PREMA Racing has been fined $25,000 and lost 10 entrants’ points from its No. 83 Chevy driven by Robert Shwartzman after IndyCar found the car to be in breach of its technical regulations at The Thermal Club.
Having caught fire during the Friday practice session and stopped on track, Shwartzman told FOX, “I felt the seat was getting heated up, and I looked in the mirror and there was smoke and fire coming, so I immediately stopped the car and jumped out.”
IndyCar’s AMR Safety Team arrived on the scene and extinguished the fire, but a post-incident review found the new IndyCar team contributed to the severity of the fire — one that required an overnight chassis change — by using a non-approved fire suppression system activation ring.
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IndyCars have two fire-suppression activation methods available – the first via a button in the cockpit, and the second being an external ring that’s mounted at the rear of the roll hoop fairing for drivers, crew, or first responders to pull. The external method is the one that was found to be out of compliance.
“During an investigation into the fire involving the No. 83 in Friday’s practice at The Thermal Club, IndyCar determined the required and approved emergency pull cable, which activates the onboard fire suppression system from outside the car, was not used as supplied and was replaced by the team with an unapproved product that failed to activate,” a statement from the series read. “According to the rulebook, the violation is considered a Non-Race Procedure Penalty (9.2.3.), which includes the issuance of a monetary fine (9.2.3.2.) and the loss of points (9.2.3.5.).”
The entrants’ penalty drops the No. 83 from 22nd to 27th and last, but with PREMA serving as the only full-time IndyCar team that does not belong to the series’ charter system, it is not eligible to compete for the $1 million Leaders Circle contracts reserved for the top 22 in the entrants’ standings who own one of the 25 charters.