The century-long historical past of the Indianapolis 500 is suffering from controversy, however the ultimate quarter of the race’s 2023 operating featured three crimson flags and sufficient drama to maintain a 12 months’s value of discourse. More crucially, it set a nasty precedent for future runnings of the occasion — one that might get drivers critically harm of their pursuit of glory.
On lap 184, Felix Rosenqvist slid broad and crashed into the wall after struggling within the wake of Josef Newgarden passing him. Rosenqvist collected Kyle Kirkwood, ensuing within the Andretti automotive flipping the wrong way up and Kirkwood’s tire flying into the car parking zone. The incident introduced out a crimson flag to wash the monitor — however cautions breed cautions, and when racing resumed on lap 192, Pato O’Ward spun and hit the wall after making an attempt to cross Marcus Ericsson. Several different automobiles collided down the sector, and the race was red-flagged once more in an effort to complete underneath inexperienced.
When the race restarted for the second time on lap 196, 5 automobiles collided firstly, bringing out the third and ultimate crimson flag. In order to complete underneath inexperienced, drivers didn’t endure the conventional slew of tempo laps underneath yellow and as a substitute have been despatched out for one ultimate bout of racing on lap 200. Josef Newgarden was capable of cross chief Ericsson, securing a win for Team Penske.
I additionally wish to be aware that my difficulty right here just isn’t one among distaste over the winner, or one among conspiracy. The end of the race was chaotic from a sanctioning standpoint, however Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden gained the race because it was run. It was a reliable end that topped a reliable winner — and I actually don’t suppose there’s any humorous enterprise afoot, with Roger Penske in some way manipulating the end to favor one among his drivers.
Instead, my concern is that motorsport generally has been tormented by a want to generate leisure at the price of consistency and security — one thing that Ericsson himself famous.
“It was not enough laps to do it,” he stated after the race. “I know we want to have a green-flag finish, and that’s great for the fans. It’s fantastic. But the way that crash [on the previous restart] happened, it was not enough laps to do what we did, in my opinion.”
(It’s value noting that Ericsson lauded the controversial finish of the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Formula 1.)
The downside isn’t actually the legality of the end. IndyAutomotive’s rulebook permits for that one-lap dash. Instead, the large difficulty is security. While a sport like Formula 1 can get away with that one-lap dash to victory from a security standpoint, that ought to by no means be assumed to be the case with oval racing — particularly with open-wheel automobiles. Oval tracks have served as the situation for numerous driver deaths in American open-wheel racing, with 4 transpiring for the reason that flip of the century. A mad sprint to the end on a highway course is one factor; it’s one thing else totally when it occurs on an oval.
Choosing to push the sector to a green-flag end additionally flies within the face of consistency. In 2020, Spencer Pigot crashed with simply 5 laps left within the 500. The discipline paced the two.5-mile monitor underneath a yellow flag to finish the standard distance, however IndyAutomotive deemed it might have been irresponsible to red-flag the race, restore the monitor, and go inexperienced once more.
“IndyCar makes every effort to end races under green, but in this case following the assessment of the incident, there were too few laps remaining to gather the field behind the pace car, issue a red flag and then restart for a green-flag finish,” the sequence stated on the time. In 2020, “too few laps” was outlined as a one-lap green-flag shootout for the end — one thing that occurred two years later, when IndyAutomotive forced a green-flag restart earlier than the standard warm-up tempo laps had been accomplished underneath yellow.
Formula 1’s 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale will perpetually reside in infamy due to the race stewards’ want to prioritize an entertaining end over one that will have extra persistently aligned with prior interpretations of the principles. NASCAR has been commonly criticized for implementing the idea of “overtime” in an effort to drive a compelling green-flag end. In these two circumstances, the result’s largely a poor style within the mouths of followers world wide.
But IndyAutomotive ought to be cautious of falling sufferer to the identical entertainment-over-everything lure, particularly on its ovals. A discipline stuffed with automobiles shod in chilly tires and run by drivers prepared to danger all of it for a shot at profitable the largest race on the planet must be regulated by level-headed stewards. Prioritizing leisure over security and consistency will solely get somebody harm — or worse.
Source: jalopnik.com