We have brought you here today, during this week when NASCAR and IndyCar are off and only Formula One is on the racing calendar (Canadian GP, Sunday, 2 p.m. ET; stream live on ABC) to discuss what has always been a hot topic among hot shoes but has become a particularly scalding subject in the past several weeks across all forms of motorsports: self-policing on the racetrack.
Drivers enforcing driving codes via bumpers and retaining walls. Chrome horn justice. It has been around forever, but exactly when it is OK for racers to take discipline into their own gloves? And is it OK at all?
“I don’t think it’s any different in motor racing than it is in any other sport where you see veterans teaching young guys lessons or champions reminding rookies about what is acceptable and what is not,” explains Mario Andretti when asked about the administration of discipline on the racetrack. “What is different is that in our sport, someone can get hurt or die. The person who needs to be taught the lesson needs to be reminded of that first and foremost, but so does the racer who has decided he is going to be an enforcer. You can’t fix something by making it worse.”
Then the man who won in all three series adds: “But you can fix it. And sometimes it really does needs fixing. Not it really, but who.”
There have been a couple of very high-profile “who”s this season, beginning in the IndyCar paddock.
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When Romain Grosjean arrived in the IndyCar Series in 2021, he brought with him a bit of a prepackaged image. A reputation. Not the one you might be thinking of, the awe-inspiring, death-defying “Phoenix” who emerged from a crash in the 2020 F1 Bahrain GP, stepping out of a frightening inferno and looking like Hugh Jackman in that Wolverine movie everyone hates.
No, we mean the rep he had earned long before that day for being, shall we say, difficult to overtake without some sort of issue. Specifically speaking, a bit of an unpredictable driving pattern and resulting unavoidable contact for those trying to maneuver around the Swiss-born driver on the racetrack. He was once described by F1 competitor Mark Webber as a “first-lap nutcase.”
It was that notoriety that gave his new stateside open-wheel rivals pause when he moved from F1 to IndyCar. It’s a scouting report that…
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