Marcus Ericsson said better driving standards are needed in IndyCar after almost half of Sunday’s race was run under caution.
Eight separate caution periods were needed, all for collisions on the Detroit street track which was hosting the series for the second time. Several occured immediately after restarts as drivers collided, with the turn three hairpin proving a notable trouble spot.
Ericsson finished second behind Scott Dixon after 53 green flags laps in a 100-lap race. He was unimpressed with what he saw. “I think people are driving reckless on the restarts,” he said. “Obviously there’s opportunities on restarts. I don’t know if we need to look at how we steward these kind of races but I think today more than 50% on yellow.
“I’m sure it was dramatic and fun to watch but at some point also we need to have a bit of a better standard. We’re one of the best racing series in the world. We shouldn’t be driving on top of each other every single restart.
“Obviously I haven’t seen the race, I was just driving it. I saw in my mirrors every time on the restart, four, five-wide. I was just praying not to get hit pretty much every restart.”
The Andretti driver, who is in his sixth season in the series, suspects stiffer penalties for incidents may be needed. “I did watch the Indy 500 [after retiring on the first lap], that was pretty crazy as well. I think we were lucky there wasn’t more incidents there because some of the driving there was also on the limit. Let’s put it that way.
“Again, we’re some of the best drivers in the world here racing. We shouldn’t be having incidents like today.”
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“I think I’ve done my fair share, as well,” he admitted. “I do mistakes as well. I’m not going to put the finger on everyone else. I don’t stop myself, as well. But I think as a series, we can definitely improve.”
Dixon believes the harder tyres the series is using this year contributed to the number of incidents seen in Detroit. The more durable rubber was created for the hybrid power units the series is introducing later this year, which were originally due to be used from the opening round before being postponed to Mid-Ohio next month.
“Anticipating the hybrid, the tyre was pretty hard here,” said Dixon. “Very hard to turn the black tyres on, front tyres makes it easy to…
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