Marcus Ericsson, Kyle Kirkwood and Callum Ilott were all moved to the end of the results after technical violations were found on all three cars. The drivers have been moved to 31st, 32nd and 33rd respectively in the results. Ericsson had finished second, Kirkwood was sixth and Ilott was 12th. In addition to the prize money lost from their original finishing positions, all three entries have been fined $100,000 and the team manager for all three cars will be suspended for Detroit.
Ericsson and Kirkwood each had modifications to the Energy Management Systems covers and cover-to-A-arm mounting points with unapproved spacers and parts. Ilott's car failed due to front wing endplates not meeting minimum heights.
2. Even if IndyCar is doing the right thing, the events of the previous weekend color the infractions post-race. It looks like IndyCar is going to pick apart every car at every race and will throw the book at every infraction it finds.
James Hinchcliffe said on the Off-Track with Hinch and Rossi episode ahead of the Indianapolis 500 while speaking about the Team Penske penalties that if you rip every car apart and checked every bit, you would find something wrong with all of them. That doesn't mean if everyone is breaking the rules no one is breaking the rules, but it does look like IndyCar is looking for its examples to set at every race.
If Team Penske is caught red-handed, everyone else is on notice and their day is coming.
But what else can officiating do?
It must do its job, and if teams are pushing it too far, they should be found and called out in inspection. The series cannot ignore infractions because Team Penske got caught and it cannot look like vengeance against all the other teams, but this isn't an independent officiating body, and it does look like the series is making sure the only guilty team isn't the team owned by Roger Penske. He needs some sinners to surround himself and look better.
Even if officiating are catching violations, this again looks bad on the officials as these all seem to be violations that should have been caught sooner. If there was a modified Engery Management Systems cover on the two Andretti Global cars, that was probably on the cars prior to Sunday's race. That was probably something that should have been seen pre-race during inspection. The team didn't put on an illegal cover somewhere between the checkered flag and when the cars went through inspection.
Prema came out with a statement that the front wing assembly had been used throughout the entire month and had passed inspection every time prior to post-race. Things happen during a race and hitting a little debris hitting the endplate could shave off a millimeter and lead to it failing. That isn't crazy to believe, but it is hard to believe this front wing passed on multiple practice days, qualifying day and pre-race and somehow skirt through each time only to be finally caught post-race, the last chance where a violation could be caught.
This hasn't been a good month for IndyCar officiating just on visuals alone.
3. It also doesn't look good that for years we rarely had serious violations and in a little over 13 months there have been two cases where Team Penske violated technical rules, one of which led to two cars being completely disqualified from a race, and now we have three cars from two organizations disqualified for infractions, and it ust happened to come in the Indianapolis 500.
Everyone didn't just decide to start cheating overnight. I hate to call it cheating because that makes it all sound intentional. A team could honestly present a car to inspection and be an 1/8th of a inch too low in one area and that came down to something wearing during a race. Things happen on the racetrack, but it looks weird for IndyCar to go from no one is ever disqualified to two major incidents of multiple cars being thrown out in a little over a year.
We know cars have failed inspection in past. We know race-winning cars have failed inspections. Justin Wilson's winner from Texas in 2012 had unapproved pieces of bodywork on its sidepod. Carlos Huertas won the first Houston race in 2014 with an illegally large fuel cell and a rear wing infringement. Sébastien Bourdais' car was underweight after it won at Milwaukee in 2015. Three years ago, Alexander Rossi won the summer race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course only to be found post-race that the team used the water bottle to ensure the car met the minimum weight and not ballast.
In the first case, Wilson and Dale Coyne Racing was fined $7,500 and docked five points. The Huertas' infractions only earned DCR a $5,000 fine, despite the race Huertas won being a fuel-mileage race where he stretched what he had in the tank. Bourdais and KV Racing was fined $5,000. Rossi's team was fined $25,000 and docked 20 points. In none of the four cases were cars disqualified.
There has been a change in American motorsports recently as a few season ago NASCAR adopted disqualifying cars from races and not letting wins stand even if a car failed inspection. The belief the fans at the track should go home knowing who won the race has been dismissed for the sake of competitive fairness. It might not be ideal that someone leaves seeing one driver win only for the result to be changed hours afterward, but it also doesn't look right that a winner can remain even when an infraction has been clearly found.
The problem is IndyCar has never officially adopted the disqualification policy, and it might say it was alwaysin the rulebook, but we have plenty of examples where such infractions have been lighter than slaps on the wrist. They have been whispered messages of "Hey, can you please not do that next time?"
From a humble outsider, it seems to me a car being underweight or having a larger fuel cell than the rest of the competition is a greater violation than a modified Energy Management Systems cover or slightly smaller front wing endplate, and neither of those infractions in the past lead to victories being taken away.
If there was a change, let us know there was a change. Make it clear for everyone. Draw the line in the sand.
4. The penalties do shake up the results a little bit.
David Malukas is now runner-up. Patricio O'Ward moves up to third and Felix Rosenqvist to fourth. Santino Ferrucci becomes a top five finisher. This was A.J. Foyt Racing's first double top five finish in any IndyCar race since the 2000 Indianapolis 500!
Christian Rasmussen is sixth with Christian Lundgaard is seventh. Conor Daly moves up to eighth. Takuma Sato and Hélio Castroneves get top ten finishes out of this race. Castroneves ties A.J. Foyt for most top ten finishes in the history of the Indianapolis 500 on 17.
Devlin DeFrancesco falls a spot shy of his first top ten finish in his career in 11th with Louis Foster in 12th. Everyone else gains three spots from here.
Everyone's day looks a little bit better with an extra position or three.
5. I think lost in Álex Palou's success is he is really good in the Indianapolis 500. It hasn't been the case of he has had some average days at Indianapolis where he finishes 15th and hasn't been in the mix. He has been there pretty much every year.
His rookie year in 2020 is the one blemish. He had an accident and finished 28th, but Palou did make it into the Fast Nine as a rookie driving for Dale Coyne Racing.
Since then, second, ninth, fourth, fifth and first. In six starts, his average finish in the Indianapolis 500 is 8.1667. Among drivers with at least five Indianapolis 500 starts, Palou is ranked eighth in average finish. That is out of 266 drivers!
Palou isn't even the top active driver. Santino Ferrucci is fourth at 6.1428, and Palou isn't even second among active drivers. Patricio O'Ward is sixth at 6.8333.
6. This was Chip Ganassi Racing's sixth Indianapolis 500 victory, which moved it into second all-time among team owners, breaking a tie with Lou Moore and the Andretti Global organization. All six of Ganassi's victories have come over the space of 26 races and the only driver to win multiple times is Dario Franchitti, who won it twice. Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon, Marcus Ericsson and now Palou have all won it once.
It is kind of staggering that Franchitti is the only multi-time winner for Ganassi. Dixon has had plenty of close calls, and in another world he likely has two or three Indianapolis 500 victories to his name. You would think Palou is likely to add a second for Ganassi down the line, but here we are 17 years since Dixon's only victory, and we likely expected Dixon having a second by now.
7. Prior to Ericsson's penalty, IndyCar was looking pretty good if you are Scandinavian. You had a Swede in second, another Swede in fifth and then two Danes in eighth and ninth. It still looks pretty good with a Swede in fourth and two Danes in sixth and seventh.
I don't know how strong the international reach of IndyCar is. It seems like it has done well in Sweden relatively speaking. Kenny Bräck had a good following. There was a lot of noise when Ericsson and Rosenqvist joined the series. I don't think the Indianapolis 500 is on the biggest channel in Sweden and it is their main primetime viewing option on a Sunday night, the same goes for Denmark, but a few years ago it sounded like the coverage in Sweden was rather good. It would be neat if IndyCar had a healthy, cult following in that part of the world.
It wouldn't hurt if IndyCar became some niche tourism attraction for people from Sweden and Denmark, and each summer we see throngs of yellow and red at Gateway and Toronto and Laguna Seca. The opportunity is there.
If only we could get some Finns into IndyCar. Then we might be really be cooking.
8. Let's talk about The Double, because after exiting the Coca-Cola 600 last night, Kyle Larson made it sound like he has run his course attempting to complete 1,100 miles in one day. Sunday could not have gone worse for Larson, and he missed the Coca-Cola 600 entirely last year.
He stalled on his first pit stop from Indianapolis, spun on his own before getting to halfway, and then in Charlotte, brushed the wall while leading, spun while leading and was caught in an accident before he could complete 600 combined miles across the two races. Battered from multiple incidents, Larson must have realized how difficult it is to complete The Double. And that is without mentioning that light rainfall erased any wiggleroom he had in Indianapolis to make the Coca-Cola 600 on time. Even without his accident, he was going to have to exit the car in Indianapolis with about 30 laps to go. That is what he had to do to preserve his championship position in the NASCAR Cup Series.
As Larson mentioned in the aftermath, there is no incentive to do The Double. It is all pride. Pride doesn't pay the bills. He got to experience Indianapolis, and he left with a greater appreciation for the event. But he had everything he wanted to make this attempt. Larson was with a top team and had the best minds working with him. He took advantage of every test and tested elsewhere to get ready. This was not a slapdash operation, and he still had a long way to go to run this at the level he wishes.
There is the driving side where Larson needs more time to get familiar with an IndyCar, and running one event a year, even if all his laps are at the facility he will be racing isn't enough. Then there is the logistics side, which has always been brutal for any Double attempt.
Larson has a little less time than the likes of John Andretti, Robby Gordon and Tony Stewart. Those Indianapolis 500s were starting closer to noon Eastern Daylight Time. This race was scheduled to fire the engines at 12:44 p.m., which meant a green flag time around 12:52 p.m.
NASCAR is going to do him no favors. We know that when it comes to the ramifications of needing a playoff waiver. The Coca-Cola 600 is not moving from a 6:00 p.m. start time. Indianapolis could slide forward. Even if the race started a half-hour earlier, it at least gives him around 75 total minutes to play with in terms of delays and stoppages. It helps, but it still isn't even. Even with the earlier start, Tony Stewart still had a close call making it to Charlotte on time over 20 years ago.
The help is only going to come from one direction and the question is how much does IndyCar want this? The green flag waved at 12:21 p.m. as recently as 2018. There is a half-hour right there. All the pre-race festivities could start a little earlier and no one would notice. It could be a moot point next year, and for many years after that. There is a reason prior to Larson the previous two Double attempts were in 2004 and 2014. It is not easy and it takes a special individual to attempt it.
9. This was a weird race. It was a weird two weeks for the entire proceedings.
It started with a delayed opening practice due to rain, which meant Tony Kanaan's refresher was delayed. Once we got going, everyone was learning the hybrid system and trying to get the balance of the race cars right, which proved to be more difficult than anticipating.
In qualifying, we had a few accidents on Saturday shake up the last chance qualifying session. On Sunday, Team Penske was booted from qualifying after everyone looked at the attenuator, Prema won pole position, and then Team Penske had Josef Newgarden and Will Power moved to the rear of the grid, which soon led to the dismissal of Tim Cindric, Ron Ruzewski and Kyle Moyer from the Team Penske organization.
We still have not properly processed that organizational change at Team Penske. That is much bigger than the attention we have given it.
Then came race day and the light rain that would not go away. It didn't ruin the day, but it held things up and was more of a factor than anyone thought it would be. During the race, it never felt like it was the Indianapolis 500. Teams went off strategy early and it cycled a bunch of different faces to the front, none of which were the usual suspects.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing led a combined 68 laps, the most of any team. The next most laps led was Dreyer & Reinbold Racing with 48. Third-most was Ed Carpenter Racing with 22. Two drivers who are not going to race again this season led a combined 99 of 200 laps. Throw in Ed Carpenter and Jack Harvey for jiggles and more than half the race was led by one-off drivers who will not see compete again in IndyCar this season.
Team Penske led zero laps. McLaren led two laps. Ganassi led 14 laps, which turned out to be the final 14 laps.
If that doesn't speak to what the 109th Indianapolis 500 was, I don't know what else can. It was a race where you never felt like you saw the actual battle for the victory until the final stint, which turned out to be an illusion because Marcus Ericsson was always on the verge of being disqualified.
It is its own Indianapolis 500. It isn't 1991 with Rick Mears vs. Michael Andretti. It isn't 2014 with Ryan Hunter-Reay vs. Hélio Castroneves. It isn't 2016 with a fuel mileage race that Alexander Rossi pulled out. It isn't 2019 where it was Rossi vs. Simon Pagenaud. It isn't last year when you had all of IndyCar's biggest players at the front. This race is its own race. No great battle between two drivers. Not really a fuel mileage race but fuel mileage certainly decided the main players in the final act.
In a way, this year's race will be remembered as the last act for a few notable names. Will Takuma Sato ever lead 51 laps again in an Indianapolis 500 or will Ryan Hunter-Reay ever lead 48 laps and be the legitimate man to beat in the closing stages? It was one final run at the front for those two, a last act that plenty will remember for coming out of nowhere and not quite the dream ending you would expect.
An odd year led to an odd "500." With everyone down, it made it easier for the very best to come out on top.
10. 362 days until the 110th Indianapolis 500. But who the hell is counting?
