Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor will all had to Le Mans in June with a chance of completing a single-season endurance racing Triple Crown, as the #7 Porsche won the 12 Hours of Sebring. The Formula One season began with a day in the rain. A few races were not run due to the weather. In the desert, something happened for the first time since 1977. In Argentina, it is still good to be in the Márquez family. Baseball season begins tomorrow. But I want to go back a few weeks to an infraction that wasn't an infraction.
Musings From the Weekend: Radio Check... One, Two, One Two
There has been a little time since the IndyCar season opener, two weeks to be specific. For the most part, it was a quiet race from St. Petersburg. Nothing stood out as all that drastic from that race. It was a somewhat memorable race, but nothing that was all that staggering. It was a good way for a season to start. Not a bore, but it hasn't gotten your hopes up too much.
The race wasn't the only quiet thing from St. Petersburg. Scott Dixon's radio would like to have a word, and that might be the greatest talking point two weeks after the fact. Dixon was leading and it looked like the race was his until he ran long on his penultimate stint and that time lost gave victory to Álex Palou.
In the moment, it looked like it was another strategy misplayed. Dixon's team went for a shorter final stop and those extra laps were enough to hand the advantage to Palou, a costly mistake in more ways than one. It wasn't just giving away a victory but giving Palou ten extra points in the championship he was already favorite of successfully defending.
Everything became more clear in Dixon's post-race interview. It wasn't a bad strategy, it was a bad radio. Dixon said his radio wasn't working and he could not hear his crew. There was no strategy. Dixon ran until his fuel warning light illuminated. It wasn't a measured race but making the most of a terrible situation. It is more miraculous it turned into a runner-up finish. Not many other drivers could have been that successful essentially making up the strategy as they went along.
But Dixon's admission did raise an eyebrow. Radio communication is required at all times between the driver and the timing stand. Penalties are common when there is a radio issue. The first thought that crossed my mind during Dixon's post-race interview was, "Shouldn't that have been a penalty?" It felt like Dixon got away with one. The next question was, "How?"
IndyCar has a pretty stout record when it comes to enforcing the little things, radio communication included.
Stefano Coletti came to mind when Dixon spoke about his problems. Coletti has likely been forgotten by all of you. The Monegasque driver ran one season in IndyCar in 2015. Driving for KV Racing, Coletti didn't do spectacularly great, but his final race came to mind, because at the Sonoma season finale Coletti was running fifth but was black-flagged when his radio failed. A fifth-place finish or any top ten finish likely would not have changed Coletti's fate, but considering for the longest time pit boards were a main way of communicating, it felt like a black flag was harsh for Coletti's situation, and there was a suitable alternative.
Either way, rules are rules. But why wasn't Dixon penalized? Why wasn't it caught?
In the days after the event, things were clarified. Dixon may have exaggerated that the radio wasn't working. It wasn't working well. He could barely hear the team and the team could barely hear him, but they could hear something.
What defines communication is a little grey. In the immediate aftermath of the St. Petersburg race, Scott Dixon made it sound pretty clear he and his team were not in communication. If he couldn't hear their cars for when he should pit and he had to run the car until he saw the fuel warning light come on, they were not connected.
Just because you can hear someone does not mean you are communicating.
IndyCar determined Dixon and his team's radio communication was suitable for the entire St. Petersburg race and no infraction had occurred.
There are many things to monitor during a race. There are 27 cars and their position on circuit must be accounted for at all times. Then there is the racing surface, which can vary from a 7/8-mile in length to over four miles twisting through the Wisconsin countryside. Pit lane might be quiet for majority of the event, but for a handful of laps, it becomes a hornet's nest with the buzz of wheel gun, pneumatic jacks and engines revving. A half-dozen bodies jump over a wall and remain still as cars zip on by at 60 mph.
Between all of the elements in a race, it is impossible to have someone monitoring everything at all times. Who could possibly listen to all 27 radios and determine if a team is in proper communication? It might sound easy to hear 27 individuals to listen to the 27 cars but IndyCar doesn't have that kind of money to employee just over two-dozen individuals to listen to radios. A problem will only be caught when it becomes obvious, but that means it is something that a team can get away with.
A mid-race penalty for the radio issues would have killed any hope of a promising result for Dixon and his team. In all likelihood, Dixon would have lost multiple laps to fix the issue and likely would have finished 22nd rather than second. That is a 33-point difference in the championship. Plenty of championships have been decided by less than that. He might not have won the race, but it feels like Dixon caught the fortunate break that no one was listening close enough. After all, he ran 100 laps and no one knew there was a problem until he opened his mouth. For all the officials, television broadcasters (who didn't pick up on the issue either) and fans listening, no one caught that Dixon couldn't hear his crew and have a pit strategy. Perhaps that is enough to determine no infraction occurred, but listening to Dixon's words after the race, that was clearly a driver who was not satisfied with how his radio was working during the race.
Dixon said, "We had no radio," and he described it as "flying blind."
It is kind of unfathomable that IndyCar can determine the radio communication was sufficient enough not to warrant a penalty when the driver is as adamant as Dixon was immediately after the St. Petersburg race, which makes me wonder if there should be a better way for officials to monitor the radios during the race.
Twenty-seven radio monitors seem out of the question. Perhaps officials need to do multiple check in during the race, but the radio is not a place of constant chatter. It can be a pretty one-way conversation for most of the race. For the most part, it is a lot of messages from the timing stand with the occasional comment from the driver. As long as the timing stand keeps talking as if nothing wrong, a team can likely get away with an issue. Not saying that is a good thing, but it does make it one of the easiest areas where a team can skirt a penalty.
IndyCar has long made itself a beacon of motorsports safety. No form of motorsports likes to slurp itself more for its contributions to safety than IndyCar. While the radio exists for communication from driver to team about how the car is performing and strategy, it largely exists for safety reasons as well, whether that be alerting a driver about another car off circuit or debris scattered across the surface, or whether to slow down for a caution and safety personnel on track.
If a driver is getting out of the car and saying he had no radio, it is a lapse of safety, not only for that driver but for all the other competitors on track and the safety workers scattered around the circuit.
IndyCar determined Dixon and his team had not violated a rule. If the rule wasn't violated, no penalty can be given. That should end it there, but two-and-two does not add up here, and it feels like Dixon got away with it because IndyCar doesn't have a reasonable way to determine if every car on track has proper communication to its own timing stand. Then again, in the race prior to St. Petersburg, a driver started the race without having his seat belts properly fastened and despite that incredible lapse in safety, no additional penalty was handed down despite the consequences being vastly greater than radio issues.
This is a series that will list monetary penalties in its post-race report when a driver clips equipment in the pit lane. If that warrants a punishment, it should take a closer look at radio communication, and if a driver says he had "no radio" during a race, that should be treated with the same seriousness, otherwise it appears you can get away with it as long as you keep the appearance that everything is working properly.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor, but did you know...
Lando Norris won the Australian Grand Prix.
Joshua Dürksen won the Formula Two sprint race from Australia as the feature race was cancelled due to rain. Rafael Câmara (feature) and Santiago Ramos (sprint) split the Formula Three races.
At the 12 Hours of Sebring, the #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Tom Dillmann, Bijoy Gargantuas and Jeremy Clark won in the LMP2 class. The #77 AO Racing Porsche of Klaus Bachler, Laurin Heinrich and Alessio Picariello won in GTD Pro. The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Philip Ellis, Russell Ward and Indy Dontje won in GTD.
Marc Márquez won MotoGP's Argentine Grand Prix and sprint race, Márquez's second consecutive sweep to open the season. Jake Dixon won the Moto2 race. Ángel Piqueras won the Moto3 race.
Broc Feeney, Cameron Hill and Will Brown split the Supercars races from Albert Park. The fourth race was abandoned due to rain.
Josh Berry won the NASCAR Cup race from Las Vegas, his first career Cup victory. Justin Allgaier won the Grand National Series race. Corey Heim won the Truck race, his second victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One's second race of the season in Shanghai, and its a sprint weekend.
IndyCar's second race of the season at the Thermal Club, and it is a championship round.
NASCAR returns to Florida with an earlier trip to Homestead.
Supercross is back from a week off with a round in Birmingham.
The World Rally Championship travels to Kenya for the Safari Rally.
