Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi, who took over driving the No.15 Code 3 Associates Honda from Graham Rahal on Friday, told Paddock Eye that it was great to be in the car and to get used to driving the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
I think the track is fantastic! It is much smoother compared to other places we’ve been to this year, and we have been getting used to the hybrid system. There are a lot of different strategies you can use to harvest energy, and the deployment is manual through the driver, which is interesting. I have had the experience of testing and developing with Jaguar in Formula E, which is fully electric. In F1, we have hybrid systems as well. The Porsche LMP1 stuff I tested was hybrid, so I have some experience. It is interesting to see how it works with the INDYCAR.
When asked about the hybrid system in Formula One and whether he could take anything from that experience into INDYCAR, Fittipaldi said not, as the system in INDYCAR is entirely different from the one used in Formula One. Fittipaldi said that he took some things from his time with the Haas F1 Team in terms of the layout of the steering wheel.
Fittipaldi also told Paddock Eye that the Hybrid system deploys differently in INDYCAR compared to Formula One, which is a whole different deal. Fittipaldi will be back in action at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in just under two weeks for the Indianapolis 500 open test, which will take place from April 10 to 11.