Michael Andretti has been one of the loudest critics of the current dual aero kits built and supplied by Honda and Chevrolet since the body kits were introduced before the 2015 season. He believed it was an unnecessary expense that ultimately split the field in half.

Once the final race of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season concludes at Sonoma Raceway on September 17, Andretti can’t wait to toss all his team’s Honda aero kit parts into the trash.

“These kits were a joke because they split the field in half,” Andretti told Autoweek. “Every race track, one kit would have an advantage over the other and that hurt our racing. I’m really glad we are going back to a single kit in 2018.

“I will feel very good about tossing them into the Dumpster and I will probably feel very good about that. It was a total waste of money for everybody. I don’t think it helped our series. If anything, it hurt our racing in some ways because it split the field in half. We are going to go to a few race tracks here where one kit will have an advantage over another. It shouldn't be that way. We should all be playing on an equal field and that is the way it will be again next year and I’m excited about that.”

Andretti estimated in the first year of aero kits alone, the manufacturers, series and teams spent a combined $30 million on competitive aero kits. Chevrolet started with a huge aerodynamic advantage over Honda. The next season, Honda sought and was given relief in the rules by IndyCar officials and was able to close the gap on Chevrolet’s advantage.

Once the decision was made to create a universal kit beginning in 2018 for both Honda and Chevrolet, the 2016 aero rules were frozen for the 2017 season.

The 2018 aero kit had its first test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this past Tuesday with two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya driving the Chevrolet test car prepared by Team Penske and Oriol Servia driving the Honda test car prepared by Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. That test went so well that Jay Frye, IndyCar president of competition and operations, gave it a “B-plus.”

Rival team owner Bobby Rahal thought the dual aero kits were worth the try for the series but ultimately didn’t work.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Rahal told Autoweek. “I think Michael supported it in the beginning, but to me, you have to try some things. It didn’t provide the answers that people were really looking for. Happily, after a lot of time was wasted, people said, 'That didn’t work,' so it was back to the future.

“The new car looks a lot better and it looks racy. If you look at racing today, everything ends up looking the same. In NASCAR, they all look the same and it’s hard to tell one from another so why don’t admit to that and make great cars that are raceable.

“I hope I don’t have to buy any more of these aero kits between now and the end of the season.”

Honda Performance Development (HPD) President Art St. Cyr will be more than happy to scrap the company’s inventory of the current kit but added, “they might be destroyed by the end of the season, provided the number of crashes we’ve had so far this year.”

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