The Detroit Grand Prix’s third year on the city’s downtown streets since leaving Belle Isle is now in the books. Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood won the headline IndyCar race on Sunday.

Solid crowds came out to watch the various racing series over the event’s three-day weekend. The competition was objectively better than the first two years, as teams became more familiar with the bumpy, downtown racecourse.

At the end of the weekend, race organizers confirmed to WDET that the Grand Prix has a new three-year contract with the city of Detroit. It will keep the event running through at least 2028, with an option to extend the deal for three more years beyond that.

But under the surface a number of plot lines were bubbling, especially in regard to officiating.

Officiating drama

It all started during last month’s Indy 500, when two Team Penske cars were found with illegal parts in qualifying. Old photos revealed those parts had been on the cars for at least a year before it was caught.

It was also the second cheating scandal the iconic team has faced in the last two seasons. That raised questions about a conflict of interest, because team owner Roger Penske also owns the IndyCar Series.

In response to the situation, Penske fired key members of his race team’s management. The Detroit Grand Prix, which Penske also promotes, marked the first full race weekend with new leadership in place.

While he acknowledged that challenge, Team Penske driver Will Power entered the weekend optimistic.

“On my car in particular, I’ve been with my engineer [since] 2007,” Power said. “So I don’t think it will be much of a problem for us.”

He says that familiarity is key when it comes to preparing a race car at the Detroit track. And this weekend, he was right. Power brought his Team Penske machine home in 4th place at the marquee IndyCar race and was among the top contenders all day.

But Penske wasn’t the only team caught with illegal parts at the Indy 500.

“We kind of just drive the cars. Some of the things and a lot of the things on the car you don’t even know too much about.”

–Scott Dixon, Ganassi Racing driver

Entries from the Andretti Global team and PREMA Racing had their finishes changed after failing post-race tech inspection.

The elephant in the room is that all of these parts could have been found before cars hit the track but were not discovered until much later. Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon says that kind of drama leaves competitors behind the wheel in an awkward position.

“For the drivers,” explained Dixon, “we kind of just drive the cars. Some of the things and a lot of the things on the car you don’t even know too much about.”

Still, Dixon said he views cracking down on officiating as a good thing.

“I think it will set a precedent moving forward, which at least will maybe deter some situations,” he said.

RenCen future

While the officiating drama works itself out in the pits, another uncertainty casts a shadow on the Detroit Grand Prix — literally.

The five towers that make up the Renaissance Center stand in the middle of the event’s footprint. With General Motors set to move its headquarter to the new Hudson building down the road, nobody knows what will happen to the RenCen — or whether rumors of demolishing two or more towers would have an impact on the downtown street track.

Grand Prix chair Bud Denker says he’s working with developers on the situation.

“I’ve already got an idea in my head of a future design for the racetrack down here if that happens,” Denker said.

A new design for the downtown racecourse is something that would make a number of drivers happy. That includes three-time IndyCar champion and current points leader Alex Palou, who won the Indy 500 the week before coming to Detroit.

“Been a busy couple of days [since winning Indy],” said Palou. “Didn’t have the chance to prepare as we normally do.”

Palou was running well during Sunday’s IndyCar race. However, his attempt to become the first driver since 2000 to win the Indy 500 and the race after it was thwarted when he was taken out by another driver.

In the past, Palou has been somewhat critical of the downtown racecourse, saying it needs to be longer with more corners. Looking at a map of Detroit, he uses a red pen to sketch what he thinks a better layout for the Grand Prix track could look like — drawing a layout that runs north of Jefferson Avenue.

“I would do something like this,” he said, “and hopefully we add 30 seconds to the racetrack.”

Back when the Detroit Grand Prix was first held downtown as a Formula 1 race in the 1980s, the track did run in the area Palou sketched. It’s an area that driver Ricky Taylor, who races for Cadillac in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, has also thought about.

“I asked about [running north of Jefferson],” said Taylor. “Back in the day when F1 came here, the track was much longer but they had to close a lot of local businesses.”

That’s something race organizers have said too. The current layout down Jefferson Avenue and around the Renaissance Center is designed to limit the impact setting-up the event has on downtown.

But, Taylor says if changes to the RenCen open more space for the Grand Prix to use, he’d be in favor of modifying the track layout.

“It would be nice to have some faster corners,” said Taylor, “something that’s above second or third gear.”

New contract

Nobody knows exactly what the plan for the Renaissance Center is yet, including Detroit Grand Prix president Michael Montri. He says when it comes to the future of the most iconic building in Detroit’s skyline, race organizers want whatever’s best for the city.

“And I have a whole lot of confidence obviously in our title sponsor who owns that building,” said Montri, “along with Dan Gilbert and Bedrock. They’re going to do the best thing for the city, and whatever that means for that building, we will work with it.”

Montri says he believes the Detroit Grand Prix has a future on the streets of the Motor City regardless of what happens to the Renaissance Center. And, by approving the new three-year contract, Detroit City Council seems to agree.

Juan Manuel Correa is an Ecuadorian American racing driver. At age 14, he moved to Europe to chase the dream of reaching Formula One, considered by many to be the most prestigious form of global motorsport.

At one point, he was the closest American to reaching F1. That all changed in 2019 during an F2 race in Belgium — Correa was involved in a crash that left him severally injured. Another driver died.

Correa’s legs were shattered and he spent weeks in a coma, having lung complications along the way. He says the lengthy rehab time after the accident effectively ended his chance of racing in F1.

“The path to F1,” says Correa, “it’s a train that goes by once and if you miss it, it’s very difficult that it’ll come by again.”

Correa resumed his racing career once he felt healthy enough to do so. But even after returning, he says it wasn’t until late 2023 that he started to feel like himself again behind the wheel.

Now he’s racing in America, competing in the Indy NXT Series for HMD Motorsports at this weekend’s Detroit Grand Prix. Correa says he’d be happy racing in anything, whether it’s in open-wheel or sportscar, but wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to progress into IndyCar if given the chance.

“I’d like to be getting paid to drive a racecar,” says Correa, “and I’m very lucky to be so close to being in that position.”

The Detroit event marks Correa’s second race weekend in Indy NXT. He says his immediate goal is to continue learning the cars and how racing works in America, having been in Europe for most of his career.

IndyCar teams and drivers hit the streets of downtown Detroit next week for the city’s annual Grand Prix. That will come after this weekend’s running of the Indianapolis 500 — known as the world’s largest single day sporting event.

However, there’s a cloud over this year’s race, as the team and series owned by Detroiter Roger Penske are embroiled in scandal. The issue stems from an illegal part found on two of the Team Penske cars during Indy 500 qualifying last weekend.

Despite the discovery, other teams complained they had notified officials of the rules breach weeks ago. It was even found that the Team Penske car Josef Newgarden drove to victory in the 2024 Indy 500 has the same illegal part on it as it sits in the speedway’s museum.

Compounding frustrations among competitors, this isn’t the first time Team Penske has been caught in a technical scandal. It was discovered last year that the team had illegally mapped a button on the steering wheel to give the cars more power.

Like this year’s infraction, that rules breach wasn’t discovered until after Team Penske used it in competition.

The underlying frustration is that Roger Penske owns Team Penske and owns the IndyCar Series, which staffs all of its officiating in-house. It’s left competitors frustrated about possible conflict of interest when it comes to upholding rules.

The two cars found with illegal parts will start from the back of the field at this weekend’s Indy 500 and Roger Penske has fired his IndyCar team’s senior management. But questions about the integrity of officiating in the IndyCar Series still exist.

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