Advantage Penske

The Penske team's first sweep of the year pushed Castroneves to within one point of championship leader Kenny Brack and jumped de Ferran into third just 13 points further back.

De Ferran insists that Team Penske's powerful performance over the past two years at Mid-Ohio was the product of detailed work rather than any specific breakthrough. "I don't think there is one thing," de Ferran observed. "Obviously, we've been quite successful at Mid-Ohio and over the past 12 months we've managed not to screw it up. We took what we had last year and took little baby steps, each of them forward. It's lots of little things."

Tim Cindric is the president of Penske Racing. Cindric says that because of this year's in-season test ban neither Penske nor any other team has made any big changes from last year to their road course packages. A February run at Laguna Seca was the Penske team's only test this year on a permanent road circuit.

"We went to Laguna in February and we were quite quick there with both our guys," Cindric says. "We really just kept our baselines from last year. Fortunately, or unfortunately for some, there hasn't been a lot of testing.

"Obviously, given the option, we'd go test because we think we can improve on where we are but the flip side of that is we know our competition hasn't had a lot of time to catch up from where we were last year. It's obvious they're right there knocking on the door. It's not a 'gimme'."

Cindric believes Castroneves and de Ferran would have been hard to beat at Portland two months ago had it not been for rain on raceday and Honda's struggles with the new 'spacer' pop-off valve.

"Mid-Ohio was really the first permanent circuit we've been to so far this year where we've had a normal set of circumstances," Cindric says. "Portland is typically our first permanent circuit but the circumstances at that race surrounding the pop-off valve issues and the weather didn't really let anyone understand where everybody was."

Cindric gives most credit for the team's Mid-Ohio sweep to Castroneves and de Ferran. "I think the drivers are a big part of why we can sit on the front row and win the race two years in a row at Mid-Ohio," Cindric declares. "In my mind, they're the best at places like this."

The team's Reynard chassis have been extensively reworked both aerodynamically and mechanically. Penske Cars in England re-engineers and builds all the suspension and mechanical elements of the car and also conducts an exhaustive aerodynamic research program at the Southampton University wind tunnel. The team's cars, sidepods and bodywork in particular, bristle with detail differences from other Reynards.

"I think mechanically we have a very good package and obviously we've done our work on the aero side," Cindric grins without saying another word on the subject.

Some rival teams and drivers have suggested Penske is using traction control, which would have to be in technical partnership with Honda. Cindric quietly denies any allegations, saying Penske's reputation demands strict adherence to the rulebook.

"As far as trick bits, or all this conjecture," he says, "I don't think anybody understands how important it is for us to play above the board. With our high profile and everything else, I don't think people really sit back and think about it.

"We're not a privateer who's trying to make something for ourselves. We've got a lot of people to answer to. The best thing for us to do - the only thing for us to do - is do the best you can with what the parameters are, and I think that's what we've done."

Some people believe Penske has mastered a viscous or 'fluid' differential, but the team's chief mechanics and engineers say there's no difference in back-to-back tests of viscous and conventional differentials.

"It's true," said Rick Mears, who works for Penske these days as a technical consultant. "We've run back-to-backs and there's no difference. It's just a lot of little things. Getting the balance absolutely right is the most important thing at this track. If you don't have that, you can't hustle the car."

Cindric also deflects talk about viscous diffs. "I think they come in and out of favour," he says. "It's almost like fashion to a certain degree. One year you deal with diffs all year. That's your point of emphasis. The next year you're dealing with wheelbases. That's the emphasis. When the engineers get focused and have the resources to investigate something further, they'll focus on that to try to get some correlation between the track and their test rigs.

"Viscous diffs? Have we tried them? Yes, we have. But we've also tried the other ones and I don't think that's the night and day difference that puts us on the front row. People don't believe it, but if there's any magic bullet, if there's one thing in particular, it's the guy behind the wheel. Aside from that, it's just a combination of a lot of little things. It really is."

Cindric also downplays the effects of all that time spent in the wind tunnel, pointing to the team's poor performance at Michigan last month. "You can hit it right, or hit it wrong, and we proved at Michigan this year that we can hit it wrong," he remarks.

"That brings you back to reality that when you try different things it can go both ways. That's a risk you take, especially without being able to test because you can't benchmark yourself and then decide where to go. You show up cold turkey. You commit yourself. You can't go back (to another aero package) once you arrive."

Cindric says he enjoys all the speculation and second-guessing that he hears around the garage area. "It's nice to have people guessing," he grins. "Some days you might put something on the car that's visible, just because it's different. It may not have any effect, but you get everybody's attention and you put their energy towards something that may or may not matter.

"There are a lot of psychological games, and the drivers do the same thing. It's part of the sport, just like it is in any sport. Athletes try to send different signals and the press sends different signals based on what they say. That's all part of the game."

Cindric hopes for better luck than last year at this weekend's race, round 13, at the majestic four-mile Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

"We never got through the first lap at Elkhart last year," Cindric recalls. "We were on the first two rows and Helio went off in the first turn and we had a gearbox issue we didn't execute before the race even started with Gil. So by the end of the first lap one of our guys was out and the other was a lap down."

Long straightaways and high-speed corners proliferate at Road America and Cindric says the track will tell the story of whether or not Honda has recovered from the power lost in June and July's pop-off valve dispute.

"That place will show us where we are horsepower-wise after all the adjustments for the political issues," he notes. "I think horsepower has a big effect at Elkhart where you have just as many turns as Mid-Ohio, but it's twice as long."

Can Kenny Brack or Dario Franchitti stop Penske's steamroller? If they can't do it in Wisconsin this weekend, the job may be impossible.