Hildebrand Completes First INDYCAR Road Course Test

By Anne Proffit

Anne Proffit

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Anne Proffit has worked in the automotive field since - well, not telling you that. She's been a car salesperson (before it was popular to hire... More

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935 views Jan 19, 2012

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Like many in the IZOD IndyCar Series paddock JR Hildebrand, driver of Panther Racing's No. 4 National Guard Chevrolet/Dallara/Firestone Indy car spent Monday and Tuesday of this week at Sebring International Raceway, taking his first road course laps in the 2012 DW12 chassis.  The Californian, a sophomore in the Indy cars this year previously tested the car on the Homestead-Miami Speedway 1.5-mile oval for Chevrolet.

Hildebrand talked about his two-day test: "I felt like we made good progress over the couple of days and that's really what it was all about.  We're trying to figure out what's going to be different on this car," he said.  "Rather than try to start changing things right away, we went out and tried to get used to how it ran now - and just to be open to maybe a different outlook on what we need to be able to do to make the car go fast."

Bred on road courses, it was good for Hildebrand to return to his roots and get started on sorting the new chassis.  "It's not massively different, since lap times were fairly similar to what we had been doing," he admitted.  "There definitely are some things that I needed to adjust to like the new (Brembo) carbon brakes.  

"I think it will be a definite increase in performance for the car, but it took a while to get used to how they work.  I think more people went shooting through braking zones in these last two days at Sebring," Hildebrand said, "than you would have in a month when you would have been running before," using the older Dallara chassis and Honda engine.

Comparing the older IR03 to the DW12 Hildebrand, who finished second as a rookie in last year's 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 noted, "In the previous car you ended up with chronic understeer and that was something you dealt with.  

"With the turbo engines, it's just a different feeling.  I didn't find it particularly difficult to get used to.  The old car had a it more low end torque and not as much high end horsepower, so it was kind of linear in how you applied the throttle.  You got used to waiting to get to the point where you actually needed the car to go and get on the throttle," he said

In the DW12 with the Chevrolet engine, "There is a different style in throttle application through and out of the corners.  As much as this whole 'weight distribution' angle has been brought up as an issue for ovals, in some respects it might be a bit of a benefit for street and road courses, because it does allow the car to turn, maybe even too well!  From a handling perspective," he said, "that was definitely different."

There might be a short among of lag from the small twin turbochargers on the Chevrolet Indy 2.2-iiter V6, "So you have to think ahead of time, 'up there I want to the car to going so now I need to give it a little more gas,' and it's just an ongoing process."

Because he's already had the chance to drive the Chevy-powered DW12 on the Homestead oval, Hildebrand has a head start on understanding what the car does on left-turn tracks.  He was the least experienced of the Chevrolet testers in December, "But once we got into the run plan and got going, I think whether it was some of the other engineers with the other Chevrolet teams about the car itself - or the Chevrolet engineers that were there regarding pit stop stuff or how the car ran on the track or how it runs in certain conditions - they were very keen to ask my opinion of things.  

"You could tell you were making a difference in some way that your input was being valued for things that they were going to continue to try in the future.  It was kind of neat," Hildebrand said, "to be able to have the chance to start thinking about things a little bit differently," during that December oval test.

Talking with engine engineers is definitely something new for this young driver.  "It's something I've never had to do with the current car.  This time around anything is fair game to help make - whether it's the engine itself or the processes - much better.  So that was just neat.  I've always prided myself in some way on my ability to give feedback, so that was neat to be able to do it with some new people, and in a different way."

Because the Indy cars are all new for the 2012 season and with three engine manufacturers stepping up to compete - Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus - pre-season testing has been expanded greatly and has become essential to understanding the new equipment.  Hildebrand is enjoying seeing how others are figuring out the new equipment.  "I think a big piece of that (testing) is being able to gauge how quickly other people are figuring things out, especially for us as a one-car team.  It's always hard to tell what people are doing and what strategies they have, but in this day and age there is rarely sand-bagging on test days.

"We've certainly got our own ideas about the cars, and working with Chevrolet, it's a collaborative group of the Chevy teams that work together on things.  In the end, as cut and dry as it seems, lap time is a pretty good indication of how quickly people are figuring things out.  I know from experience we had throughout the year, just keeping up, whether it's drivers figuring things out or teams figuring things out, that will be super important," Hildebrand said.

Testing continues through to the season starter for the Indy car teams, the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg in that coastal city on March 25.