IndyCar's secret manufacturer war

The 2015 IndyCar manufacturers' battle was memorable for all sorts of reasons. It vindicated predictions that the arrival of aero kits would skew what had previously been a close fight between Chevrolet and Honda; a clash that achieved an organic type of parity through both sides doing an excellent job.

That clearly wasn't the case when the new aero bits were bolted on. Both needed revisions through the season, but the scorecard showed that the relatively simple and functional approach championed by Chevy's partner Pratt & Miller overwhelmed the elaborate but draggy-as-hell reply from Honda and Wirth Engineering.

The result is right there in black and white: Chevrolet beat Honda in the manufacturers' standings by 1645 points to 1179, including penalties of 480 points to Honda's 560 (most were for engines being changed before they reached their mandated 2500-mile lifespan). Chevy won 10 races to Honda's six. A Chevy sat on pole for every race of the year.

Ordinarily, that's the end of it: the season ends and, win or lose, both sides draw a line under the result and spend the winter working out how to get better. But this year is different. This year, the on-track manufacturers' fight set up a cold war that is still being fought out.

The Honda-mounted Andretti Autosport drivers often struggled © LAT

Fundamentally, the disagreement is about how many changes Honda will be permitted to make to its aero kit during the off-season. The rules relating to this changed a couple of times last winter, with the blessing of both manufacturers (at one point, limited updates would have been permitted mid-season).

But what they settled on was this: for the purposes of the aero kits, IndyCar has divided the car up into a series of boxes; and at the end of the season, each manufacturer is permitted to make changes within a maximum of three of these boxes. Some areas, such as the sidepods, are completely frozen and can't be changed at all within the homologation period.

But there's also a clause under rule 9.3 that says that if the performance gulf between the two manufacturers is so great as to risk becoming detrimental to IndyCar, a manufacturer can petition to be allowed to make additional changes in order to close the gap.

Honda has made a request under that rule. Chevrolet is arguing that the gap between the two was not big enough to warrant its rival being permitted to make large-scale changes. And IndyCar, so far, hasn't been able to decide.

Up to a point, it's possible to sympathise with both sides - but only up to a point. Honda did clearly have an aero performance deficit this year, but the only ones to blame for that are HPD and Wirth.

And you could argue that the sporting reaction to being beaten because you didn't do a good enough job is to go away, work harder, and try to do better. Asking for concessions to help you improve places you at risk of being perceived as not operating within the spirit of competition.

The other point that needs to be considered is whether the gulf, real as it was, was severe enough to be to the sport's detriment. Changes to the mandated downforce packages for ovals during the season certainly appeared to bring the two kits closer together in terms of performance, especially on race day.

And whatever the shortcomings of the Honda package were, Graham Rahal still nearly won the championship with it. The fact that he was the only Honda driver in contention arguably raises questions about some of the other Honda teams - particularly Andretti - rather than serving as evidence the manufacturer needs additional help.

All that said, there's no doubt Honda was short-changed at Indy, when the proliferation of cars - all Chevys - launching skywards eventually led to the series forcing all drivers to qualify in race trim.

Rahal proved you could pull off a title challenge with Honda © LAT

The fact the series had to make that sort of decision on the fly in the first place reflected poorly upon the amount of testing that was done before the kits were introduced.

It's also extraordinary to think that when the series back-to-backed the two kits in a windtunnel a couple of weeks ago as part of the investigation into Honda's 9.3 claim, it was reportedly the first time the kits had been tested together. That surely should have been part of the development process.

Honda is already doing exploratory work in anticipation of its request being granted - a heavily camouflaged Honda was track-tested at Road America last week using what looked remarkably like Chevy-shaped sidepods.

And it has hinted gently that a favourable outcome to its request would be appreciated before it goes ahead and signs the contract that will keep it in the championship next year.

It all seems messy, unnecessary and avoidable. From a sporting standpoint, it would be nice to see Honda turn the disappointment of this year into motivation to do better rather than a justification for being granted additional help. The whole point of competition is that someone wins and someone loses.

Honda was soundly beaten this year, no two ways about it. But you only have to think back to 2012 and the Lotus debacle to see that 'soundly beaten' and 'detrimental to the sport' are very different things. Those within HPD probably wince every time they think of the season just gone, but even if they were bettered, they didn't embarrass themselves.

And if IndyCar does go ahead and grant Honda an exemption under rule 9.3, does that set a precedent? Will Chevrolet turn around and make the same claim if it loses in 2016?

It would have been nice to see the entire aero-kit process better managed by IndyCar. But that's in the past, and what matters now is how the series handles the situation before it.