Criticism of the NTT IndyCar Series’ race control has been a long-held tradition of drivers, team owners, media members and fans as far back as one can remember. However, there are races where race control doesn’t play a noticeable part, and such was the case for Sunday’s (July 7) Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.
Of the 27 drivers that competed in the 80-lap race around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course near Lexington, Ohio, 26 of them managed to escape the wrath of the race stewards until Josef Newgarden made his second pit stop on Lap 62.
The crew for the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet performed a flawless pit stop, but shortly after exiting the pits, race strategist Tim Cindric told the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner that he was caught speeding on pit road and had to do a drive-thru penalty.
Newgarden was confused over the radio, but IndyCar said that he was going 46.33 mph at the beginning of pit road when the pit road speed limit is only 45 mph.
Newgarden asked the team to check with race control about the penalty. In the meantime, the two-time IndyCar Series champion went around the track to complete another lap. Because Newgarden completed another lap on track instead of heading to his pit box the lap the penalty was announced, race control increased the penalty to be a stop-and-go penalty.
But that wasn’t all for the Hendersonville, Tennessee native. While going into the pits to serve his stop-and-go, race control found that Newgarden sped going into the pits again.
The speed on pit entry? Exactly 46.33 mph, the same as it was on his last pit stop. Even drivers the caliber of the IndyCar field can’t be that precise.
Newgarden said it was a software issue that led to those speeding penalties, adamant that he was safely pressing the pit road speed limiter…
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