The Daly Game of Racing

It’s been an incredibly stressful and busy last couple months since losing my GP2 seat after the race in late August due to lack of funding. The season had been difficult, but I learned a great deal racing in Europe for a fourth year, particularly at the GP2 level. I also learned a lot more about politics, how the series works, and the significant team differences. Despite that, it was still a great year of race craft development, pit stop experience, and technical setup work. This year was the type of tough and deep learning year that I needed as par tof my personal development as a race car driver. With my season seeming to come to a bit of an early end, it gave me an opportunity to start working an IndyCar race seat for 2015. With the IndyCar season coming to an extremely early end this year, it meant that everyone was in 2015 mode pretty early. When talking plans for the upcoming season, the money game is always top priority. I knew that I’d have to bring something financially to a team to really force my way in. When you have the financial means, you have more control over your own destiny, which is something I haven’t had in a long time. I started seriously talking with teams at the final IndyCar race at Fontana.

The time for the young drivers is now. After four years of the toughest European learning years possible, I have every confidence that I am ready to take advantage of an IndyCar opportunity. I don’t just want to see myself in the sport, I want to see other young guys get the shot as well. We saw how well Sage Karam did getting in a good car for his first IndyCar race and Indy 500. I absolutely believe I can do it too, and I hope more teams are starting to see that. It’s really amazing how much things change from week to week. From Mid-Ohio through Fontana, and about a month afterwards, I thought I was well in contention for a couple different seats. So far, those seats have either fizzled out, gone a completely different direction, or they’re still in play today. One seat a lot of people thought I’d be in contention for was the 41 car at Foyt. This wasn't the case unfortunately, but I’m extremely happy to see the Foyt organization grow to two cars because those guys were so eager to get the 41 car running full time. Overall, if all of the cars running last year return, plus the two new cars already added two to the field (Simon Pagenaud to Penske and the 41 Foyt car) we’ll have a larger field for 2015. Hopefully that trend continues over the rest of the off season. Although the Indycar season had ended, the F1 and GP2 seasons were still going on during my preparation for 2015. Out of the blus, I got a message from the Lazarus GP2 team that I’d driven for this year asking if I could come and finish off the season in Abu Dhabi. I of course jumped at the opportunity because I was amongst the fastest in testing there and it’s

always better to be driving than not! The team had a sponsor to pay for it so I was excited to get back in the car.

After the only practice session,, Isuspected the weekend might be a bit of a struggle once again. Our car has lacked new tire pace all season, and the cause is something fundamental that we don’t quite understand yet – nor do the engineers. In qualifying, it was the same feeling I’ve had all season in qualifying. Strangely, it’s not a bad feeling, the balance of the car is pretty good, but the Pirelli tires require a certain sometimes unknown procedure to really extract the single qualifying lap time out of the tire. Formula One teams employ tire engineers and their ONLY job is to get the tires into the narrow working window. When the balance of the car in qualifying feels good, and you know you’ve put all your sectors together and driven the car to its limit, it’s simply a question of grip. We struggled to get the special one lap Pirelli grip out of the tire all season.

A prime example for how our setup works in the race compared to qualifying was our

performance in Race One. I got hit in T1, causing us to pit to replace a nose, which essentially took us out of race contention - unless there was a safety car. I was on the same pit stop strategy as Jolyon Palmer, the series champion, and we pitted on the same lap switching to the super soft tires.

Myself and series champion Palmer exited the pits on the same lap and we both went on a charge. As the race unfolded, I was somewhat satisfied with my pace because I missed setting the fastest lap of the race by a mere .08 – yes – that’s eight hundreths of a second. Palmer was the only driver fastyer. This again shows that we just do not have the right setup platform for qualifying. We run the races with basically half the downforce we qualify on due to series regulations. During that quick lap in the race I could really feel the tire itself working harder and gripping the track without the assistance of the extra downforce. THAT is what we needed in qualifying all year PLUS the added downforce grip we only have for qualifying. It is a huge difference when you can put those two things together. So after an encouraging Race One speed, we went for it in Race Two once again for the final time of the season.

I went from 20th to 10th by turn 7 when I got pushed wide by another driver who was

avoiding someone else in front of him. I fell to 15th after some folks cut the track to avoid a spinning Palmer in the next series of corners. Such a shame, because we were quick enough to be even further ahead, but once everyone settled in there was zero overtaking the entire race. This was possibly the most frustrating race of my entire career, knowing we had the speed to be in the top 10. I tried everything I physically could do to get ahead of the car in front of me, but just couldn’t do it without taking us both out. Racing is unfair most of the time, but that’s the way it is and that is the way we finished the season.

It’s important for people to see deeper than plain final results because there is quite a difference between teams. I found something very interesting that happened the week after the race during the GP2 post season test. In both races during the weekend, Pierre Gasly the French Red Bull driver was right behind me, competing in the group I was in. He’s a good driver without a doubt, as he wouldn't be sponsored by Red Bull if he wasn't. When he tested the week after the race, he tested with DAMS, the team who won the championship, and he was P1 almost the entire 3 day test. In GP2, like any series, the differences in resources, funding, and experience create huge differences between the teams, particularly when it comes to extracting the optimum qualifying lap time out of the Pirellis. It doesn't mean any one team is worse than

any other personnel wise.. A challenging game to play as usual! But when I look back at my personal performance, I see me passing more cars than any other drivers the series – more than 70 passes for the season – and I enjoyed passing every one of them. Abu Dhabi was a nice way to mix things up and get my head away from the business side of racing and back to the driving side for a bit, but as soon as I got home it was back to off track work. Actually, I’m never really at rest on the business side of racing. I received a called from an IndyCar team owner at around 4am local time Sunday in Abu Dhabi (Saturday afternoon in America) and of course I answered it right away ready to go, hah! Unfortunately, it wasn't news that I had a ride for 2015, but it was good and there is plenty of discussions in progress. It’s been interesting interacting with the different teams that have seats open. I have learned a lot about how business-to-business deals work through different team partners, and I’ve been trying to connect myself to businesses that see strong value in racing. We are at the point now where there are a LOT of drivers from all over the world publicly declaring strong interest in Indycar. The seats will go to the drivers who can forcefully insert themselves, whether that be with a business-to-business deal creating funding for the team, or straight up cash in-hand from existing backers. Most of the seats open right now are open because the full budgets to run the cars aren't quite there yet. For the last four months, I’ve been aiming at a certain amount of sponsorship to bring to the table and it is a slow moving process. My immediate goal is to pull together enough backing to do a test day. I know what I can do, and I know with a chance to just get on a road course in front of multiple IndyCar teams ,I’ll be able to prove my worth, just like I did with Foyt when they tested me. After that test, I was offered the 500 deal, so it worked out well! Just recently, I went to see the reveal of Ryan Hunter-Reay’s face on the Borg Warner trophy at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. I really enjoyed the Borg Warner rep saying “America’s own, Ryan Hunter-Reay”. I like stuff like that, I would love to see another generation of young American drivers take the fight to the current veterans and new young guys from all around the world who come to race IndyCar. Formula 1 teams are hiring younger and younger drivers, Toro Rosso with the youngest driver lineup in history. All of the NASCAR commercials pre-chase were about the rookies, “come see our stars of the future.” America and Indycar needs something American and home grown to cheer for. I would certainly like to be a part of IndyCar’s future because I think the future is bright and the sport is growing. I am working every day to try and MAKE it happen rather than “hope” something happens. Having said all that, the first item on my birthday wish list (Dec 15th) coming up, is a job. Hah, preferably driving an IndyCar. Speak to everyone soon and thank you for all of your considerable support!