Part two of our look back at the 2015 Indy Lights season this time we head to the pits, well, in the good way. Katie Hargitt joined the NBCSN team in 2015 for Indycar as a pit reporter and also their lead trackside reporter covering Indy Lights on the channel. 

​We caught up with Katie, looking at her career, this years Indy Lights season and the Mazda Road to Indy.

How about your favourite tracks or events from this year?
Long Beach was incredible. Everyone talks about the energy from the crowd and the event itself, but you can never fully understand it until you experience it yourself. It truly is "THE" street course event. 

Spencer Pigot has now won back to back Mazda Road to Indy titles, and now has a part time deal (at present) with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for 2016 through his scholarship, how do you view the MRTI in the role of preparing the drivers for Indycar? 
There is no other series that has a defined path to the top rung of the ladder. Dan Andersen and the MRTI prepare drivers on every aspect of the sport. During the month of May, MRTI drivers even listened to a panel of IndyCar legends, such as Mario Andretti. The MRTI drivers are in front of IndyCar teams nearly every weekend, able to showcase not only their skills on-track, but also their personalities and interaction with fans. It's invaluable. 

Drivers now are able to get their name 'out there' through various media, how do you feel this has developed over recent years and going forward the role mainstream media can play in raising their profile?
Dan Andersen and MRTI have certainly helped drivers get their name "out there." It also helps to have the races on NBCSN. It allows drivers to show sponsors some value to their investment. I think we'll see that continue to increase. We saw a major jump in IndyCar ratings this year. I'd like to believe we, as a sport and community, are on the rise. The IndyLights drivers, and entire MRTI, will reap the benefits of that.

And finally, do you have any funny stories from the season in Indy Lights that you can share?
Anders Krohn has some pretty great blackmail on me...and probably anyone else that saw me running down pit road post IndyLights Indy GP Race 2. Jack Harvey was leading but suddenly dropped through the field on the last lap. I thought he'd gone back to his transporter but spotted him on the pit wall. Anders has the video evidence of the rest. ​

You can find Katie on the following links -
Website 
Twitter 
Facebook 

When Carlin announced that they would be setting up operations in the US starting an Indy Lights team, the motor sport community took notice of a team which such a rich heritage of success throughout a number of junior and feeder series jumping to try the new IL15 car. It turned out to be a smart move as we caught up with drivers Ed Jones and Max Chilton to look back at the 2015 season.

How would you evaluate your first year of racing in America in Indy Lights?
I think my first year of racing in America has been a great success. Both myself and the team learning the new tracks and car made the challenge difficult but we certainly surprised a lot of people. I believe experience of the circuits in America has a much greater benefit than knowing the European tracks, purely because there is hardly any run off in America therefore you have to build up to the limit rather than going all out from the start like you do in Europe. You have to take a more measured approach all round, especially with the ovals which we got the hang of towards the end of the season.

How would you evaluate your first year of racing in America in Indy Lights?
I would say that the team and myself have performed hugely well in our first season in the states. It's a small but competitive grid and made harder by the unfamiliar ovals. I was very happy to secure a win which was a surprise to me as because it came on an oval. I believe if I had contested the whole year then we would have had two cars in the title fight at the end.

The Iowa weekend was tough being a team mate of Jules Bianchi, I, as were many, of the opinion no one was going to get in the way of you winning that weekend, can you share some thoughts of the weekend bringing home your first victory in Indy Lights?
​Iowa was the most difficult and emotional weekend I have ever experienced in my career. I was on a mission that weekend and when I found out the news about Jules nothing was going to stop me. I couldn't help but let it out when I won and it was a pleasure to dedicate the win to such a talented driver who loved the sport

Carlin Racing
Website - carlin.co.uk
Twitter - @CarlinRacing
Facebook - Carlin
Instagram - CarlinRacing

The final part of our end of season look back at all the important and sort of important and sometimes letter fillers brings us to the most awkward part, U to Z... thanks alphabet! On the plus side we are now five weeks closer to the start of the 2016 season! Jason and Adrian round of the year with ...

Juan Pablo Montoya's victory at this years Indy 500 set a new record for the gap in years between Indy 500 wins, 15 years. the previous record was held by AJ Foyt between 1967 and 1977.

​Another Indycar offseason and another Indycar boss falls by the wayside. Derrick Walker joins Randy Bernard, Tony George and 3 Million other men who tried to right the good ship Indycar for a while only to realise life is too short and that there is probably other things they could be doing. Unlike the others, DW walked rather than being pushed but the writing was probably on the wall for him. In his time as Indycar President, Walker brought a no nonsense approach and respect to the position. Right now, Mark Miles seems content to take on more responsibility regarding the day to day running of Indycar. Maybe he realises that this is one vacancy that could be tough to fill.

Why hump day? Well Wednesday this season became the day of the naughty step in the Indycar series. We awaited with baited breathe to see who was penalised, why (running over equipment), how much ($500) and how landed themselves on probation, again... For me, at least race control were consistent on this!

People say Indycar need that bright young American star, love him or hate him, Sage Karam has definitely brought something new to the table. When people start to say that maybe you're the next Paul Tracy, it implies that you are an aggressive, hard charger without fear and fuelled by a instinctual desire to win... it also implies that you're prone to silly moves, take unnecessary risks and that you piss off just about everyone else on track. So yeah, saying that Sage Karam is maybe the next Paul Tracy sums up his 2015 season perfectly. At times brilliant, at times boneheaded, this past year was one that Sage Karam stamped his name all over, and showed that if given a full time ride for the future, he could do something else Paul Tracy did and that's win a championship.

Tragedy struck this year, we lost a great racer, we lost a great man. But in sadness we have seen the strength, support and community spirit rally around Julia, Jess, Jane, Stefan and their extended family. We have had celebrations of Justin's life on both sides of the Atlantic, tears were shed, laughter was shared. Graham Rahal has once again stepped up and led an auction of memorabilia from across all forms of motorsport, sports and entertainment to raise money to benefit the children to look after their future. The latest auction items can be found here. Just from a personal viewpoint, having attended the funeral and following reception, there can be little doubt that there are some truly awesome people with the Indycar community who have stepped up in a number of ways.

We hope you have enjoyed our look back at some of the irreverent and sometimes key moments of the 2015 Indycar season, earlier posts can be found below -

Part One - A to E 
Part Two - F to J
Part Three - K to O
Part Four - P to T 

Jason and Adrian bring you part four of the season review extraordinaire, covering the people in front of, behind and in front of the camera, going fast, sponsors who step up and a sad farewell.

Enter stage left, the brother of series champion Will... Damien, he appreciates the name. Not only did he rip into his brother at the press conference before Sonoma, but has now recorded some videos with stars of the Indycar series, plus some others for a little off season derision. Here is Episode 1... Hinchcliffe. 

In a series that boasts some of the most exciting and competitive racing on the planet, why would qualifying be any different? 2015 saw 6 Different pole sitters across the 16 race season and more often than not, driver were making a challenge at track records all over the country when they did. Compare to this to F1 where a Mercedes has taken the pole position at every race this year bar one and you get an idea of just how tough it is to put yourself on the front of the field in Indycar. Interestingly though, how many times did the Indycar Pole Sitter win that same race in 2015? Just once.

From pre season testing through to May, ugh, Chevy's, Penske, Ganassi's, this season is going to be a clean sweep for those guys. Or not so. Enter Graham Rahal and his team Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Not only did they step up to take on the power teams and dominant aero kit, they beat them. After some years of struggle for Graham and his team, everything clicked, winning at Fontana and Mid Ohio, taking his championship challenge down to the wire at Sonoma where thanks to double points he ended up forth in the championship, a hard end to a brilliant season for the buckeye who nearly brought home the beef..

Sticking close to the last letter, it is grerat when a new sponsor joins up with an Indycar team, it is even better when they step up and really be a visible force in the paddock, but also outside, Steak 'n Shake certainly did that. Here's hoping that unlike last years nomination, they stick around!

A sombre end to this weeks review, In August we lost a racer and a gentleman in Justin Wilson, the series wont be the same without you. The image will take you to the Wilson Children's Fund, or you can check out the auction over at eBay.

Part One - A to E 
Part Two - F to J
Part Three - K to O

Announced during the lead up to the Indy 500, a new team will take to the field for the 100th running of the Indy 500, Grace Autosport. A team made up entirely of females, from the racer, Katherine Legge, Owner, Beth Paretta, all the mechanics and staff. 

They say that behind every good man is a great NHRA drag racer... or something like that. At least that's the case of Graham Rahal who tied the knot with girlfriend Courtney Force this season, a season in which hands down, Rahal drove better than he has ever done in his career. Whether motivated by a desire to impress his new bride or by a desire not to be labelled as the slowest driver in the relationship, the son of 'stache came within shouting distance of becoming Indycar champion. Clearly love has done young Rahal good.

Given the close competitive racing in the Indy lights this season the future looks bright for Indycar with some drivers coming to the twilight of their years behind an Indycar. In Indy Lights, we saw a new car with a rookie champion, Spencer Pigot (USA). In Pro Mazda, Santiago Urrutia (Uruguay) and in USF2000 Nico Jamin (France). All three drivers will be moving up the ladder, with Pigot landing at least a three race deal including the 100th Indy 500.

Not only does the racing kick some serious butt on the track, but the spectacle can amaze off it too. How Marshall Pruett manages to cut so much action down into 15 minutes is beyond me. Take Fontana from this year, (above), over 3,000 on track passes, tight, fast racing, few swear words, but as this video will demonstrate, the drivers have balls...

Iowa is well worth checking out too, mainly for Karam and Carpenter having a few moments of... gesticulation 

Part One - A to E 
Part Two - F to J

Since TV ratings are all the rage these days, how about a look at the UK TV figures across the BT Sport platforms (1, 2 and ESPN). You can find a breakdown of the figures from 2014 here. But in summary, Indy 500 was popular, so was Mid-Ohio (as always?) and that was that.

Figures are sourced from BARB, the TV audience data collection company here in the UK, I am, to be fair always dubious over how accurate they are, but I have been told... fairly.

A summary of 2014 first.

Moving onto 2015, for those keen to see more eyes on the series and growth in interest and support in Indycar, you will probably like what you see...

And in graphical form...

...and '14 v '15...

A few notes. These are recorded from TV only, not online players and app viewers. I did get a lot of tweets about the quality of the Indy 500 coverage, in that viewers lost coverage on some platforms. NOLA was on the red button therefore recorded no figures. Mid-Ohio drew a usual season high and Fontana was up 1800% on last year, yes it was a crazy race but starting at 9pm rather than 1am probably helped.

So why the jump? The producers at BT got in touch with me last winter asking for opinions on the coverage, and it going forwards, man, many people obliged, these were all forwarded. One common theme was improving promotion ans that is something that we saw throughout the year on the BT channels. A dedicated Indycar advert which promoted the current DW12 cars (plus bolt-ons) as well as a dedicated advert for the Indy 500 which encapsulated the speed, drama and danger of the event, although unlike last year, there was no UK based studio providing coverage and analysis. 

Mainly because we didn't look for them last year, I have now included the highlights figure too given that Indycar can be on at the most unsociable of times, as well as getting in the way of Downton Abbey and such other visual delights.

Since most other series still have a couple months left on their season, I have not included those as a point of interest / comparison as with last year.

In Summary, UK TV viewership of Indycar doubled on live broadcasts on 2014, and if you add in re-runs and highlights, trebled. Indycar would often top the weekly top 10 on BT:ESPN. So one final note, 2016 through 2022, BT Sport will continue to provide UK TV coverage of Indycar. (Google crawlers, check)

N.B. BT Sport now has a channel 'BT Sport Showcase' where they show selected football games for free, next May, go on...

Part two this week, F to J. Jason and Adrian share some great memories of races and people, but also some farewells? 

The California oval which provided us the most exciting and yes, probably, the most dangerous race of the season will not be back for another race next year and that's a real shame because for those of us who had the pleasure of watching the race this season from a seat other than one in an Indycar, it provided wall to wall and wheel to wheel excitement, you know, the kind of thing Indycar is built on. The 2015 event also produced a popular victor in Graham Rahal albeit not one without controversy after Rahal left his pit box with the fuel hose still attached.

See above, plus a number of tracks are still in the air as to whether or not they will return in 2016, under this microscope are Pocono (Sanctioning fee and attendance), Milwaukee (Needs a promoter, and attendance), and NOLA (Probably still drenched, and promoter issues) to go with Fontana who according to track president Dave Allen, hope to return... one day, (we hope so!).

The guys who keep the drivers safe are one of the best assets the Indycar series has, they have had a year of it too. But as fans, we are grateful for their work, a Hammerdown beer or two is on the cards for them this offseason.

No matter what you thought of the aero kits this year, there remains no doubt that they added to the speed spectacle. Six tracks had their current lap records broken during qualifying. The big one though remains, the Indianapolis 500 Qualifying, 21st and 22nd May 2016, will the echoes of Tom Carnegie ring out for the first time since 1996?

Back by popular demand... well one person liked it! Jason and Adrian look back at some of the key moments, places, happenings, events, drivers and a whole lot of irrelevancy through the medium of A to Z. A new batch out every week as we count down to the new season in ummm a while.

A little later than planned, at the request of the manufacturers, the big on track development of aero kits finally arrived in 2015. They did not get off to the most auspicious of starts, debris cautions galore at St Petersburg. But one thing for sure, track records fell all over the place. They sure made an Indycar damned fast!

Much talk was made during the 2014 off season that Mark Miles was looking to expand Indycar's schedule to include races overseas and naturally, one of the first mentioned was a return to Brazil, even as soon as to open the 2015 season. Although deals and a date were put in place, by January the towel was thrown in and the proposed race in the nation's capital of Brasilia was scrubbed from the calendar, dealing a blow to Miles' expansion plans. Although publicly, Indycar officials have remained committed to more international races, the focus now seems to have shifted toward adding new American races like Boston and returning to old stomping grounds like Road America and Phoenix as part of an expanded 2016 schedule.

Quick, answer this one. In his first 16 seasons driving for Team Penske, how many of those seasons did Helio Castroneves fail to win a race?...... go on.... do you have it?..... The answer is one and it was the ill fated 2011 season. If it hadn't been for that season, 2015 would hands down rank as the worst season of Helio's career since joining the Captain in 2000. While team mates Juan Montoya and Will Power chased race wins and a legitimate shot at the championship, Castroneves almost became the forgotten man at Penske if not for the year that Simon Pagenaud had. One has to wonder if Castroneves will ever bag that elusive championship that would rubber stamp a remarkable career. Right now, all we can say is the same thing we say every year at this time and that's, maybe next year.

Sadly we lost another driver again this year through what was almost entirely a freak accident but given the amount of huge shunts that we saw in 2015, it could have been much worse if not for the sturdy and reliable Dallara built DW12. The Dallara designers cannot be praised highly enough for just how safe they have made the current Indycar chassis and if you don't believe me, just ask Ryan Briscoe after the massive accident he had at Fontana this year.

It was long last year, guess what! It's long again, the season finished in 2014 on 30th August and we did not have the cars back on track until 27th March this year. It did not go down too well with fans, teams, drivers, sponsors, you get the idea... So what do we have to look forward to this year? The season finished on 30th August, and the next confirmed race is... St Petersburg... 11th March. So yeah, shorter. There are murmurings about the possibility of a race in Mexico City, possibly in February. Confirm it any time you like guys!

That is Part One done and dusted, back again next week.

It is somewhat fitting that in Justin Wilson's penultimate Indycar race, there were two outstanding moment that encapsulated his true character and ability. He overtook two cars (Rahal and Montoya) on the outside of turn six... at Mid-Ohio... and latterly during the final restart when he went side by side with the race leader Graham Rahal, challenged him for the lead, but knowing that in completing the move, he could have taken himself and Graham, a championship contender out of the race. Justin had his wits about him, not only was he in that race due to Honda sponsoring his car, but also racing a fellow engine competitor. 

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting him around the paddock a couple of times from 2010 through 2012, but you knew who the man you met was a genuine kind hearted giant who had time for everyone, be they outside his garage or at an autograph session. The guy who signed his card and handed it to you with a smile was that at all times.

I want to reflect briefly on the the last Indycar race I attended, back in 2012 at Texas Motor Speedway. Who won it? The road course specialist, he nailed it. Graham Rahal was leading and looking strong for his first win since 2008. Until a late brush with the wall damaged the handling of his car, Wilson who was behind the then Ganassi driver, relentlessly caught up with him and overtook Rahal in the final laps. It was at this point possibly the sole Englishman in my block was up fist pumping the air. The driver, who for the small team, did it.

I recent times, when the Indycar TV contract was up with ESPN and new channels were taking over, we did not know what was happening with coverage, where it would be if anywhere at all. Out of the blue a DM from Justin, he had been in touch with people at Indycar and ESPN to find out what was happening , passed on the message that it would be continuing in it's present format. I did not ask, he just did. This is something I have seen in many tributes to what kind of a man he was, this kind of gesture and commitment to his fans was common place.

Please remember in your thoughts those left behind. The Indycar community that showed such strength four years ago, is needed again.

It is at this point I will direct you to some beautiful written tributes to Justin, his career and also some personal memories that tug at the heart strings, firstly by Tony DiZinno, secondly David Malsher and finally Marshall Pruett.

Racing is cruel, life is cruel, and this one wasn't fair, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, because we can not find any.

Wilson Family Fund Website
#BadAssWilson Fundraising Merch (UK)

Updated: 


Russell Hargreaves from talkSPORT invited me onto his Extra Time show to talk about Justin Wilson. The clip below is from the show.

A special Justin Wilson tribute show, we on Downforce Radio put together for 'Downforce USA'.

Just when you thought things were on the up, hey, no, less of that optimism! 

With the fantastic announcement of the return to Road America, since 2007, we were teased with the media speculation of Phoenix (first potential race since 2005) in the morning. Then comes the afternoon, and the announcement that there is no agreement between Indycar and ACS a.k.a Fontana for 2016. Sigh, the race which provided the largest talking points and buzz around a race outside of the Indy 500 was done, for now. In an Interview with Push to Pass Podcast, track president Dave Allen, he said they were working hard on securing a new date for next year, but one which suited them, which for anyone who went in July would want it to work for them too! Sadly Labor Day won't cut it.

Pocono, a much heralded return in 2013, half decent crowd followed by a not so decent crowd last year, and with a very (very) limited on track schedule for the Indycar race weekend, this one worries me. AOWR first visited the tricky triangle in 1971, ran through 1989, followed by a substantial break. I would hate to see this happen to another track steeped in Indycar heritage. Pack those stands! CEO Brandon Igdalsky is a fan, but he is also a businessman. 

So the 500 mile'rs outside of Indy could be gone in 2016.

Now the optimistic happy type bit. Hello Road America (seriously check out the 4 day ticket deal), nice to see you again. Hello Boston, big market, North East race, Labor Day, eHarmony couldn't have matched it better. Hello-ish Phoenix, talk of a return to to Arizona for the first time since 2005 are in advanced talks, just the dollars to agree on, it is as close as to appear on the Wikipedia page for Indycar in 2016 schedule... I am also a big fan of having a oval race too before the Indy 500. And how about starting in February at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City, rumoured among media and Indycar officials, would provide a great chance to compare the on track product of Indycar and Formula One in a similar time-scale. Recently reported in Racer, Jay Frye (Chief Revenue Officer for Hulman and former NASCAR team manager) is in talks with other ISC tracks as well including Richmond and Homestead, you can join the dots right?

The series is on an upswing at the moment, talk, buzz, TV ratings, one can hope that the situation is even better in twelve months time, parties can talk and be less restrictive.

So there is your... *excrement* sandwich, baloney or bologna? Good news next right?