To each their own. If I only got to watch one for the rest of my life, I would pick Indycar. There is an engine championship also, but only two participants at the time and I don't know how much people care about Chevy vs Honda. That being said, Palou was so dominant this year that I lost interest towards the end of the season. I don't know how much F1 I would watch if I didn't have an emotional attachment to Ferrari.
I watch motogp also. This year has not been great though bc Marquez is so dominant that it's not as interesting. I would challenge your statement though that motogp has more passing than indycar. I doubt that seriously, although haven't run the numbers. Although motogp is amazing, I can appreciate cars more since I never rode or raced bikes. By design I might add, as I was sure I would kill myself.
At least no one can say Palou wins because he has the best car, which is the accusation often thrown to repeat winners in F1.
I know what you mean. However, the difference in budget and skill from the best to worst Indycar team is pretty dramatic. CGR, who finished P1 and P3, has their own private tunnel in the center of Pennsylvania for aero testing. As just one example. Another is that the dampers are heavily developed and the bigger teams may have multiple engineers working on them vs the lower teams which may have zero or may try to form partnerships between teams to amortize the cost.
Found this article which explains it a bit: https://www.the-race.com/indycar/indycars-hidden-development-war-explained/
I didn't know about the importance of dampersdevelopment, or aero testing in Indy racing. I read, not so long ago, that dampers could become specs in future ?
Well the damper components are spec, but there is a ton you can do to them to tune them. With the variety of tracks and surfaces in Indycar, I would argue the damper development might even be more advanced than in F1. It is certainly more important. This is also why you see certain smaller teams which may be good on certain circuits and no where on others. They make a conscious decision to develop for ovals, or street circuits, or maybe specific permanent road courses. Yah the aero development is bananas. Chip Ganassi literally leased an abandoned tunnel in PA. They repaved it and lined the whole thing with sensors. Then you drive the car down it and you can reverse engineer the same kind of data which would normally require a super expensive wind tunnel. Pretty amazing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Hill_Tunnel
