IndyCar Undergoes an Electrifying Change for Sunday’s Race

We'll find out this weekend if IndyCar's long-anticipated hybrid powertrain is ready for prime time-or at least early afternoon, when Sunday's coverage of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid begins on NBC at 1:30 p.m. ET.

As we've mentioned before, IndyCar said in 2019 that it would be going to hybrids, and work began in earnest in 2022 to make that transition happen. IndyCar's engine suppliers, Honda and Chevrolet, teamed up on the hybrid unit, with Honda taking on the development of the supercapacitor Energy Storage System (ESS), and Chevrolet and its partner, Ilmor, working on the Motor Generator Unit (MGU). The hybrid system they came up with will be shared by Honda and Chevrolet.

In a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon, IndyCar president Jay Frye, Mark Stielow, director of motorsports competition engineering at GM, and Wayne Gross, manager of trackside engineering for Honda, discussed the progression of the hybrid program. Frye said that while the hybrid was a rush order for all involved, it has been thoroughly tested before this weekend's debut. "We've run almost 21,000 laps, almost 32,000 miles," he said. It's highly unusual for a series to make a powertrain change in the middle of the season, but IndyCar didn't want to wait any longer. All 27 of the drivers have spent time in a hybrid car during testing.

Both manufacturers have experience with hybrid power in their IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP teams, which began using it last season: General Motors with Cadillac, and Honda with the Acura program. IndyCar's hybrid system, though, is completely different from the one used in the IMSA sports cars, with no shared parts.

"The biggest difference is probably the energy storage," Gross said. In IMSA's GTP cars, the "battery pack sits next to the driver, so it's a large, fairly heavy battery." For IndyCar, instead of a battery, "We've gone with a supercapacitor ESS, which sits in the bellhousing, behind the engine and in front of the gearbox," he said. It adds about 120 pounds to the car.

The IndyCar unit, at 48 volts, is considered low-voltage. The IMSA unit, at up to 800 volts, requires teams and safety workers to undergo special training to deal with issues that may arise from a high-voltage hybrid system, especially after a crash. IMSA's system has to be strong enough to power the whole car out of the pits and onto the track, while IndyCar's system just helps out the existing 2.2-liter, twin-turbocharged V-6.

The IndyCar hybrid motor adds 60 horsepower, which is about the same amount as the existing push-to-pass system offers, though only for brief periods. (Push-to-pass, which increases the turbochargers' boost, is used on street and road courses, but not on ovals.) Grand total horsepower for this weekend's debut of the hybrid powertrain: About 800. A total of 900 horsepower is possible, and that's expected to come in 2025 or '26.

Besides the extra horsepower, the hybrid unit represents a genuine challenge to drivers and teams regarding how it's used. While the push-to-pass boost is governed to 150-200 seconds per race, the extra hybrid power button is available for the whole race. However, there's a limit to how much energy can be stored in that supercapacitor. There's a mode that allows drivers to regenerate electricity, charging the supercapacitor, and there is a mode that lets them use that energy.

There's "a lot of opportunity to shake up the racing, which is cool," Honda's Gross said. "I think as we go into the electrified future and relating what we do on the racetrack to selling cars-the old 'race on Sunday, sell on Monday' mantra-it's really tying it together."

"This is another tool that we're bringing to the drivers to enable a little bit better competition, a little more passing," said GM's Stielow. "The fans at home like to see active racing, so we're hoping this is another tool in the drivers' tool bag to demonstrate the talent between the drivers."

When the hybrid system was first announced by IndyCar, it was generally considered to be a bridge to total electrification, which was the direction in which its manufacturer partners were heading. Then the American consumer went soft on the idea of an all-electric future, instead embracing hybrids-hence the sponsorship of this weekend's race, officially called the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid. "I think the hybrid is that bridge in electrification to where we're maybe in the future 10, 15 years out," said Gross.

But IndyCar's Frye doesn't think total electrification will happen with his race series anytime soon. "We certainly have no aspirations of being a fully electric series. We're fast, loud, and authentic," Frye said. "I certainly don't see IndyCar becoming a full EV series."

Which echoes a comment made to Hagerty by Roger Penske in 2022. He owns an IndyCar team, plus the entire IndyCar series, plus the Indianapolis racetrack. "I didn't buy Indianapolis Motor Speedway," Penske said, "to watch electric cars ride around there right now."

IndyCars will look and sound the same this weekend, with only one audible or visible indication of electrification: If a car spins out and the driver kills the engine, he will be able to restart it on his own. Previously, the IndyCar engine didn't have a starter, and after a spin, the entire field was put under the yellow flag so an official's truck could be dispatched to the car to restart the engine. This feature of the hybrid unit should speed up the overall event.

Hybridization "is an enhancement to our overall program," Frye said. "This is something that is very relevant in street cars and in passenger cars. We think the hybrid program is the way to go into the future. We're very comfortable with where we're at right now. We're very comfortable where we're going to be in the next couple, two, three years, and then we'll see what the future looks like beyond that."

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