Alex Palou Takes IR-28 Indy Car To Sebring For Durability Testing

IndyCar took its new car, the IR-28, on the road for the first time and the October 12 test at Sebring International Raceway was designed to find the weak points in the car.

Five-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion Alex Palou was able to find a weak area, when a fueling system issue brought the prototype car off the track for repairs. After that issue was fixed with backup parts, Palou returned to the track to log long runs with the new car.

“We just had an issue where the car decided to go to sleep for a little bit,” Palou said. “I still don’t really know what happened but that is why we are here. We are trying to test everything at the maximum to produce as much stress as we can before we produce all the cars that we know they are good.”

The Goal Was To Rough Up The New Car

Monday’s test was the next step toward testing the new racing machine that will enter competition in the 2028 NTT IndyCar Series season. A second day of testing is scheduled for Tuesday.

“We’re trying to test it as tough as we can,” Palou said Monday. “It’s a bumpy course. Before we produce all the Indy cars, we want to make sure it passes the stress test and makes sure it is good to go racing.

“With the bumps, we are trying to get miles and miles and see what breaks so we can fix it.”

The bumpy Sebring Raceway, home of the annual Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA Sports Car Race every March, is a valuable testing location during IndyCar’s offseason. The race track has characteristics for road courses and street courses on the IndyCar Series schedule and is quite active, especially before the season kicks off on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Because it is bumpy, and because IndyCar officials are looking for areas of particular weakness on the new design, it was a very logical choice to rough up the IR-28.

“The bumps and the weather is very good as well, how tough it is on tires and the car in general on the curbs, it’s a complete road course in terms of putting the car through stress,” Palou explained. “We have a lot of data and can compare it to our current car as well.”

Sharing The Course With Two Other Drivers In The Current Indy Car

Palou and the IR-28 development team shared the road course with IndyCar Series drivers Kyle Kirkwood and Scott McLaughlin, who were participating in a Firestone Tire Test in the current IR-18. That set up a unique moment when Palou in an IR-28 passed Palou in the current Indy car on the track.

“It was not planned,” Palou said. “There was no plan. We went out and I saw Kirkwood was doing the tire test. We spoke during lunch and we wanted to go out together and see how this car performed in traffic and how the current car does. It was cool.

“We were playing a little bit. If we were both in the same setup, this car (the IR-28) is better.”

It was the fourth time the five-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion was the test driver for the IR-28. Three previous tests were held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Those included August 2 on the IMS Road Course during wet conditions, another test on August 4 under sunny conditions, then an oval test on the 2.5-mile IMS oval on September 9.

Palou drives for Chip Ganassi Racing Honda operation. Chevrolet’s test driver for the IR-28 tests is Alexander Rossi of ECR.

“It’s still very early and we don’t have much time, so it was important to have the two drivers that were involved in testing,” Palou said. “We will see more evolution when other drivers get to test it next year.”

Monday, October 12 was the first time the IR-28 tested on a track other than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Palou has seen improvements and evolution with the IR-28 since that first test in early August.

“It’s been more on the driver cockpit stuff, what do we want, how the brakes work, it hasn’t been much in terms of development of the car,” Palou explained. “We work on cooling, brake response and driver response and huge steps have been made in those areas. Those are areas we have wanted to see improvement in the current car.

“On our current car, we added the aero screen, so we added ducts to improve the airflow and it gets very hot. On this car, we had so much more time with Dallara to improve on air flow and makes it flow so much better. That has been a huge improvement.

“Honestly, I like everything about this car, the looks of it and on paper it will be better racing because we can follow much closer. I wish we were racing this car in 2027, but it’s good that we can test it before we actually use it in 2028.”

IR-28 Testing Continues On October 13

Palou turned 43 laps Monday on the outer loop at Sebring International Raceway. Rossi will take over testing duties Tuesday at the historic Florida circuit.

Palou and Rossi are the only series drivers so far to test the car, which will be introduced at the start of the 2028 season. As in the road course and oval tests at IMS, the two drivers and Dallara and IndyCar officials will continue to perform a long checklist of basic system and performance checks on the car.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com