How did Marcus Ericsson lose the Indy 500?
I’m guessing that many of our members either watched the Indy 500 or at least saw highlights…
I can’t help but feel that Ericsson contributed to his second place finish behind Newgarden at the 2023 Indianapolis 500… There are so many factors that could have caused it, but I think his “Fancy (off-the-wall) Serpentine Driving Path” off Turn 2 on the last lap opened the door for Newgarden to pass him with so much finesse …
For the curious, the Serpentine Driving path refers to the line the drivers take around the track. In the photo below, as the drivers come off Turn 2 and Turn 4, they sweep down across the track into the inside lane.
There are various reasons for this and some of the reasons are: if the car stays on the outside wall, the car, as it cuts through the air, pushes air over the top of the car (for the downforce) and it also pushes the air off to the sides. If the car remained on the outside wall, the air being pushed off the Right side of the car would have to be compressed between the car and the wall and this would drain power and speed from the car. Also, staying on the outside wall gives the driver little “wiggle” room to maneuver. Likewise, there is a psychological rational that drivers don’t like being “up-against-the-wall.”
But it seems to have been carried to an extreme and sweeping down across the track seems almost exaggerated for “crowd appeal…”
Ok, to explain myself, I will run a hypothetical race: no pit stops, no tire changes, no gas stops, just start to finish racing… We will assume that the average speed was 233 MPH for this thought experiment.
The Track is 2.5 miles around on the inside lane. 200 laps equal 500-miles. The Center Lane is 2.53 miles and 200 laps equal 506 miles, and the outside lane is 2.56 miles and 200 laps is 512 miles…
Forget centrifugal force; remember this is a hypothetical race…
If the car ran an average of 233 MPH on the inside lane, each lap would take 38.6266 seconds and 200 laps would take 2-hours, 8-minutes, and 45 Seconds.
If the car ran on the center lane, each lap would take 39.0901 seconds and 200 laps would take 2-hours, 10-minutes, and 18 Seconds.
If the car ran on the outside lane, each lap would take 39.5536 seconds and 200 laps would take 2-hours, 11-minutes, and 50 Seconds.
So, as you can see, the route around the track affects the distance the car has to travel, hence the total time to complete the race.
Now, we know that in real life a car cannot travel that average speed of 233 MPH solely in the inside lane, centrifugal force will force the car to take a more rounded path, hence the wide sweeps into turns 1 and 3 and the short straights require the cars to stay on the outside to set up for turns 2 and 4.
And the driver needs to get the car off the outside wall. By approaching the inside wall, the driver only has to watch for other drivers passing on the outside. When drivers use the drafting to pass, their car speeds up and the centrifugal force has a tendency to throw the car right, clear of the car they are passing, rather than into the passed car (when passing on the Left)…
But every time a car changes its lateral path (moving left or right on the track…) it adds the lateral distance to the distance it has to travel around the track and it bleeds speed off the car or in the case of accelerating off a turn, the car has less power to accelerate…
Now, let’s get back to Ericsson. In the photo below, Ericsson is the lead car and he sweeps all the way across the track and almost into the wall. This sweep looked really spectacular, but it bled a lot of power off his engine when he needed the most acceleration. And not only did he sweep all the way across the track, he almost went off the track and had to steer right to keep from running into the inside wall.
Ericsson made two major lateral movements and he left the track completely open for Newgarden to slingshot around him to take the lead with a substantial margin due to Ericsson’s “wild driving…”
Well, that is my take on the race; I wonder what Paul Harvey would say is the Rest of the Story?