Rossi maintains Texas pit collision was Kirkwood’s fault despite his penalty · RaceFans

Alexander Rossi maintains his view that Kyle Kirkwood was at fault for the pit lane collision between the pair in IndyCar’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.

The pair collided during the first caution period. This was triggered when Chip Ganassi Racing’s Takuma Sato crashed out, prompting the majority of the field to pit.

McLaren driver Rossi was running in fifth when he came in, eight places ahead of Kirkwood. That meant Rossi was potentially able to make his stop – involving changing tyres and being refuelled – and be released back into the fast lane of pit road close to the Andretti driver.

However Kirkwood’s arrival at his pit stall was delayed by a wheel-spinning Josef Newgarden joining the fast lane. As a result by the time Kirkwood was level with Rossi’s pit stall the McLaren driver was having his fuel hose disconnected and was about to be released back into traffic. Rather than being clearly ahead of Rossi, the rear of Kirkwood’s car was level with the front of the McLaren.

The outcome was Rossi accelerated out of his stall and then immediately tried to swing his car back to the left – applying full steering lock – as the slowing Kirkwood steered towards him to enter his pit stall. Rossi’s front-right wheel hit Kirkwood’s rear-left, spinning Kirkwood sideways into his pit area, while Rossi stopped his car.

The drivers and their crews fortunately escaped injury. The NBC commentary team held Kirkwood responsible for the collision but the stewards found Rossi and his crew was at fault, citing an “unsafe release”. He was given a drive-through penalty for making “contact with another car,” putting all of the responsibility for the incident on Rossi.

His race had already been ruined prior to the penalty as he lost five laps while a new nose cone was fitted. Both he and Kirkwood took to social media after the race to point out they each thought they had been within the rules during the pit lane incident.

“Pretty disappointing how much hate mail I’ve received for the pit lane incident yesterday,” said Kirkwood. “I’d like to clarify that I was fully 100% within pit lane protocol and the IndyCar NBC broadcast team has kindly apologised for making me out to be the bad guy.”

However Rossi told media including RaceFans this week he has had “no change of opinion” over who was to blame for the pit lane tangle.

“Hopefully we can as a series learn about communication…