This coming weekend is an unique one for the majority of motorsport fans. There are Formula 1 races in Monaco and NASCAR races in Charlotte. And probably overlooking them both is the Indianapolis 500, being held this year for the 109th time. America’s earliest race is likewise among its hardest: The track might have simply 4 turns, however the cars and trucks negotiate them going 3 times faster than you drive on the highway, inches from the wall. For hours. A minimum of at Le Mans, you have more than one chauffeur per automobile.

This year’s race assures to be an interesting one. The track is offered out for the very first time given that the centenary race in 2016. A novice motorist and a group brand-new to the series took lead. 2 extremely quick automobiles are beginning at the back thanks to another conflict-of-interest scandal including Team Penske, the 2nd in 2 years for a group whose owner likewise owns the track and the series. And the cars and trucks are harder to drive than they have actually been for several years, thanks to a brand-new supercapacitor-based hybrid system that has actually included more than 100 pounds to the back of the automobile, moving the weight circulation even more back.

Ahead of Sunday’s race, I consulted with a number of IndyCar motorists and some engineers to get a much better sense of how they prepare and what to anticipate.

Concentrate

Everything comes “from months of preparation,” stated Marcus Ericsson, winner of the race in 2022 and among Andretti Global’s chauffeurs in this year’s occasion. “When we get here to the month of May, it’s just such a busy month. So you’ve got to be prepared mentally—and basically before you get to the month of May because if you start doing it now, it’s too late,” he informed me.

The motorists invest all month at the track, with a race on the roadway course previously this month. There’s screening on the historical oval, followed by certifying last weekend and the race this coming Sunday. “So all those hours you put in in the winter, really, and leading up here to the month of May—it’s what pays off now,” Ericsson stated. That work included numerous sessions of physical training every week, and Ericsson states he likewise does weekly psychological training sessions.

“This is a mental challenge,” Ericsson informed me. “Doing those speeds with our cars, you can’t really afford to have a split second of loss of concentration because then you might be in the wall and your day is over and you might hurt yourself.”

When motorists burn out or their focus slips, that’s when errors occur, and an error at Indy frequently has repercussions.

Mimic

Being psychologically and physically ready becomes part of it. It likewise assists if you can roll the race vehicle off the transporter and onto the track with a setup that works instead of investing the month chasing after the best mix of dampers, springs, wing angles, and so on. And nowadays, that implies a great deal of simulation screening.

The multi-axis chauffeur in the loop simulators may appear like simply a really pricey computer game, however these multimillion-dollar setups aren’t about having a good time. “Everything that you are feeling or changing in the sim is ultimately going to reflect directly to what happens on track,” described Kyle Kirkwood, colleague to Ericsson at Andretti Global and among just 2 motorists to have actually won an Indycar race in 2025.

Andretti, like the other groups utilizing Honda engines, utilizes the brand-new HRC simulator in Indiana. “And yes, it’s a very expensive asset, but it’s also likely cheaper than going to the track and doing the real thing,” Kirkwood stated. “And it’s a much more controlled environment than being at the track because temperature changes or track conditions or wind direction play a huge factor with our car.”

A high degree of connection in between the simulation and the track is what makes it an effective tool. “We run through a sim, and you only get so many opportunities, especially at a place like Indianapolis, where you go from one day to the next and the temperature swings, or the wind conditions, or whatever might change drastically,” Kirkwood stated. “You have to be able to sim it and be confident with the sim that you’re running to go out there and have a similar balance or a similar performance.”

“So you have to make adjustments, whether it’s a spring rate, whether it’s keel ballast or just overall, maybe center of pressure, something like that,” Kirkwood stated. “You have to be able to adjust to it. And that’s where the sim tool comes in play. You move the weight balance back, and you’re like, OK, now what happens with the balance? How do I tune that back in? And you run that all through the sim, and for us, it’s been mirror-perfect going to the track when we do that.”

More remarkably, a great deal of that work was done months back. “I would say most of it, we got through it before the start of this season,” Kirkwood stated. “Once we get into the season, we only get a select few days because every Honda team has to run on the same simulator. Of course, it’s different with the engineering sim; those are running nonstop.”

Sims are for engineers, too

An IndyCar group is more than simply its motorists–“the spacer between the seat and the wheel,” according to Kirkwood– and the engineers rely greatly on sim work now that real-world screening is so extremely limited. And they utilize a lot more than simply driver-in-the-loop (DiL).

“Digital simulation probably goes to a higher level,” described Scott Graves, engineering supervisor at Andretti Global. “A lot of the models we develop work in the DiL as well as our other digital tools. We try to develop universal models, whether that’s tire models, engine models, or transmission models.”

“Once you get into to a fully digital model, then I think your optimization process starts kicking in,” Graves stated. “You’re not just changing the setting and running a pretend lap with a driver holding a wheel. You’re able to run through numerous settings and optimization routines and step through a massive number of permutations on a car. Obviously, you’re looking for better lap times, but you’re also looking for fuel efficiency and a lot of other parameters that go into crossing the finish line first.”

As an example, Graves indicate the dampers. “The shock absorber is a perfect example where that’s a highly sophisticated piece of equipment on the car and it’s very open for team development. So our cars have fully customized designs there that are optimized for how we run the car, and they may not be good on another team’s car because we’re so honed in on what we’re doing with the car,” he stated.

“The more accurate a digital twin is, the more we are able to use that digital twin to predict the performance of the car,” stated David Taylor, VP of market method at Siemens DISW, which has actually partnered with Andretti for some years now. “It will never be as complete and accurate as we want it to be. So it’s a continuous pursuit, and we keep adding technology to our portfolio and acquiring companies to try to provide more and more tools to people like Scott so they can more accurately predict that performance.”

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