Not being an open wheel fan…
What are the illuminated/changing number on the side of what appears to be the air intake?
The steering wheel seems to serve as a “dashboard.” Anyone know who makes it and is it used in Formula 1 cars?
Fuel…is it alcohol?
The LED number is the current position in the field.
the changing number shows the position of the car in the field. the fuel is ethanol. not sure who makes the steering wheel but Formula 1 has a similar setup.
DAs compared to NASCAR, you don’t here much discussion about tire wear. Is this because the cars are so much lighter?
seems like you can’t really see the numbers except during pit stops.
Not on TV, but a lot of it is to help people at the track to know if people are competing for position, or if it’s lead-lap guys going past lapped guys, home viewers should have either the commentators or other on-screen information for that.
During the pit stops, it counts the number of seconds the pit stop takes. It will also display “PP” if the driver hits their Push-To-Pass button, which is a limited boost in HP drivers get a limited number of each race (not sure if they got any for the Indy 500)
Here’s a slightly-dated explanation of the Indycar steering wheel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlnmeWt-sI
F1 cars have a similar, possibly more complicated, setup: The Insanely Complicated F1 Steering Wheel
The led numbering system is also popular in other racing series. I believe I’ve seen it in DTM (German Touring Cars) and the Blancpain sportscar series.
I don’t know about today’s models, but I remember hearing several years ago that the steering wheels in IndyCars (it may have been ChampCar then, or even CART; probably not the IRL, since I didn’t watch that) cost about $30,000 each.
I think the American IMSA sports car series might have been the first major series to introduce the LED panels in 2014. This article says they were tried at a couple of European endurance races in 2013. IndyCar brought them online last year midseason, after the Indy 500, so I think this was the first Indy with the system in place.
I thought the ultra complicated sophisticated steering wheels started with F1 and have now been adopted by Indy cars.