It’s shaping up to be a massive year for Kiwi IndyCar driver Marcus Armstrong.
He’s joined up with Meyer Shank Racing, joining Felix Rosenqvist in the team's lineup – competing on all the oval, road, and street races.
Armstrong comes from a background of F4, Formula 3 and Formula 2, and told Mike Hosking that over the years he feels like he’s grown better at working with his team.
“There’s 350 people that we work closely with, and making sure that we communicate properly and explain our thoughts of how we want the car to be developed without, y’know... involving your ego too much.”
“So, being very self-critical and honest about what we can do better from a team perspective, and communicating properly. I think that’s probably the thing I’ve improved in the most.”
In IndyCar, you’re often racing at speeds averaging about 240 miles an hour, a speed that’s hard for the human brain to keep up with.
“You need to keep your eyes 200 meters further ahead than what you’re used to,” Armstrong told Hosking.
“If you sort of look where you normally look, you’re already past that point.”
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I think a lot of good stuff is going to happen on racetracks around the world this year, and a lot of it's going to involve Kiwi's. For Marcus Armstrong, the IndyCar Dreams goes well, basically next level. We've got a new team and he's in all the formats as he was last year, Oval, Road and Sweet. The first of the season is Pete's and Petersburg March too, of course, and Marcus Armstrong is with us. Marcus Morning, Happy.
New Year, good morning, thank you very much for having me.
Not at all. Did you get home for Christmas at all? And if you did, did you drive anything?
I was very lucky to get back to New Zealand for a split second. My trips are often short and sweet, but yes I did, guess in a race car with my old man. Actually he's a pretty good driver himself. So we do a couple of track days out at Hampton Downs in a Porsche Cup car when we can, and it's a lot of fun and I actually get reduced to engineer, so it's pretty fun.
Fantastic as a father who You're right, he is a very good driver of him within to save of the summer and stuff like that. He must be stoked at your progress beyond it, I mean, he must be thrilled at what you're doing.
Yes, he sure is. He's quite analytical. I would say he's my biggest critic outside of my own team. So no, no, he's fantastic. And it's great that he understands the sport because there's so much to it. There's so many variables. For example, you know you could do your job perfectly as a driver, but you know you have a team of three hundred and fifty people and if someone does make a mistake then it impacts you on track. So he understands that and he's very good. He's very supportive.
Not that there's anything wrong with a cap car, a nine to eleven cup car, because they're a great car. But when you've driven what you've driven, is it a bit slow?
Well I don't want to say that, but yes it is. It's to be fair, it feels like a bit of a taxi when you come from racing high downforce cars like like IndyCar. You know, when we have three four tons of downforce on the car at top speed and you go to a Porsche Cup car, which you know might have a couple hundred kilos of downforce and a lot less horsepower, so it's still good training. I mean, every race car is good from a training point of view, just because you always want to feel how the cars moving and stay sharp. But for sure there will be a slight adjustment period jumping back into a very high downforced, high horse powered car.
How much better are you as a driver and in what areas have you improved?
That's a very good question. The thing is with this sport, there's, like I said, so many variables. I would say that in more recent years. You know, it's not for me to say, of course, but I feel like I work with my team a lot better. As I said, there's three hundred and fifty people that we work closely with, and making sure that we communicate properly and explain our thoughts of how we want the car to be developed without you know, putting your ego, involving your ego too much, because you start to you start to give poor feedback when your ego gets involved. So being very self critical and honest about what we can do better from a team perspective, and just communicating properly. I think that's probably the thing I've improved in the most recent years.
How much technically changes from season to season In terms of the cars.
Indy car is reasonably stable. You will know Scott Dixon, of course, who has been racing forever. I mean, you know, he was my childhood hero. And the cars actually haven't changed dramatically since, you know, since twenty ten. I think we have the same chassis. We've had the same chassis since twenty thirteen. But of course, you know, they always throw curveballs. There's a couple of new tire regulations and different center of gravity and weight distribution and things like this that actually make a bigger impact than you'd think, especially when everyone's in such a routine of bringing the same set ups year after year. So the smallest regulation changes do actually make a big difference, as they have this year. You know, they've changed hire compounds and often we don't know what we have until the very first race.
How much testing and how much driving are you doing between now and March, which is pete.
I'll be honest, it kind of sucks this offseason because we haven't done any testing, and in fact it's you know, we all want to be on track, of course, but the regulation state that we can only do one official day of testing before the season starts. So you know, when I was back in New Zealand, the SB Classic was on and all those tennis players are playing tennis for five hours a day and all of that, and you know, we can't do that. So it's one of those unique sports where you can't actually practice your own sport, which makes preparation and teamwork so much more important because you kind of have to hit the ground running, you know, you can't ease your way into the.
Season, right, Marcus, three hundred and fifty people, what do they all do?
Yes, Well, there's a lot of people that there's a lot of engineers for a start, I mean we have simulation engineers and DASA engineers and all the rest of them. And obviously we have the mechanics. There's a lot of mechanics involved and research and development guys. Yeah. I mean also you know, not to mention the media and everyone who looks after the sponsors and so there's it's just a big, a big organization, so important it will be on the same page.
In a general sense in sport. Globally, at the moment, sports seems to be on a real tear. I mean, you know, you look at the NFL that's growing, You look at motorsport, it's growing. Do you feel that in America and Indie Car, Is Indy Car as strong as it's ever been?
I think so, and I think it's getting stronger. Frankly, you know, this season we have Fox Sports taking over, so it's going to be you know, every single race will be broadcasted on network TV, and you know, NBC did a great job as well. But you know, Formula One has obviously exploded in the States because of the Netflix show, and that has also transferred over to IndyCar. And frankly, IndyCar has the best racing product in the world, Like there's just no doubt about it. And I think people are starting to recognize that, especially especially people ever sees. I think that in America people have always recognized the quality of IndyCar racing, but certainly in New Zealand and in Europe as well, people are truly recognizing the quality of this racing product.
I tell you what, I talked to Scott mcgochlin when he was we did the Indie thing and the qualifying at Indy and those on board cameras when you're going around as in the brickyard, when you're going around that place. In qualifying the speeds, you guys go, it's faster than the brain. I mean obviously not literally faster than the brain can calculate, otherwise you kill yourself. But it must be so close to.
That, oh, definitely. And it's difficult to explain really, But luckily last year was my first time, so I sort of have a fresh memory when it comes to sort of my first impression, which was first firstly, you need to keep your eyes two hundred meters further ahead than what you're used to because if you sort of look where you normally look, you're already past that point, so your eyes almost don't move fast enough for the car speed. And you know, two hundred forty mile an hour or two thirty three average, you know, that's it's pretty extraordinary speeds. But as well that, you know, no one really talks about the g load where you can't you can't actually breathe when you're under full g load in the corner, so you kind of need to be prepared to just hold your breath in those high g load compression areas and remember to keep your eyes up because it's it's a wild ride.
It's amazing. Maya Shank is your new team. There was a mister Meyer and a mister Shank. How did that come about?
Yes, new team this year. However, in theory it's still under the Chip Inc. Racing banner with the technical Alliance. So I'm very lucky to keep my engineering core, so my lead engineers and my data engineers I managed to I've managed to keep with me. So we're going to have some form of continuous here, which is important in a championship. That's that's compartive and fundamentally, we're going to keep the same car setup philosophy, which helps me to as I said at the ground running. So I'm I'm pretty lucky. I feel optimistic about the season, and I've got to say that we're light years ahead of where we were last year just from it from a technical point of view. So I'm looking forward to it.
As you should be. Mate. Listen, go well, always good, always great pleasure to catch up with you, and hopefully we'll talk during the season as well. But we'll watch on with a great deal of interest.
Thank you very much for having me.
No worries mate Marcus Armstrong out of I think some what do we say? It was Indianapolis at the moment ahead of the first race in the early part of March at Saint Petersburg in Florida. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.