PRUETT: cool shirt or ballast, it’s your choice

August 15, 2022

It’s time for IndyCar to add a line to its rulebook to make life easier for drivers and teams: choose a cool shirt system or ballast.

Uniquely conceived by teams in response to soaring cockpit temperatures since aeroscreen driver safety equipment became mandatory in 2020, the NTT IndyCar Series uses cool shirts as a selective method to reduce the core body temperature of drivers. Welcome to use the system on hot or humid days.

But the decision to cool comes with a weight penalty of about 8 pounds when the combined system of cooling shirts, water, hoses, ducts and cooling pumps are mounted on the front of the Dallara DW12 tub.

And with some excessive intervention from team leaders and race engineers, weight savings (8 pounds lighter than the competition) was prioritized over driver cooling. Not always, but more often than not, removing 8 pounds from the car will cost him 0.1 seconds or more per lap. And it’s gotten to the point where IndyCar has to step in.

A recent event in Nashville was the latest example of select teams choosing to forego driver cooling in order to gain a competitive edge. When I got out of my car on Friday, the difference between those who had the Coolshirt system installed and those who didn’t was amazing.

Visuals of people overheating and needing to make an ice bath beeline to bring their body temperature back to a safer place, no one but the driver should have the ability to make decisions in the name of performance. further reminded me that there is no endangering the pilot’s health.

As we’ve learned, some drivers don’t need additional cooling because their bodies are able to dissipate heat better than others. Also, in the case of Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin, there have been failures of his cool shirt system in the past. His participation in the Australian Supercar Series led to his deliberate decision to run without it in IndyCar. Some drivers have taken it upon themselves to skip cool shirts to take advantage of the £8 advantage.

Scott McLaughlin has chosen not to use cool shirts after going through a lot during his supercar career.Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

IndyCar will add a basic rule that if ambient conditions exceed temperature or humidity thresholds, teams will install a driver cooling system or 8 lbs of ballast to compensate for running without the system. to balance the scale in favor of the driver. car. Either way, by taking the team out of the decision-making equation and eliminating the possibility of abusing weight loss, an extra eight pounds are attached to every car.

For a series that goes to great lengths to protect its drivers, this rule adjustment is in line with all other regulations created to protect the series’ most prized commodity.

IndyCar devised exactly the same rules regarding the use of overhead air scoops that attach to aeroscreens. An email will be sent to all teams in the series mandating the installation of scoops with thresholds set for high heat/humidity. If a series has established precedent for installing topside scoops and temperature-based triggers, it would seem easy to enact precedent for cooling systems or ballasts.

The system most IndyCar teams employ is made by Rini and promises to provide drivers with cooling about 10 degrees below ambient. Talking to people who use this system regularly say that the system is very powerful and makes a big difference in their ability to drive to their limits without causing heat fatigue.

One or two teams point to cost when explaining why they haven’t gotten a driver cooling unit. At $7800 per system, it’s not cheap by any means, but for comparison, a special wheelgun made by Paoli is also $6900 apiece, and there are 4-6 of him in each pit. box.

If a team can spend $27,600 to $41,400 to keep the wheels, spending a little more value than an extra Paoli to keep the driver below the boiling point in the car seems like a justifiable outlay. . And if, for whatever reason, your team wants to keep it tight and save money, be prepared to bolt that 8 pounds to your car.

The problem of high cockpit and driver temperatures is not going away anytime soon. The first opportunity to incorporate a dedicated cooling solution comes when the successor to the Dallara DW12 is commissioned. There is no specific date for its arrival at this time.

Until we can design cooling systems for the next generation of cars, the series could add a new line to the rulebook to end the £8 reward, leveling the playing field. This is easy.