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5

r and more nimble,

future Indy Lights»

A

NTONIO

M

ONTANARI OF

D

ALLARA HAS FOLLOWED THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE

IL-15.

T

HE NEW CAR WILL BE THE STAR OF THE THE NEW SEASON FOR THE

I

NDY

C

AR SUPPORT SERIES

,

STARTING

IN

M

ARCH FOR AN HIGHLY

-

ANTICIPATED RUN

. H

E EXPLANED US ENGINEER EXPLAINED US THE PHILOSOPHY

AND THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW CAR

,

PLUS HOW IT WAS WELCOMED BY DRIVERS AND TEAMS

Antonio Montanari, can you tell us how

the IL-15 will be?

«It will be a completely new championship

with new teams including ones from

Europe. The Indy Lights was a minor

championship with a 13-year-old structure

that clearly had lost most part of his

highlights and charm. A strong restyling

was needed, and there were modern

standards to comply with. The car is an

huge step forward compared to the

previous one. The experience acquired with

the new IndyCar has been really important

and its influence has been entirely

transferred to this project. Actually, this is

a miniature IndyCar. With a weight of 600

kilograms and 450 horsepower, plus 50

coming from a push-to-pass system and a

paddleshift gearbox, we are sure that it

will provide a great show and will help

train the drivers for the upper category».

How does it differentiate itself from

the European cars?

«From the outside they are pretty similar,

but the safety rules used are the same of

IndyCar. It will also race on ovals, so the

race dynamics are quite different compared

to the European tracks. The suspensions

allow a wider range of adjustment to set

them up properly for this kind of tracks,

where you race without a differential, with

wheels of different sizes on the two sides

and with a positive camber on the left. So

the suspension components don't need to

get replace from road circuits to ovals so

the running costs are kept down. The

teams will receive an aero transformation

kit to adapt the car to the speedway use.