potential aero kit constructors) have sought greater detail.

“An aero kit consists of front and rear wing main planes and flaps,” said Cotman. “Let's say, the complete front and rear wing assemblies. That includes everything related to the wing elements and their mounting pieces to attach them to the car. The kit includes body work such as side pods and the engine cover, and it includes mirrors. It does not include the underwing. The underwing would be part of your standard non-touchable product, as with the nose.”

A few readers asked whether a Dallara aero kit, when delivered with a 2012 chassis, would be counted as the first of the two kits allowed per year, or if two kits in addition to the stock Dallara bodywork would be allowed.

“You get a choice to buy your vehicle with a Dallara kit or without it. If you buy it with Dallara kit, that’s kit number one," Cotman confirmed. "Likewise, if you're a team, if you're Penske Racing, when you choose to buy a complete Dallara, that's your one kit and that’s one per team, not per entry. So Penske cannot have six different kits across their three cars, they could only have kits made by two different manufacturers. Andretti can’t have eight or 10, they can only have two. And that doesn’t mean to say Penske can’t run kit one on Helio’s car and kit two on Ryan and Will’s car at a race weekend. But you'll find that most will run the same kit because all the data will relate.”
Tony Cotman has delivered a steady, consistent message about the 2012 IndyCar -- in stark contrast to some of his ICONIC panel members. Now it's time for Randy Bernard to put the Kiwi in charge of the 2012 rules. (LAT)

The math behind the number of aero kits required for the diverse IndyCar racing calendar has also been a source of confusion. “Since IndyCars race on three types of tracks, won’t they need three different types of kits?” has been the general inquiry.

“If you provide a kit you must provide a kit that is capable of running on every type of track the series goes to,” said Cotman.

Interesting. For $70,000, aero kit suppliers must outfit a car with, well, a lot of parts.

This is significant, as the current Dallara sidepods – an area sculpted to produce low drag on ovals -- probably wouldn’t be used at all three types of tracks in 2012. Look for either a second set of road/street course sidepods to be provided with the aero kits, or for a lot of bolt-on items to be included that will add considerable downforce when desired.

Add it all up, and the bill of materials for an aero kit in 2012 will consist of more items than we have now, and it will come at a greater manufacturing expense.

Purchasing an ‘aero kit’ for the current Dallara chassis – road course, speedway and short oval configuration – will cost you just over $104,000. Include the new-for-2012 items – the high downforce sidepod goodies and any other items -- and that figure easily creeps towards $110,000.

It’s worth noting that for the 2012 kit, two items will come standard with the car – the nose and the floor – and that saves $23,000, dropping the total theoretical price to $87,000. Again, this is based on costs for the current Dallara IndyCar components.

While adding more parts into the mix while dropping the price to $70,000 in 2012 will be a challenge, it’s not impossible. The real question is whether any aero kit manufacturer, other than Dallara, can turn a profit.

The looks of the 2012 IndyCar with different aero kits has also been a hotly debated topic, and it’s certianly one I’ve dedicated plenty of ink to since the announcement.

Back in the 1990s, when CART had multiple chassis being used, Lola, Swift, Reynard, Penske and Eagle all produced their own complete cars. From the tub to the wings, they all came from clean sheets of paper. CART’s rulebook was also rather open – far more than what we’ll have in 2012 -- allowing free thinking in many areas of each car’s aerodynamics.

But one thing stood out: despite all of that aerodynamic freedom, those CART cars looked very similar. The Lolas didn’t have tiny sidepods in comparison to normal units on the other cars. The Reynards didn’t have front wings that curled up, nor did the Penskes have front wings that curled down. The Swifts didn’t have tall shark fins sprouting from the engine cover. What you had was a collection of the world’s best IndyCar constructors arriving at more or less the same conclusion each year.

Just as F1 went from a grid filled with cigar-shaped cars in the 1960s to the highly advanced but barely distinguishable F1 cars of today, open-wheel constructors tend to build cars that conform to the most recent state-of-the-art aerodynamic principles.

If the most recent era of open tech IndyCar racing taught us anything, it was that the two most adventurous CART cars from the late 1990s – the Penskes and the Eagles – were a complete bust. Cars with radical aerodynamics failed while the more traditional chassis – the Reynards and Lolas – usually found themselves at the head of the pack.

2012 aero kit designers aren’t going to add wild, visually appealing (but aerodynamically unproven) pieces to their kits. This isn’t going to be a contest won by who has the most bling or adorns their kit with the most flair. It’s going to be won by the company who finds a tiny advantage and exploits it. Anyone who tells you differently is drinking a bit too much of the ICONIC Kool Aid.

In terms of innovation and originality, things get worse when we realize that with the ICONIC panel’s anti-wheel interlocking plans, aero kit manufacturers must conform to a rule that moves the sidepods (or pontoons) out in front of the rear tires.

I fully support the move to protect the rear wheels from interlocking – that’s a smart call – but it gives the aero kits designers even less freedom to express themselves. The radiator inlets are also mandated, giving yet another spec design constraint. Aero kit designers will not have a big empty canvas to dress the 2012 Dallara in ‘new clothes,’ and as Cotman affirms below, IndyCar fans should prepare themselves to see only subtle differences across the different aero kits.

“When you look at it, you’re probably going to get slight differences in the wings, but you're not going to change the bodywork within reason.”

Cotman further explored the theme of “different looking cars,” describing how the choice of engines could influence the rear bodywork of an aero kit.

“I still think we will see cars that do look dissimilar, and here's the reasons. Obviously, in this explanation, you're putting the reasonable hopes on different engine manufacturers. But let’s just say for argument’s sake, Cosworth came along with a four-cylinder twin turbo that revs to 16,000 RPMs, or something like that. Something small. The bodywork that fits around the Cosworth will be tailored as such that it will look nothing like the bodywork that would fit around a bigger V6. So already, turbo outlets, exhaust outlets, particularly around the rear end, the car will look extremely different. It will look smaller; it will need to be smaller or need to be efficient for a lot of reasons.”

While I see his point -- and there will indeed be small differences -- a more compact engine in a spec chassis won’t necessarily lead to overly noticeable bodywork changes to the engine cover and sidepods. Every engine manufacturer will have the same chassis, floor, damper, gearbox, and general radiator and intercooler dimensions to work with, and that alone will prohibit an aero kit from having a unique and distinct identity.

For 1999, Mercedes produced the smallest engine anyone had ever seen in CART – something I worked with firsthand – which looked like a 50 percent scale model of what everyone was using at the time. Knowing how small it was, take a look at the sidepod and engine cover on Greg Moore’s Reynard-Mercedes compared the Reynard-Cosworth driven by Adrian Fernandez.

Fernandez ran the fin, while Moore’s Player’s Forsythe team ran without it, but in general, and in the same chassis, the No. 99’s bodywork didn’t shrink to reflect the tiny engine.

Granted, the back of the 1999 Penske – a car with aerodynamics specifically designed to exploit the tiny Merc motor – is noticeably narrower and lower than the Reynard-Mercedes, but to get that kind of visual difference, you need to tailor a chassis to the engine, and that isn’t what we’ll have in 2012.
Penske's 1999 IndyCar chassis looked like an F1 car. Unfortunately, it drove like a Ford F150. While aero kit designers could take a page from Penske's radical past, history has shown a conventional approach usually wins. (LAT)

One of the questions I’ve had in regards to aero kits comes in the form of modifying another firm’s product. With the costs to produce a proper “this is better than what Dallara makes, and I know people will actually buy it” kit in the millions of dollars, I asked Cotman if I only had a development budget of $500,000, would I be able to hire a Bruce Ashmore or Ben Bowlby to take the Dallara Kit, come up with whatever improvements they can for my relatively small sum, and then use that modified kit on a car?

As Cotman sees it, only 100 percent original kits will be allowed.

“I would say possibly down the road, but not in the beginning. To be perfectly honest, there's really not that much detail. We need to discuss in more detail those specifics because the league really needs to run through all the ‘what if’ scenarios. And although on the outside probably it’s best for larger manufacturers or teams who typically spend a lot of money on R&D, we've got to understand down the road how we can make it attractive to people who want to put a kit on. But the reason you can't just at the moment get somebody else's kit and change a few components is, imagine how many kits you would have?

“By the end of it you’d have an endless amount of kits and it’s probably uncontrollable. Everybody says, oh, with 25 kits it would be great. 25 cars with different kits? Okay, it would be great to a certain point, if they all were substantially different. If we get them just to do minute changes… remember one of the reasons for this is so that at least it’s noticeable to a fan. So if Team X wants to do a kit, and most of the original aerodynamics are retained, I doubt it would be approved.”

I agree with Cotman’s concern that an endless list of small, copycat kits could emerge. Yet one item for the panel to discuss amongst the many “what if” scenarios is how to allow smaller vendors to get involved with the aero kit game.

It’s clear that only a few constructors have the facilities and expertise to do a complete kit, and the cost to produce that kit will filter out 99 percent of those who have an interest in giving it a shot. If a compromise can be found – something that allows the development of certain components by cottage companies in the $250-$500K range -- maybe some smaller players can have a place in the 2012 aero kit business.

Despite the spin put on the topic by some of his colleagues, Cotman is fully aware that these kits will require a significant investment.

“Aero development is not cheap. I don't think anyone can deny that. I think the beauty about this is, the idea is to entice larger technology companies; one of the criticisms that the owners had was the league at the moment is really closed to any technology companies who wanted to invest, sponsor or be a part of the series. If there was an avenue for them to put their name on the side of the car or have their own piece of the car or – such as the aero kit, in this case – then the general thought was we may be able to entice more technology companies, back to the sport. Because when you have a look now, who is there? Who is there that’s a technology company? There’s very, very few.

“At the end of the day, I don't deny aero development is cheap but this is where the Catch-22 is: we need to be open enough to entice people who want to do it but the rules have to be tight enough so that it’s not just an endless battle. You don't want people having to buy all-new kits every year. Even if it's only 70 grand per car, or 150 grand for your primary car and the backup. Some might say it’s still better than the old days where we used to have to buy new cars every year. Well, this isn't the old days. People couldn't afford just to put new cars out each year these days. So even 150 grand a year is a reasonable chunk of money. I think it's one thing that needs to be, as I said before, the ‘what if’ scenarios, it’s something that really needs to be thought about because it's difficult.”

IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard discussed how the economics of the 2012 chassis forced the ICONIC panel to select a sole supplier, but as Cotman shares, even if multiple chassis were allowed, he doesn’t believe they would look different enough to get the fans excited.

“The arguments on the spec chassis really has no relevance to me. If Dallara and Lola and Swift were all building cars, the dimensions, such as the fuel cell size, the minimum cockpit opening, and what size driver we can take, would all be the same. So we need to allow for a 6 foot 4 driver, we need a 21-inch cockpit opening because we want to use an extractable FIA seat, and we want a fuel cell size of x. When you put those parameters on it, as well as certain side and frontal impact tests and the roll hoop test, everybody comes out with pretty much the same structure; it could have different bumps or humps here and there, but everybody's going to come with exactly the same thing. So for me, that portion of it is really irrelevant. What is relevant is how big a box is the series going to let you play with? I'd like to see winglets and F-ducts, I like that stuff. Maybe I'm too radical, but I like F1 racing too…”

I understand the point Cotman is making. Look at the majority of the chassis in F1 today, and barring the blunt nose on the Renault, the tubs themselves look more or less the same. I will miss, however, the chance to analyze and understand the differences between multiple IndyCar chassis, and to root for the different brands. I’ve always been drawn to the March vs Lola vs Penske vs … battles, but I’ll have to pin my hopes on multiple chassis being allowed for 2016, provided the 2012 car is actually replaced after four years as announced.

Questions on the perceived bias the panel held towards Dallara was something Cotman wanted to address publically.

“You can quote me on this because the reality is, at least when I went into the process, the one thing I was very, very leery of was: more of the same, more of the same, more of the same. More of the same meaning the same manufacturer, and more of the same meaning people complaining about the parts prices. For me, I've been a pretty staunch Lola supporter for a long time. They, like Swift, were willing to move a portion of their business to Indy. And Lola was willing to build a facility at Indy, although a really small one. The commitment from Dallara on their facility, and the quantity of jobs that it will create far outweighed anybody else, by 2-to-1. It wasn't even close.

“It was extremely important at least with Governor Daniels that in order to get the state subsidies, that there was a certain set of parameters that was needed to be met. Although, Lola would have built a small facility here, Dallara was far and away more committed, on a much larger level than Lola or anybody else. And I'm not saying just because they were committed to a massive facility was the be-all and end-all, but it was definitely, when you're comparing three incredibly great companies with great histories, these were the things we were getting down to on our final decision; parts prices, facilities, these kinds of things, technical support. So at the end of the day, I have to sit back and acknowledge what they could do and what they agreed to do and, for me anyway, swayed my vote to Dallara.”

The next step in the 2012 process, hiring a technical director who will lead the rules creation efforts, is a role Cotman is being considered for, but whether he’ll be tasked with that job is a decision for Randy Bernard to make. Whoever is appointed to the post, according to Cotman, has a massive amount of work ahead of them.

“I think that's obviously the next thing for the league to tackle. You couldn't sit there on the days of the announcement and announce all the rules in detail, although, a lot of them we kicked around. I'm sure we haven't covered every scenario but the league needs to get the framework of their rules together and at least start constructing it. And, obviously, the rules are going to pertain to the building of the vehicle straight off. It might be more critical than some of the long-term things. But I think a lot of the rules had been beaten around but, in my opinion, it's a minimum of a three-month process to get them in place with the detail required so teams and manufacturers can understand it. I think right now there's a lot of confusion; there's a lot of people not going into any detail, there's a lot of people asking questions. We now spend most of our time answering questions.

“That doesn’t mean to say everybody agrees with our answers, but they have a little bit of clarity, and I think the least the league can do is get on their merry way of the making the rules and continue to keep their stakeholders and teams up-to-date and involved with where things are at. It's just got to be gotten out to them. I'm sure Randy has several candidates and he just needs to make his decision and do what he needs to do. Obviously, that's assuming he’s enhancing his staff, like everybody said he's going to. But he's got to do it. They need more people; we've all talked about that.”

Finding the right person to spearhead the 2012 engine regulations is also a priority, but Cotman says the demand for suitable candidates is greater than the supply.
Lola's muscular CART/ChampCar chassis is a great template for Dallara's designers to draw inspiration from. (LAT)

“When you're out there fishing around, looking for people who can come up with detailed engine regulations, you come down to two or three pretty quickly. And then you come down to the availability of them, and that's another issue. That's obviously critical. I don't see it being the same person writing the engine rules and the technical rules myself; maybe Randy expects it to be that but I don't think he does. At least from the brief conversations the committee’s had with him. There's no way it’d be the same guy.”

With the long lead time to produce a new racing engine in mind, Cotman hopes to see a concurrent effort by the series to have chassis and engine regulations developed in tandem.

“Everybody is generally clear, it’s an 18-month lead time to produce new engines. We've all seen chasses produced far quicker than that on used cars but I would say that the engine regs are number one because they have the longest lead time. The reality is both of these need to be happening simultaneously.”

As ICONIC panel member Gil de Ferran told me at the announcement, and confirmed once again last week on the MidWeek Motorsport radio show, purebred racing engines will be the standard for 2012, with the Dallara chassis designed to accept stressed engines.

The biggest concern with bespoke engines is costs. Whoever creates the engine rules will surely have their own ideas, but Cotman expects limits of some sorts to be placed on the types of metals and technologies allowed.

“I think it comes down to a couple of parameters. One is the materials used, obviously, need to be restricted significantly. I'm sure an engine guy will tell you differently, but when you’ve got an open book on the bill of materials, costs go out of control easily, particularly in a competitive environment. If you control the rules properly, I don't think it's cost prohibitive to make an engine. But, and you can’t eliminate this entirely, if you're going to come and develop an engine to run IndyCar, you’ve got to spend a load of money. Period. I think what the engine manufacturers want to be assured of when they get in is that they have a fair playing ground without spending another $50 million just to be competitive.”

Cotman also anticipates that 2012 engine manufacturers will go about their business dealings far different than they’ve done in the past.

“I think once they've got in, once they’ve established what they’re going to run, in my opinion, one of the biggest differences that will come down the pipeline – and I may be totally wrong – but unlike the old days, teams used to get a significant amount of money from engine manufacturers as team sport. I personally don't see that happening. I just don't see how. Engine manufacturers used to spend tens of millions of dollars for teams. Pay for everything, continue development, support their budget. I think those days are gone. As I say, I may be wrong and maybe by giving a small, maybe teams are going to get a small increment out of it, but I don't see the $16 million deals with the engine support there anymore.”

Another well publicized problem the series continues to face is low television ratings. The 2012 car was the perfect opportunity to give the sport a boost, but as most the of the teams owners I’ve spoken to have said, the feedback they’ve gotten from their sponsors and vendors has been underwhelming, at best.

When a 55-gallon drum of espresso was needed to jump start the series, the panel offered up an 8-ounce cup of decaf, but in Cotman’s opinion, folks like myself should not have expected the 2012 car to reinvigorate the series.

“The reality is that if anyone thought introducing a new chassis was going to be the difference between getting a .6 and a 1.2 rating on TV, they're dreaming. ChampCar went through it and their major reason for building a new vehicle was obviously cost containment at the time. It piqued interest for a little bit, not for very long. Six months later it dropped back down to where it was. So the reality is to move the needle, it's a combination of five or six things, not just a new vehicle.

“What we were asked to do, as it pertains to the vehicle, is get something out, to make the recommendation for 2012. I think we've achieved that. And now it's up to the league to focus on the other elements needed to grow the sport. Unfortunately, the other areas are probably going to be as difficult, if not more difficult, than the chassis. When we sit here and we talk about the engines and chasses rules, how difficult it’s going to be, yes, it will. But there are bigger issues than that that are far more complex and are far more difficult than what we've got going in our small technical world.”

Cotman, as sharp of a technical mind that you’ll find in the IZOD IndyCar Series, doesn't agree with the statement that only 1 percent of open-wheel fans know or care what’s beneath the bodywork of an IndyCar.

“No, I don't think that's a fact at all. I think it's totally wrong. I think that the reality is right now 30 percent, approximately 30 percent of IndyCar fans are your hard-core fans. Particularly, with more and more street circuit races, there's a higher attendance of fans who are not hard-core racing fans. But just because they're not hard-core racing fans it doesn't mean that they don't have a clue what's going on. What we do believe though, is when you have multiple looking vehicles with multiple engine manufacturers there's probably a higher chance that those people are going to jump on and become fans in the future than if we all sat here with one engine and one chassis.
Dallara knows how to produce an appealing open-wheel car -- as seen here with their current F3 product. Let's hope they apply the same aesthetic to the 2012 IndyCar. (LAT)

“Again, my perception could be wrong, but I think the problem is that a lot of our age group has come through and gone, and we haven't backfilled at all. And it's time to reach out in creative ways to a younger viewing audience because we need to get more fans from somewhere. All of us gray hairs aren’t going to be around forever, but we do make up a large part of that 30 percent I was talking about. And anyone who writes off the fans as not being knowledgeable, obviously, hasn't listened to a lot of the forums that we’ve held.”

Fantastic. From the conversations I’ve held with a number of ICONIC panel members, Cotman’s opinion on this topic isn’t universally shared, but as long as at least one of the seven get it, I’ll remain hopeful.

Continuing on Cotman’s point about fans and technology, whether you think the 1 percent or the 30 percent figure is accurate, it still leaves a vast majority of the current IndyCar fan base who care little about tech as it relates to open-wheel racing. And that presents a major road block.

While the series could certianly use the funding and advertising dollars from high tech industries, most of the non-hardcore fans are the exact opposite demographic tech sponsors are looking for. If somewhere between 70 percent and 99 percent of IndyCar fans don’t associate technology with the sport, who would be silly enough to spend millions of dollars trying to advertise to them?

Cotman cleared up a lot of things during our conversation, but it served as a reminder of the bigger problems the series continues to face. It’s easy to wish for technology-related companies to join the series or to get caught up in the rapture of a new chassis and the possibility of new engine and aero kit manufacturers, but those are just small pieces of a big puzzle that no one has been able to solve for many years.

In time, and with the right emphasis on promoting a steady message about how IndyCar racing can be used as a test bed for technology, maybe a new generation of fans will take an interest in the sport. Without disparaging any of the other ICONIC panel members, Cotman’s experience in crafting the Panoz DP01 ChampCar, knowledge from being an IndyCar mechanic, and clear understanding of what the series needs from the 2012 car to attract more fans and sponsors leaves little doubt about his ability to oversee the creation of new rules and regulations.

With Cotman handling the technical side of 2012, Bernard could focus on the bigger tasks in front of him with total confidence the series’ future is in good hands.

And once he’s done with the 2012 rules and regs, maybe he can have Cotman look over next year’s rule book to tweak a few items in the ‘blocking’ section…


View the 1990s CART chassis photo gallery.


Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com’s Auto Racing Editor, and also covers IndyCar and sportscar racing for the site. Pruett grew up at ‘Pruett's Olde English Garage,’ his father's shelter for abused foreign cars, and spent his childhood being dragged across the West Coast to help with his dad's amateur racing exploits.

Pruett spent 20 years working in the IRL, CART, IMSA, and most of the known open-wheel feeder series before retiring from active duty in 2001. And in case you were wondering, he isn’t related to Scott Pruett.

Marshall lives in Northern California with his wife Shabral, and can be emailed . He can also be harassed on Twitter .


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