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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Randy Bernard Interview
SPEED's Marshall Pruett sits down with IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard to discuss next year's Leader Circle program, aero kits, new teams, TV and engine penalties.
IZOD IndyCar Series CEO Randy Bernard talks 2012 and 2013 with SPEED's Marshall Pruett. (Photo: IndyCar Series)
As SPEED.com revealed in June, reducing costs associated with the new Dallara DW12 chassis remains high on the priority list for the IZOD IndyCar Series and its teams, but that initiative is just a portion of the various health- and growth-related topics series CEO Randy Bernard must deal with in the coming weeks and months.
Although the costs row will continue to simmer behind the scenes, items like the 2013 Leader Circle program, adding new teams to the paddock and improving the series’ television ratings rank among the more pressing items to address.
To start, the overall costs to run in the IndyCar Series this year have exceeded what a number of teams have been able to secure through sponsorship, which has made a global cost reduction—or assistance from the series—a major topic of interest.
IndyCar’s Leader Circle (LC) system has provided a guaranteed subsidy for teams in the place of traditional prize money since 2008, delivering roughly $1.2 million in progress payments each season for the top 24 entries in the points standings (through 2010).
For 2011, and citing a desire to increase competition towards the bottom of the grid, Bernard reduced that number to 22 LC contracts, and pared it down even further in 2012, offering 20 entitlements of $1.16 million.
With finances a serious concern within the paddock, the season drawing to a close and an average of 25 cars currently vying for LC contracts, Bernard told SPEED.com he’s evaluating what path to take with the LC program in 2013.
“Right now we want what is in the best interest of the sport and the teams, and we’re trying to determine what exactly makes the most sense,” he said.
If you were to ask the teams, extending LC contracts to every full-time entrant and increasing the amount of each contract to something in the $1.5 million range would make the most sense, but Bernard cautioned that the series is only capable of paying out what it takes in. In short, the days of drawing down the bank accounts of the Hulman George family to subsidize the series are long gone.
“IndyCar has to make economic sense,” he said. “That's my job and one of my key objectives when I started this job was to make [the series] financially reliant on its own. And I think we look at every option on how we do that. I'm not convinced that the [LC] system we have right now is correct but at that same...I'm not convinced it [isn't]. So we'll have to continue to evaluate it.”
Expanding the LC program to include more cars for 2013 is possible, according to Bernard, and the series will likely return to supporting 22 entries, but the expansion will draw from the same pool of cash.
“If we had more it's going to be done with the same amount of dollars,” he confirmed. “But we pretty much told [the team owners] it was going to be 22 cars. So just determining and figuring out a plan and how we define the [LC] will be very important.”
The jump from 20 to 22 LC contracts would be welcome, and another revision to the payout structure for 2013 is also forthcoming, but not before a bit of housecleaning is carried out.
Anticipating that Lotus-powered teams would face a distinct disadvantage to the Chevy- and Honda-powered team, the series established a separate $800,000 LC bonus for any of the four teams that started the season with Lotus engines that made the top 20.
Simply put, no one expected the four Lotus-powered team, comprised of five entries, to finish inside the top 20 (and therefore qualify for a LC contract) by season’s end, or to earn any of the nominal amounts of prize money that is paid out at each round, but in a field of 25-26 cars, it was possible for at least one Lotus team to make the cutoff.
All of that changed in April and May when three Lotus teams, Bryan Herta Autosport, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Dragon Racing—four of Lotus’ five entries—defected to either Chevy or Honda after the series relented.
Rather than fight it out with Lotus teams at the back of the pack for a spot on the 2013 LC roster and that $800,000 Lotus-only bonus, HVM Racing, Lotus’ works team, found itself as the manufacturer’s lone representative. With 24 Chevys and Hondas to overcome, any chance of cracking the top 20 in the final standings became impossible.
In terms of housekeeping, and with Lotus moments away from exiting the series, where does that leave HVM and the LC contract/bonus it once had a shot at earning?
And should HVM owner Keith Wiggins be rewarded for honoring his contract with Lotus and receive the bonus it lost a shot at earning?
An answer to this rather sensitive topic won’t be known until after next month’s season finale.
“We told the [Lotus] teams that at the end of the year we have to just take everything into consideration and look at it and make our decisions after the end of the year,” said Bernard. “We wouldn’t make a decision on that before Fontana for sure.”
Trimming new expenses from each team’s annual budget has been a hot topic for both sides, and with the paddock asking for another one-year delay in the implementation of aero kits, Bernard is open to granting that wish.
But don’t be surprised if manufacturer-specific bodywork appears sometime after the 2013 Indy 500.
Although the costs row will continue to simmer behind the scenes, items like the 2013 Leader Circle program, adding new teams to the paddock and improving the series’ television ratings rank among the more pressing items to address.
To start, the overall costs to run in the IndyCar Series this year have exceeded what a number of teams have been able to secure through sponsorship, which has made a global cost reduction—or assistance from the series—a major topic of interest.
IndyCar’s Leader Circle (LC) system has provided a guaranteed subsidy for teams in the place of traditional prize money since 2008, delivering roughly $1.2 million in progress payments each season for the top 24 entries in the points standings (through 2010).
For 2011, and citing a desire to increase competition towards the bottom of the grid, Bernard reduced that number to 22 LC contracts, and pared it down even further in 2012, offering 20 entitlements of $1.16 million.
With finances a serious concern within the paddock, the season drawing to a close and an average of 25 cars currently vying for LC contracts, Bernard told SPEED.com he’s evaluating what path to take with the LC program in 2013.
“Right now we want what is in the best interest of the sport and the teams, and we’re trying to determine what exactly makes the most sense,” he said.
If you were to ask the teams, extending LC contracts to every full-time entrant and increasing the amount of each contract to something in the $1.5 million range would make the most sense, but Bernard cautioned that the series is only capable of paying out what it takes in. In short, the days of drawing down the bank accounts of the Hulman George family to subsidize the series are long gone.
“IndyCar has to make economic sense,” he said. “That's my job and one of my key objectives when I started this job was to make [the series] financially reliant on its own. And I think we look at every option on how we do that. I'm not convinced that the [LC] system we have right now is correct but at that same...I'm not convinced it [isn't]. So we'll have to continue to evaluate it.”
Expanding the LC program to include more cars for 2013 is possible, according to Bernard, and the series will likely return to supporting 22 entries, but the expansion will draw from the same pool of cash.
“If we had more it's going to be done with the same amount of dollars,” he confirmed. “But we pretty much told [the team owners] it was going to be 22 cars. So just determining and figuring out a plan and how we define the [LC] will be very important.”
The jump from 20 to 22 LC contracts would be welcome, and another revision to the payout structure for 2013 is also forthcoming, but not before a bit of housecleaning is carried out.
Anticipating that Lotus-powered teams would face a distinct disadvantage to the Chevy- and Honda-powered team, the series established a separate $800,000 LC bonus for any of the four teams that started the season with Lotus engines that made the top 20.
Simply put, no one expected the four Lotus-powered team, comprised of five entries, to finish inside the top 20 (and therefore qualify for a LC contract) by season’s end, or to earn any of the nominal amounts of prize money that is paid out at each round, but in a field of 25-26 cars, it was possible for at least one Lotus team to make the cutoff.
All of that changed in April and May when three Lotus teams, Bryan Herta Autosport, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Dragon Racing—four of Lotus’ five entries—defected to either Chevy or Honda after the series relented.
Rather than fight it out with Lotus teams at the back of the pack for a spot on the 2013 LC roster and that $800,000 Lotus-only bonus, HVM Racing, Lotus’ works team, found itself as the manufacturer’s lone representative. With 24 Chevys and Hondas to overcome, any chance of cracking the top 20 in the final standings became impossible.
In terms of housekeeping, and with Lotus moments away from exiting the series, where does that leave HVM and the LC contract/bonus it once had a shot at earning?
And should HVM owner Keith Wiggins be rewarded for honoring his contract with Lotus and receive the bonus it lost a shot at earning?
An answer to this rather sensitive topic won’t be known until after next month’s season finale.
“We told the [Lotus] teams that at the end of the year we have to just take everything into consideration and look at it and make our decisions after the end of the year,” said Bernard. “We wouldn’t make a decision on that before Fontana for sure.”
Trimming new expenses from each team’s annual budget has been a hot topic for both sides, and with the paddock asking for another one-year delay in the implementation of aero kits, Bernard is open to granting that wish.
But don’t be surprised if manufacturer-specific bodywork appears sometime after the 2013 Indy 500.
2013 INDY 500 Practice
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