T HE
SP IN
8
MOVERS, SHAKERS,
TROUBLE-MAKERS
MCLAREN STILL
THINKS RED BULL
IS CATCHABLE
SILVER TEAM
STILL GOLDEN?
Tony Kanaan’s wild exit at New Hampshire after his clash with Tomas Scheckter and Marco Andretti was just a prelude to the discord that would soon follow.
1012 18
ROUSH – AND
FORD – HOLD
ONTO EDWARDS
CAT IN THE HAT
GETS THE CREAM
ASSESSMENTS OF
THE 2012 INDYCAR
FROM FIRST TEST
THAT THAR NEWFANGLED THINGIE
AMBROSE BEATS
THE RAIN AMID
SAFETY GRUMBLES
GETTING A GRIP
AT THE GLEN
Phil Abbott/LAT
Your 24-hour source for
racing news and analysis
CAN WE HAVE A DO-OVER?
An admittedly fumbled call for a late restart in dubious conditions at New Hampshire
sets off a fresh IndyCar firestorm under embattled competition boss Brian Barnhart
Oval racing and rain go together like oil and water,
and combine those two with a judgment call from the
frequently controversial IZOD IndyCar Series
officiating crew, and chaos is sure to follow – as it did at New
Hampshire Motor Speedway. RACER.com will have already told
you the outcome of the protests of the decision to spike the
final restart, in which Newman/Haas Racing’s Oriol Servia and
Target Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon reckoned they’d passed the
leading car of Ryan Hunter-Reay under green, but the resulting
debate seems likely to linger beyond the final decision.
The decision to go back to green-flag racing sparked
widespread discord among the drivers and teams, who
considered conditions to be too wet for a restart. The race was
finally stopped for good when several cars lost control as the
green flag waved, and the final results were subsequently
declared based on the running order prior to that restart.
IndyCar president of competition Brian Barnhart apologized
for allowing the race to go back to green, saying: “It was an
error from the race control standpoint,
and clearly my fault.” He also conceded
that there was no precedent in the
rulebook for a countback of laps following
a red flag, but said he made that decision
to correct an obvious error by race control.
In addition to the protests, Barnhart
faced renewed complaints about his
judgment – most vociferously from Will
Power, whose title hopes may have taken
Will Power flipping the
bird – that was the best
part of the day!
a dent (pending the results of the
protests) when he crashed in avoidance
of a spinning Danica Patrick. His very
angry words and non-verbal
remonstrations drove home the degree to
which he felt his season-long efforts have
been put at risk by feckless officiating.
While agreeing that the restart had
been a mistake, Mario Andretti reckoned
there was something of a silver lining in
all the resulting controversy. “To me, it
was good for the series,” Andretti told
AUTOSPORT. “It got a lot of attention, and
in NASCAR they’re always looking for
those things. I didn’t see a single
element that was totally negative. Will
Power flipping the bird – that was the
best part of the day!”
