Criticizing people in decision-making positions is an easy, almost mundane part of daily life, especially in modern motorsport. It’s not difficult to point out flaws, bad reasoning, or questionable processes, especially in a public arena when the consequences of action or inaction can make all the difference between life and death.
Such was the case for the NTT IndyCar Series in Saturday’s (May 9) Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) road course.
IndyCar officiating has been a constant target of criticism over the last several years. A pair of scandals involving the push-to-pass engine boost system over the past few seasons, combined with technical inspection process flaws that became apparent at last year’s Indianapolis 500, has put confidence in IndyCar’s decision makers at a near all-time low.
When one pivots their focus toward Race Control, there is a massive lack of confidence by many in that body’s abilities to officiate on-track competition. The recent race at the IMS road course gave all of us the proof we needed.
For starters, there were two pieces of debris on the track in different parts of the course early in the race. One of them was on the racing line in the braking zone to turn 7, the other was just outside the groove in turn 9. After re-watching the Fox broadcast, it doesn’t appear that a local yellow was called, so a marshal could go on track to pick up either of the two pieces.
However, a local yellow was used in perhaps the most egregious incident of the day. On the race’s 21st lap, Alexander Rossi‘s No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet slowed and then stopped on the main straight shortly after crossing the Yard of Bricks.
Race Control called for a local yellow condition with Rossi’s stricken car sitting motionless as other drivers were speeding by at speeds approaching 170 mph. However, this brought about some confusion as a couple of teams thought that the race had gone full-course yellow, which closes the pit entry and prevents teams from making pit stops.
Those teams thought this because every team has a monitor playing the Fox broadcast, which had caution graphics displayed along the left side of the screen. Those graphics were on screen because Aaron Likens in the flag stand was waving a single yellow flag, which indicates a local yellow condition.
Two yellow flags is the code for a full course yellow, but more on that later.
Race Control has had a habit of waiting to throw full-course yellows on road and street courses in order to allow teams that have not pitted during a green flag pit stop sequence the chance to pit and not lose track position. That decision-making process has been highlighted before at Frontstretch.
The teams of Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood instructed their drivers to stay on track because they were under the impression that the race had gone yellow. Kirkwood, who was on the pit entry lane, actually went across the grass back onto the track to avoid going into a closed pit. As Kirkwood continued north on the main straight, the green track condition panel was illuminated green.
Six of the top 10 cars pitted before Race Control threw the full course yellow. By that time, Rossi had been gesticulating from his car for Race Control to throw the yellow before angrily leaving his stationary car.
It never should have come to this point. When a car is stopped on track with no easy way to maneuver it out of harm’s way, this should be a slam-dunk, immediate full-course yellow call to get Rossi’s car (and the driver, too) to safety.
Instead, what we saw on full display on Saturday was egregious negligence.
There’s no nice way to phrase it. It was that bad.
In an effort not to screw over any drivers that hadn’t pitted, the yellow confusion had the opposite effect, as Palou and Kirkwood both got confused by the yellow messaging.
The IndyCar rulebook does say that a single waved yellow flag is part of the local yellow flag procedure, while a full-course yellow is shown with two yellow flags, similar to how it is in IMSA. However, the Fox broadcast having full caution graphics on screen led to a lot of the confusion that Palou and Kirkwood’s teams had.
If some drivers get screwed over by a full-course yellow needing to be thrown out, then so be it. Things happen in racing. Or, if you want to truly not have this situation again, don’t close the pits unless there’s danger in the area surrounding either the pit entry or pit exit.
That would make it fairer for everybody since nobody would be screwed over by a closed pit entry that comes with a full course yellow, which could be called faster thanks to not having that problem anymore!
And wouldn’t you know it, IndyCar made just such a decision to make that possible. Early on Tuesday (May 12) morning, IndyCar announced that from now on, pit sequences would not be a factor any longer in the timing of full-course yellows.
“Effective immediately, IndyCar Officiating will no longer take into consideration pit windows and the running order of cars on track before deploying a FCY,” said an IndyCar-released statement. “While there is no change to local yellow procedures, initiation of a FCY will be based primarily on: driver status, vehicle position and condition, the location and readiness of safety personnel, recovery access, and the speed differential between affected cars and approaching traffic.”
Good to know that change was effected after such an obvious error of judgment.
However, after all of the shenanigans of this past weekend, there was one final fact that everyone was overlooking.
Palou still finished fifth.
His points lead increased after this race.
The end is near.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
Finally got to watch the replay last night. Didn’t Indycar move to a hired 3rd party to officiate the races? Thought I read that at the beginning of the season, and if so, I wonder how much that played a part in it.
The first half was a disaster. From going green while cars were piling into each other (should have waved off the green, IMO), to leaving debris all over the racing line, to the obvious SNAFU with Rossi. The 2 worst things an officiating crew can do is 1) fail to protect drivers in vulnerable positions, and 2) become a factor in the outcome of the race, and they did both. I hope they get their act cleaned up and don’t muck up the 500.
Other than that, overall I thought the teams put on a good show. A couple of boneheaded moves, and also there were moments of solid, hard, heads up racing. That pass Lundgaard made on Malukas for the lead, WOW!
Enjoyed the race overall. Seems the Indy “road course” lends itself to entertaining races. Just a shame the officials caused the focus to be on them, rather than the actual race.
IIRC, Indycar hired a group to oversee administering penalties, not cautions and such. Too bad they didn’t empower that group to penalize the officials. Somebody needs to be promoted to customer, given what happened.
Ahh, that makes sense. I think I missed they were overseeing penalties and not the day to day track activity. I knew it appeared the series and Penske were trying to mitigate any semblance of favoritism towards Penske’s cars (IMO). And honestly, that’s a question that was always in the back of my mind too – Who’s going to be the one to go up against Penske and tell him his team was in the wrong to issue a penalty? Or worse, to stand their ground if he disagreed with the ruling.
Get the decrepit old man out of there, force him to sell to save Indy Car.
What transpired should be grounds for termination. Someone is at fault here, and they very easily could have gotten Rossi killed, over what amounts to a business decision.
They didn’t want to damage the flow of the race, and made a conscious decision to knowingly endanger a driver, over something as trivial as a pit cycle.