Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.

Q: Another IndyCar race, another round of post-race gripes from drivers about fuel savings/fuel management/fuel mileage. My monitoring of driver-to-pits radio traffic yielded much of the same theme. In post-race interviews I’ve watched, most of the drivers, including Will Power and Alex Palou, complained of having to lift and not being able to attack, adding that cars having to “just stay in a line” is not “good for the fans.” Agreed.

Surely there’s an answer to this so that fans and race car drivers alike can get what they want: gas pedals pushed down without restriction? Let racers race. A possible solution I’ve expressed before is a mandatory minimum number of pit stops for a minimum number of seconds per stop (and a corresponding increase in fuel stored in the pits). Or perhaps breaking the race into segments to allow for refueling, etc. (along the lines of what Thermal might look like). Smarter people than me can come up with something, can’t they? Anything, please, other than watching race car drivers having to conserve fuel.

K. Campbell, Nashville, TN

MARSHALL PRUETT: From my experience, when you start adding in a bunch of forced items like mandatory stops and minimum stop times, you create more problems instead of solving the ones we already have.

One item that’s been overlooked is how relatively clean Sunday’s race was, with three quick issues that accounted for nine of the 100 laps behind the pace car. In 2023, which was more like what we’re accustomed to seeing in St. Pete, we had five cautions for 26 of the 100 laps.

This year was abnormally well-behaved, and as a result, there was a need to save fuel. Last year, it was typical street racing carnage, which has a lot of downtime and sipping fuel behind the pace car, and it wasn’t a snoozefest.

Q: Just read your article on St. Pete and I have to agree that fuel and entertainment conservation were clearly on display throughout most of the race. A high-speed parade is one of the two major complaints about F1 (along with predictable results) so it’s a shame when IndyCar suffers from the same malady.

So what’s the answer? I know you don’t like the mandated number of pit stops approach, but I’d much rather see that than another race like Sunday’s. Most position changes happened as a result of pit stops, and at least knowing they will have a more than adequate supply of fuel should encourage the drivers to stand on the loud pedal rather than coast around the track in someone else’s draft. I’ll bet Firestone would be happy to make enough extra tires to meet any additional need. I’m also pretty sure it would make the fans a lot happier.

John, Madison

MP: It was one race, a bad one, and that hasn’t been a thing we often see in IndyCar. We’d need a few more like this to have a trend and then have a reason to look at changes.

Keep in mind the call to delay the hybrid to start the season happened after tire manufacturing began, so we have harder tires, meant for a heavier car, being used on one that’s significantly lighter without the energy recovery system lump installed. That made activating the tires take longer on restarts, so passing was limited into the first turn among the leaders.

And with the new restart line forcing drivers to hold off on passing, and that line being closer to the final corner than expected, the leaders streaked away and kept good gaps behind them. With softer tires, and the restart line working too well, we had some of the restart fun largely taken away, and from there, it turned into a procession as almost everyone then went into fuel conservation mode.

Q: Do you believe IndyCar should reduce the fuel cell capacity to 15 gallons? It would make the cars a bit lighter, open up strategy options and hopefully keep everyone from going into instant fuel saving mode from the drop of the green flag. Even the Indy 500, especially for the past five years or so, has been reduced to a dismal pace as everyone is just saving fuel running around at 212 – 215mph or much less in a lot of cases.

Or another thought, maybe just have a minimum number of pit stops per race? Most road and street courses could be a three-stop minimum, and maybe a track like Road America could be four? The Indy 500 should be a minimum of seven stops, and maybe we’ll see some better action throughout the entire race. Maybe just reducing the fuel capacity would do this naturally, but if not, I’d impose a minimum number of pit stops.

TK

MP: I believe we need to calm down and stop trying to rewrite the rulebook and chassis formula because the opening race of 2024 sucked. Let’s talk after Long Beach or Barber, if the same thing happens over the next three or four events.

Newgarden enjoyed himself in St Petersburg on Sunday, although the race was a bit of a grind for some Mailbaggers. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

Q: I can’t remember a time, save for when the tobacco and alcohol companies had dollar bills to burn, where the amount of money dumped into this series has ever been greater. Hy-Vee, Arrow, Gainbridge and NTT have considerably ponied up. Beyond that, the cars are littered with sponsorships. The field is stacked, and quite a few of the drivers are making millions-plus. The attendance at races, as a whole, is above par. Pinch ourselves here but there is actually two major networks vying for the TV rights, and yet there is nothing but bitching going on.

Yes, the series is Indy 500 top-heavy, and things do of course always need to be better. Penske isn’t perfect either, but he isn’t one to be idle, which makes for this calamitous screaming being a bit over the top. What on earth gives?

Pat Jenkins, Columbus, OH

MP: When team owners who, in this case, aren’t idiots or prone to being unnecessarily dramatic, say there are big problems, you can either question their views, or trust them to know what they’re talking about. Said another way, if you’re in a building and the people around you start running for the exits, do you stand there and scoff at their overreaction to something you know nothing about, or start running with them?