Formula 1, IndyCar and NASCAR: A Sunday with 0 full-course cautions
By Asher Fair
Formula 1, IndyCar and NASCAR Cup Series races all took place this past Sunday. None of them featured any full-course caution flag periods.
This past Sunday’s Formula 1 race, IndyCar race and NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit Paul Ricard, Road America and Sonoma Raceway, respectively, totaled 641.83 miles in length. None of these 641.83 miles produced the need for an incident-related caution flag/safety car period.
The Formula 1 race, the French Grand Prix, was a 192.39-mile race, a 53-lap race around the 15-turn, 3.63-mile (5.842-kilometer) Circuit Paul Ricard road course in Le Castellet, France. This race did feature a brief virtual safety car period toward the end, but not a full safety car period that would be classified as a “caution flag period” in terms of these other two series.
The IndyCar race, the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America, was a 222.64-mile race, a 55-lap race around the 14-turn, 4.048-mile (6.515-kilometer) Road America road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
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Finally, the Cup Series race, the Toyota/Save Mart 350, was a 226.8-mile race, a 90-lap race around the 12-turn, 2.52-mile (4.056-kilometer) Sonoma Raceway road course in Sonoma, California. It was the first race at Sonoma Raceway utilizing this particular track layout since the 1997 season.
Formula 1 races that do not feature any safety car periods are fairly common. Through the first eight races of the 21-race 2019 season, only two races have featured a full safety car period.
In IndyCar, races that do not feature any caution flag periods are fairly uncommon. Prior to the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America, the last IndyCar race to feature no caution flag periods was last July’s race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Between these two races, 13 races were contested.
That said, last June’s race at Road America also featured no caution flag periods, so Sunday’s lack of on-track incidents was not overwhelmingly surprising.
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On the NASCAR front, of course, as a result of stage racing in the Cup Series, the Toyota/Save Mart 350 did feature the usual two caution flag periods to bring stages one and two to their respective ends; this is the case in every Cup Series race on the schedule and has been the case ever since stage racing was controversially introduced ahead of the 2017 season.
But for just the second time in the Cup Series since the 2002 season (and also the second time in the last 14 races), this race did not feature any incident-related caution flag periods.