Last roll of the dice for Servia

2016 IndyCar drivers, full- and part-time, who are seeking rides for next year but who are yet to be absolutely confirmed include Juan Pablo Montoya, Carlos Munoz, JR Hildebrand, Takuma Sato, Jack Hawksworth, Conor Daly, Max Chilton, Spencer Pigot, Matthew Brabham, Gabby Chaves, Luca Filippi and RC Enerson.

Last year’s Indy Lights aces worthy of a shot in IndyCar include Ed Jones, Santiago Urrutia, Dean Stoneman, Zach Veach and Felix Serralles. Yet  only Jones, as champion, is guaranteed anything. He will start three IndyCar races, including the Indy 500, as part of the Lights champion prize from Mazda.

The stark fact is that the majority of those 17 drivers are going to be left in the cold, whatever the outcome of the Carlin/KV will they/won’t they discussions.

Yet as a firm believer that a driver still needs to know how a racecar works in order to help guide his team’s technical direction, I can’t think of many IndyCar drivers – even among those who have been confirmed for 2017 – that I’d recommend over Oriol Servia. There are far too many racers who can’t explain why they’re fast when they’re fast, so are clueless as to why they’re slow when they’re slow. The value of a driver who helps his engineers pull the team out of a technical sandtrap cannot be overestimated – and aside from Penske, there was not a single IndyCar team in 2016 who did not go through a weekend when all their cars were, to a greater or lesser extent, off the pace.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked drivers who were slower than expected during a session what the problem was, and they’ve either shrugged, or come back with something along the lines of, “If we knew, we’d fix it.” Come to think of it, there tend to be quite a few engineers who offer similar responses.

Now as we head toward a season in which teams are trying to extract the last tenth-of-a-second from cars whose aero development has been frozen, the performance differentiators will be under the skin, thus requiring a driver whose mechanical and engineering knowledge can help steer the tech department. Consider also next season's testing restrictions (notwithstanding the extra test days granted to rookies), and suddenly ‘in the field’ experience becomes an even more valued commodity.

Then look still further ahead to 2018, when teams are trying to explore the parameters of a universal aerokit; again you’d have to say a driver who is tech savvy would be a huge asset.

Where could Servia fit in?

Signing up Servia for two years would therefore seem to make a lot of sense and that's something that AJ Foyt Racing president Larry Foyt has acknowledged, as he seeks to replace Sato and Hawksworth. His only reservation over Servia is how to sell the idea to his team sponsors, in light of the fact that Oriol raced an IndyCar just twice last season, and he's not a big ‘name’ in the IndyCar ranks.

“Yeah, I understand that, and I’m pleased that Larry has always been honest with me,” says Servia. “You know, helping that team would be very appealing. They’re making a lot of changes internally because  they’re proper old-school racers who want success.

“The challenge of helping the Foyt team recover and take a great name in this sport back to where they belong – that would be a fantastic opportunity.”

It’s an interesting viewpoint, because Foyt’s rebuilding in the off-season was perceived as one of the main reasons why Servia’s fellow 40-somethings, Montoya and Tony Kanaan, would spurn the opportunity to join up. (TK, as we know, has kept his ride at Ganassi. Montoya, should he remain full-time in IndyCar, is probably heading to Ed Carpenter Racing.) The logic is that at this stage in their careers, trying to help a team bounce back from three very poor seasons is not the favorable option.

For Servia, that kind of task would be something to relish. More so, even, than joining Dale Coyne Racing, despite Coyne making the very serious move of signing up Sebastien Bourdais and race engineer Craig Hampson for 2017.

Oriol knows first-hand just how potent that force can be. In the 2005 Champ Car season, he was suddenly drafted into the Newman/Haas from Round 3 to partner Bourdais, when Bruno Junqueira broke his back in the Indy 500. Despite NHR’s technical direction having been governed by the incumbent Frenchman who was also Champ Car’s defending champion, Servia shone frequently over the remaining 11 races of the season, clocking one win, three seconds, three thirds, and completing the team’s 1-2 in the points standings. Five years later, Servia would again work alongside Hampson at NHR.

“Listen, any time you can work with Sebastien and Craig Hampson, in any team, you should take it,” he says. “It’s a good recipe, and I think Dale is taking the right steps by hiring these guys. It looks like he’s really turning the page. But because they're there, I don’t think the second Coyne seat is one that will just be offered without the driver bringing quite a lot of money, so to be honest, we haven’t talked about it.”

Besides a drive with Foyt, the other possibility that gets Servia gabbling with enthusiasm is a potential second seat at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing alongside Graham Rahal. Both Bobby Rahal and his son have long talked in glowing terms of everything that Servia brings to the table, and Oriol admits the feelings are mutual.

“Two years straight, Graham has finished as top Honda runner in the championship, which is pretty fantastic,” observes Servia. “Bobby has pulled together a very good technical team there, and Graham is confident and believes in himself again and he's fast. It’s a very strong dynamic there, I would say.

“But honestly I don’t know how much possibility there is of a second Rahal program coming together. Bobby and Graham have always said they’d only want a second car if it was for someone who could help take the whole team forward, and for sure, I think I would be the kind of driver who could help… But…they could easily stay at one car. And why not? They’ve been doing an outstanding job already.”

Team player with pace

Setting aside his abilities in tuning a car, there are other appealing aspects of the proud Catalan who has lived in this country for some 20 years now: he is the ultimate team player. There's probably no driver out there who would derive so much satisfaction from seeing a teammate win, if he felt he had contributed to putting the team in that position. Some people regard such selflessness as a weakness – a sign that a driver isn’t ambitious enough, or is content to be cast in the number two role. But that is not the case with Servia. Until Simon Pagenaud’s extraordinary run of form this year against a physically struggling Will Power, Oriol had been the only teammate who had outqualified the Australian over the course of a season.

And there was a brief reminder of that talent at St. Petersburg this year, where Servia stood in for his sick friend in the #12 Penske-Chevrolet at the very last minute. He flew in on the Saturday, and got his first taste of Team Penske on Sunday morning.

“Subbing for Will at St. Pete this year was the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” says Servia, who had to start the polesitting car from the back of the grid, as he was not the driver who qualified the entry. “No practice, no qualifying, but in that warm-up session, I was P9 – and I was on full tanks and old tires, I know that for a fact. I was actually P1 in the back sector – I couldn’t believe it! I was so out of shape, I came in completely cold, and I had never tested a car on a road or street course with aerokits before. You know, I’m confident about what I can do in a racecar, but even I was shocked about that.”

Servia went on to finish an unrepresentative 18^th, having been caught up in a multi-car accident that blocked the track. His only other IndyCar outing this year was campaigning Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ third car at Indy, where he qualified 10^th and finished 12^th. However, Servia is keen to avoid slipping into that role of Indy 500 one-off… or even oval specialist.

“I love oval racing, and I think I do a good job on them,” he says, “but look at my roots. My roots are road courses; being a good oval driver came later, in Indy Lights [a series in which Servia won the 1999 title]. A lot of my best results have come on road and street courses and I want to keep that up.”

It's a fair point. In the final and financially beleaguered year of Newman/Haas Racing's existence, 2011, Servia's sheer consistency across all types of track enabled him to finish fourth in the championship, beaten only by two Ganassi cars and one Penske. It was an outstanding result.

Thoughts on the longer term

The lack of full-time rides over the past couple of seasons allowed Servia to briefly think of his longterm future, before inevitably turning his focus back to IndyCar.

“I had the opportunity to get involved in Formula E [with Dragon Racing], having ownership in a franchise, running a good team, and planning on my next 20 years. I had to think that way, even if I missed the driving. But now that I’m totally divorced from that, I have to say I want to get back in the cockpit more than ever.”

However, Oriol is a realist, well aware he can’t afford another year without a season-long contract. Now is the tipping point in his IndyCar career.

“Yeah, in all honesty, this is my last roll of the dice, isn’t it? And I want it to be good. Every time in my career, I’ve started a season with an opportunity that I knew wasn’t the best but it was one that I hoped would give me a chance to improve the team so that the year after, we’d take a big step forward. And every time, I was out of the ride at the end of the season and needing to find another one – or I had to change teams mid-season. In 17 years, I have never done two consecutive full seasons with the same team.

"And the funny thing is that now, I honestly believe if I had a real shot, I could be in my best years. Yes, I’m 42 years old – I never lied about my age like Adrian Fernandez advised me, 15 years ago! – and perception-wise, that goes against you. But I changed my diet three months ago, I changed my workout regime and I feel in better shape than ever.”

A less resilient man would have turned to sportscars long ago. In fact, he could be 10 years into a highly successful career in prototypes by now. But Servia says there’s a perfectly logical explanation for not diverting his career path. 

“My biggest problem is that I have always been so focused on IndyCar that by the time I thought about looking at sportscars, all the good seats in IMSA were already taken,” he says. “I have a name in IndyCar, but in sportscars I am no-one; the best teams have always chosen someone with sportscar experience.”

But given that IMSA’s Prototype division next year will see the introduction of the new DPi machinery that will be faster, contain up-to-date technology and will also require technologically astute drivers to sort out new-car bugs, a driver like Servia would surely be in demand.

“I hope you’re right, 100 percent!” he says. “I definitely think I could help there, and to be honest, I have started putting out a couple of enquiries. And I've spoken to teams in Global Rallycross too.

“But until I know all doors are closed in IndyCar, I’m going to stay focused on this love affair.”