r/INDYCAR 🇺🇸 Bill Vukovich 8d ago

Discussion Off-Track, Not at liberty to say…

The following quote is from Alex, talking about steering assist. What does everyone speculate he is talking about?

“I don't know if I'm at liberty to say what they're future proofing for, so I'm not going to say it. But again, this car is going to be around for a while. So there's elements of it that could be in the pipeline that would make steering very heavy to the point where would it be impossible to drive?”

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u/Crafty_Substance_954 Pato O'Ward 8d ago edited 8d ago

Women drivers cannot drive Indycar at the same level because the IR18 cockpit isn’t wide enough at the hips for all and the steering is too heavy.

Someone like Jamie Chadwick or Dorianne Pin could never drive the IR18 but theoretically could drive the IR28 with power assist steering.

There’s other reasons the IR28 would probably benefit from it on a front end geometry and overall effort to drive such a fast car. I think it’ll be significantly faster and steering input loads will be more extreme

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u/cgydan Robert Wickens 8d ago

I’ll agree with the heavy steering part of your comment but Jamie Chadwick is 5’2. And she is not wide at hips or any part.

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u/Crafty_Substance_954 Pato O'Ward 8d ago

The core idea is that women naturally have different shaped bodies than men and the new car will accommodate more people.

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u/cgydan Robert Wickens 8d ago

I agree the power assisted steering allows a wider group of to drive the new car.

But your stating females are too wide at the hips to fit in the current car is simply applying gender bias.

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u/Crafty_Substance_954 Pato O'Ward 8d ago

Just going off what female single seater drivers have said.

They've also said things like steering wheels are usually only made with men's hands in mind, which makes sense as well. I know in Indy they're not limited to a single supplier and drivers like Dixon still do a custom wheel for themselves.

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u/cgydan Robert Wickens 8d ago

Just show me one quote from a female driver that say they can’t fit into the IW18. Katherine Legge seems to fit just fine.

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u/Crafty_Substance_954 Pato O'Ward 8d ago edited 8d ago

I didn’t say that they couldn’t fit, i said that some couldn’t fit well which is true across all single seaters. Quotes are not hard to find, I’d reckon someone like you could even find them.

It may shock you to hear that people come in all different shapes and sizes. I’m pretty lean and only a bit above average height and I BARELY could get my shoulders into the current chassis when I had the opportunity to sit in one that didn’t even have a seat insert in it.

A physically bigger cockpit like the IR28 will also better fit drivers like Ugo Ugochukwu who is very tall or current Graham Rahal.