Q: There is no question that drivers in the paddock don’t like Romain Grosjean’s consistent reckless driving. It seemed like he was wrecking more equipment and throwing away races than his competitors last year while driving for Andretti Global. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Santino Ferruci had a legitimate beef with Grosjean following the race at Barber. Despite that, it didn’t mean he had the right to intimidate and get payback for the incident in the morning warmup at IMS and then deliberately push Grosjean into the grass during the race. Ferrucci should really give his head a shake and grow up based on his comments before the race.
When you’re racing at 175mph and trying to force someone to wreck or go off track something’s wrong, and it could be deadly depending on the hit and speed that is being carried. You simply shouldn’t use a race car as a weapon. Shouldn’t someone from IndyCar sit these two down before the 500 so this nonsense doesn’t carry over? What do you think should be done, if anything? Would it even matter to either driver or be in one ear and out the other? Perhaps IndyCar should set up a ring and put these two in a UFC cage match in the outfield.
David Colquitt
MP: Chip Ganassi says a lot of smart things. His recent comments about the late Wally Dallenbach, former CART IndyCar Series race steward, fit that theme here:
“I remember his famous line he’d say in the drivers’ meetings that sticks out today where he’d say he would not stand for using the car as a weapon. And I think today, more drivers need to hear that message. You can’t use the car as a weapon.”
What should be done about it? IndyCar race director Kyle Novak is at least 6-foot-4 and looks like he played football. He towers over most IndyCar drivers. I’d suggest calling Santucchi and The Phoenix into the hauler and threatening the living **** out of them with beatings if they don’t fall in line. I don’t know if that’s the most professional way of doing things, but when my dad did it when I was a kid, I got my act in gear.
I’m only half-serious about Novak, but fear is an excellent motivator.
Q: Watched the IMSA race this weekend. Great race, and very entertaining. And Laguna Seca looked good.
My question is with regard to IMSA racing etiquette (or lack thereof). I am speaking to the pass Jordan Taylor made on the Turner Motorsports car near the very end of the race that essentially took the win away from Turner. Admittedly I am friends with Pat Gallagher, so I was not happy.
My view was that Jordan was not going to catch anyone in front of him with what was about three minutes left in the race. His gap to the next competitor in his class was, like, eight seconds. And Turner and the Mercedes were racing for the win in GTD with a very entertaining show.
I know GTD is last on the list of importance for IMSA, but are there any etiquette rules other than get the heck out of the way of the prototypes, they get whatever they want? It just seems like there could have been better situational awareness from Andretti and Taylor. The team might have given him a heads-up what he was coming up on. Or Taylor himself acknowledging himself he wasn’t going any further with three minutes to go and these guys may actually be racing for position. I know there is the catch all rationalization of, “Well, that is just multi-class racing” as well.
Disappointed. One, if I am Turner, I put in my memory banks for future reference. Thoughts?
Jeff Smith, State College, PA
MP: Lots of great post-incident analysis that had no bearing or involvement in what took place and when it took place, Jeff. Jordan Taylor in a GTP car would have had no awareness of who was leading in GTD or thought to ease off just because he didn’t have a GTP car in close proximity to chase. It’s just not a thing, especially when a guy in the fastest cars on track are firing through a turn. Watching the BMW’s in-car camera, it looked like Jordan tried to widen his arc on turn-in to maintain more speed and hit the BMW while turning left to create that arc. Hitting the BMW just for the sake of it makes no sense to me since it wasn’t like Taylor was held up for multiple corners while in hot pursuit of a rival. Regardless, it was a terrible outcome for Will Turner and family on a day where they should have won while making history as BMW’s all-time leading entrant.
Q: Are updated speedway wings still planned for 2025?
Paulie
MP: I believe so.
Q: Last year at the 500, race control threw red flags at the end of the race so that it would end under green, despite no apparent written instruction. Sure, we’d rather see a race end under green, but they really need to codify the call. You were dismissive of those who questioned the integrity of the call on the basis of the conflict of interest involved with having a team owner who competes in his own events. Your position seemed quite reasonable to me at the time. I also seem to recall that you later suggested that in the future a late race crash would be handled differently than it was in 2023.
Lately, you have repeatedly raised the conflict of interest concern over how the P2P issue was handled. We know that the appearance of impropriety can be as damaging as an actual impropriety. So, has your position on the red flags evolved? Has race control been given firm guidance on when to use the red flag?
If there is a late crash this year and race control uses its discretion to end the race under yellow with a Penske car in the lead, then all hell is going to break loose.
Gary, from the road
MP: No change in my view on the final red flag. I wasn’t a fan of it back then, but it was within their power to do what they did and I was dismissive of it because I could find no merit to support the notion that the fix was in. Also worth noting that Newgarden had to then go and win the race, which was certainly tipped in his favor, but if he stumbled and Ferrucci got a better jump on the restart, we might be talking about Foyt as the defending winner. Ericsson was always going to be a sitting duck, but there was no guarantee Josef would be the winner.
I should know more about how race control plans to handle certain things shortly, and hope to have it published in the coming days.