A new aero kit means additional costs to teams in the Verizon IndyCar Series. To help minimize that, IndyCar, Dallara and the State of Indiana Economic Development Commission are providing each full season Leader’s Circle Entrant with two free aero kits per car to begin the 2018 season. Each kit is priced at $90,000 so that should save the teams that compete in the full season $180,000.

The current aerodynamic kits will be utilized through the 2020 season.

A Leader’s Circle entrant is a team that meets a criteria set by the IndyCar Series including full-season participation. The Leader’s Circle provides $900,000 per entrant paid quarterly, according to Indycar CEO Mark Miles. There are 22 Leader’s Circle positions for 2018.

A grant from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation as part of the state’s drive to support motorsports industry initiatives has helped make this equipment transition more economically attractive. Indiana-based teams will realize additional savings.

“We were making a change and there was going to be conversion costs and how do we do that to make it palatable for the teams?” IndyCar president of competition and operations Jay Frye told Autoweek. “The OEM’s were phenomenal in support of that, we were supportive of it and the State of Indiana supported it to a degree.

“Each Leader’s Circle entry will get two free kits. That is a good way to convert the cars to the new program and that will last for two more years at a minimum so it’s good for 2018, 2019 and 2020. The collaboration we’ve had with the teams and our manufacturer partners including Firestone and Dallara, it’s been a complete team effort so it was important to get the teams off on the right foot on a budgetary purpose for the kits.”

The cost reduction has been important to current teams, who started team testing January 9.

“It’s been really important for Chevy and Honda, who were paying the development costs and subsidizing the cost for the parts,” IndyCar CEO Mark Miles told Autoweek. “They are out of that now and that’s great. Every dollar we can save for the teams without sacrificing the quality of racing is important. Jay Frye and his team have done a good job negotiating the arrangements of the aero kit going forward and also saving teams money.”

Dallara has been involved in the aero kit process from the beginning and will build and provide the kits to each race team.

For instance, all three of Team Penske’s drivers -- Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power -- each get two kits for each car for each driver. Rahal Letterman Lanigan is expanding from one car to two in 2018 with the addition of Takuma Sato. So that team gets one free kit for driver Graham Rahal, who was full-time last year, but will have to buy the kit for Sato’s Honda.

That will save the teams about $90,000 per kit.

“First of all, it was a great exercise we did together as a partnership with IndyCar and the manufacturers,” Dallara CEO Stefano dePonti told Autoweek. “It was an intense time. We worked together to finalize the right price the teams could afford and the cost of the aero kit. The first one the teams are given for free and the rest have to be purchased.

“We worked together to make sure it was cost-effective for the team. We need to keep the business open and we did increase production of the parts. The majority of the parts are built in Indiana. It was a great exercise and we came up with a great solution.”

Dallara is based in Italy but has a manufacturing facility just a few blocks from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Main Street in Speedway, Indiana.

After the two free kits, each kit beyond that will have to be purchased by the teams.

“It is up to the team for the spare parts,” dePonti said. “Parts maintenance will require more parts. But it’s a political price that we decided together with INDYCAR. We paid a lot of attention with the economy of the teams and the fitness of the team to find the funding and budget. We worked together with IndyCar to obtain best economic price for everyone.”

Team owner Michael Andretti believes the free kits will help teams in the transition, but there remains a hefty investment per team to make the transition to the universal kit.

“That was one of the things they were able to sell the owners on, that for each Leader’s Circle entry we would get a kit,” Andretti told Autoweek. “That helps us because it’s a big, big investment. Even though we are getting that kit, it will still cost us $100,000 per car to do the crossover. Multiply that by 10 cars that we have can you can see $1 million that we are staring at. But we are investing it because we believe getting rid of the kits was the best thing to do for the series. I’m glad that smart minds prevailed and we are back to a single kit. But it’s a big investment for the owners.”

Another team making a big investment for 2018 is Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The one-car operation expands to two cars this season with the addition of defending Indianapolis 500 winning driver Takuma Sato to the squad that already includes Graham Rahal.

“There is a lot of expense in the new aero kits, but back in the CART days we used to get new cars every year,” Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar team manager Rico Nault told Autoweek. “That was pretty expensive. The economics aren’t quite there for that but IndyCar has pressed the manufacturers to help us. They are not absorbing the cost of their aero kits.

“This levels it all out. We get one free aero kit but still have to get Takuma Sato on track and don’t have a Leader’s Circle entry for him from last year but the series is doing a good job helping us all out and spreading the wealth of IndyCar racing to all of us.”

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