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Mercedosaurus Rex at Indianapolic Park
Part 12: The unfair advantage and when others have it

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Who?

Teo Fabi

What?

March-Porsche 90P

Where?

Indianapolis

When?

1990 Indianapolis 500

 Teo Fabi, 1990 Indianapolis 500, March-Porsche 90P
Why?

An aspect of Penske Racing which is difficult to separate from its efforts is 'the unfair advantage', Team Penske's ever persistent search for perfection and obtaining the decisive advantage over its opponents.

The expression came from what is probably one of the two drivers who will be forever associated with Penske: Mark Donohue. It is however a bit of an inappropriate expression since not every advantage Team Penske created over the years was unfair. In their early years at Indianapolis Team Penske used cars and engines offered for sale and most often generally available. They spent more money however on fine tuning the equipment to get the most out of it. What is unfair about that?

A lot of criticism is uttered about Porsche's guilt of killing off the Can-Am series with their turbocharged 917, entered and ran by Penske Racing. The rules enabled it; there was no ban on turbocharged engines. The Porsche domination replaced a McLaren factory domination (remember the expression 'The Bruce and Denny Show'?) and although the field was filled with McLarens, only the works entries were the very latest ones; the opposition had to help themselves with older models. It can be argued that factory support by the McLaren factory or the Porsche factory is a difference, given the scale and the background of the two companies. And if we separate chassis and engine from each other with respect to availability and support it must be admitted that the Detroit V8s used by the majority of Can-Am teams were far more readily available compared to the Porsche flat-twelves in whatever configuration or size, either normally aspirated or turbocharged.

One example of searching for an advantage by Team Penske is little known. Generally, Parnelli Jones and his team are credited for bringing the Cosworth DFX to Indianapolis and Champcar racing. It is however little known that Roger Penske was the man who ordered the first DFX engines but eventually sold them off because of having an even better plan.

Having his own (positive) experiences with Porsche during the Can-Am days as well as the early part of the career of the 1973 911 Carrera RS, and knowing that Porsche was also working on turbocharged engines of capacities that were within the region of 2.65 litre, Penske tried to interest Porsche in supplying engines for his Indycars. But despite some investigations and preparations, this eventually never happened.

When Team Penske began to build their own Indycars, that was nothing special either. Other teams did the same (think about the Patrick Wildcats, Foyt's Coyotes, the Parnellis and so on). Older cars were sold off over the years (there were a number of ex-Penske McLaren M16s raced by others in the following years) but once they began to build their own cars it was obvious that Penske was not into the car business to provide others with the latest equipment.

It can also be said that Team Penske never complained about certain teams having an advantage equipment-wise. For example, when Jim Hall brought the Chaparral into CART, all that Penske did was make sure that his next car was also a full ground-effects machine.

His participation in the Ilmor project is another example of searching for an advantage. Initially it was a risk and the years 1986 and 1987 didn't bring Penske very much. Even that 1987 “500” victory was more down to luck than to careful planning. Remember that the winning third car was Cosworth-powered.

From 1989 on, when it was clear that the Chevrolet engine was the one to have it became a bit complicated for Roger. Ilmor-Chevy was unable to supply enough engines and had to restrict themselves to a certain amount of engine deals. And with Roger owning 25% of Ilmor it could be seen as if he was involved in the creation of an elite class in CART, the Chevy club, while, for example, Carl Haas (Newman-Haas) supplied as many new Lolas as he was asked to do. Eventually, from 1989 on he (and Lola) had to supply at least three quarters, if not more, of the field while March had lost its share of the customer market.

I don't know what Roger Penske's influence has been on the increasing number of Chevy deals over the years that the Ilmor/A was used or if he could have this number being increased.

The arrival of the Ilmor/B may cause some thoughts since it was available to just one team: Penske. However, the new /C engine introduced one year later was instantly available to all of Ilmor's primary customers.

So it can be concluded that, in general, Penske's 'unfair' advantage was rarely unfair. It can also be concluded that the team rarely opposed to what could be considered unfair advantages by others, often because they had been in similar position.

There is however one occasion in which there is some evidence that Team Penske was involved when another team created an advantage for themselves and was told to give it up: when Porsche entered the CART scene they eventually did so using March 88C type chassis instead of their own 2708 chassis.

March 88C

When Porsche got involved in the March misery of 1988 few teams worried about their CART efforts initially…
(photo HG)

From 1989 on they had an agreement with March to have a car exclusively developed for them. The Porsche V8 engine wasn't rated as good as the Ilmor-Chevy but nonetheless, the Porsche team made good progress during the 1989 season, winning the race at Mid-Ohio. Knowing that the engine wasn't on par with the Chevy, it meant that the March 89P was more than decent.

March 89P

… but when the first signs came that Porsche's CART project was getting on the right track and more success was dawning with the 89P… (photo HG)

Early in 1990 CART had announced that from 1991 on it was permitted to build all-carbon fibre monocoques for CART racers. They had also announced that, in anticipation of this rule waivers could be given to those companies who made the request to build such an all carbonfibre monocoque for the 1990 season already. This opened an advantage to Porsche.

Partner March was all familiar with building all-carbon monocoques for their Formula 1 efforts. Building tens and tens of all-carbon monocoques for CART customers was more difficult but building a few for the CART Porsche program was of course much less of a problem. So March applied for the dispensation to build an all-carbon monocoque for their new Porsche-powered CART car. This permission was given.

But by the start of the new year something happened.

In January there had been a CART board meeting which meant that just about every team in CART had a representative. In that meeting there was opposition against the waiver for March-Porsche. The opposition came from Penske Racing and Newman-Haas, both these two teams being associated with CART chassis builders.

While at Indianapolis that year, I had two conversations with people about the troubles Porsche had run into. I had always been sympathetic to Porsche's racing efforts due to my love for turbocharging technology and the fact that seeing the 917 on TV winning at Le Mans in 1970 got me interested in motor racing. In one of these talks I had I was told that the ban on all-carbon monocoques was primarily a result of objections by Team Penske, on the basis that they had anticipated being able to build all-carbon monocoques themselves too but then found out that it wasn't that easy after all and that they lacked sufficient knowledge and infrastructure. In the other talk I had, I was told that a number of CART team owners had become very wary about the Porsche efforts since it was one of only two fully factory-supported projects, with exclusive hardware.

Now in 1988 Porsche had not been much of a worry yet but during 1989 it was more than obvious that the team was gaining strength. And they could become even stronger, or worse, dominant like they had been in the past in other formulae because of being the only team with the exclusive advantage of an all-carbon monocoque, a technical detail offering big benefits to a team with access to the technology that others didn't have as yet. Knowing a bit about what happened 10 years early, I wasn't that surprised to hear things like this.

So those were two reasons to backtrack on the decision to grant permission on building all-carbon 'coques in 1990 already, one of them involving Team Penske.

If anything, the plan worked, the March-Porsche 90P had to be converted to comply to the rules and that was, among other factors, part of its downfall.

March 90P

March 90P

The chance for Porsche success was reduced when the highly innovate newcomer was outlawed. Once complying to the rules it became a participant that wasn't to be feared anymore… (photo HG)

At that time (1990) changing a design into an all-carbon monocoque was not that easy and a team which was designing a rules-legal aluminium/carbon top car for the following season was pretty much committed to it once they were at a certain point in the process. Penske Racing had facilities to built carbonfibre parts, so it can therefore be suspected that any objections coming from Penske Racing regarding the acceptance of carbonfibre monocoques wasn't based on a lack of facilities at the factory but the lack of time to start all over again and doing the same.

It is probable that the protest against the all-carbon monocoque was something that came from Teddy Mayer, the former McLaren team boss who had been working for Penske since the late 80s. Mayer was the teams representative in the rule-making process, together with Kirk Russell. At that time, CART was pretty much being directed by the majority of the participating teams that had a CART franchise. (Interestingly enough, one of the top teams and CART founders, Pat Patrick had no such a franchise anymore!) If Team Penske was indeed involved in having the all-carbon 'coque outlawed after all, one suspects that it was more likely to have been done by Teddy Mayer. But also, if Mayer had indeed been the man, no doubt that he did so with the full support of Roger Penske.

This all might read as rather negative on Teddy Mayer, but even though it is beyond the topic of this piece, there is also evidence that on occasion Mayer didn't try to change the opinion of the CART board about bans on certain kinds of technology which Team Penske had ready to try on their cars. Teddy Mayer may well have been the representative for Team Penske, but he definitely didn't do anything he could have done to gain advantages exclusive to Team Penske.

How much of the reasons for the ban on the all-carbon March 90P 'coque is true and how much influence did Team Penske have on the banning of an 'unfair advantage' that was not in their possession this time?

Granted, the all-carbon monocoque wasn't complying to the rules yet in 1990, but permission was obtained from CART and thus it was legal at that time. Say about the March-Porsche what you want but it wasn't a secret and common knowledge within the CART ranks.

Seen in that light, I can understand why race fans and other people criticized Team Penske back in 1994 when the news about the pushrod project came out. Team Penske had themselves gained an advantage that was indeed legal but it was done in all secrecy to avoid giving anyone a clue and prevent politics from interfering in time as had happened with Porsche in 1990.