It feels like I'm just rewriting the same article every year, sometimes more than once a year, about the incompetence of IndyCar Race Control when it comes to making use of the yellow caution flag when it's appropriate to do so.
Too often, the series waits to throw a yellow flag on a road or a street course, despite an obvious on-track hazard. Sometimes it's to see if the stopped car can get restarted, and other times it's to "let the pit cycle play out".
The first makes sense, although in Saturday's Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, everybody could see that the issue with Alexander Rossi's No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet was terminal.
He was stopped in the middle of the front straightaway, the fastest part of the 13-turn, 2.439-mile (3.925-kilometer) natural terrain road course, rather than some random runoff area or strip or grass.
As for letting the pit cycle play out, this actually serves the opposite purpose. Pit strategy is literally a part of the sport. Having Race Control make decisions based on teams' pit strategies and waiting for drivers who still need to pit is race manipulation, plain and simple. If you didn't pit, tough.
IndyCar's latest caution nonsense feels all too familiar
Saturday's situation was arguably the worst of all in regard to race manipulation, because the local caution had several teams and drivers confused as to whether or not there was actually a full course caution.
Due to the confusion, Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou and Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood stayed out, while almost everybody else who hadn't yet pit came into the pits. Then the full course yellow flew.
In other words, it ironically screwed up the pit cycle more so than it would have had the yellow flag come out when it should have to begin with.
It's not rocket science, and to avoid beating a horse that's been dead for years, let's keep it simple. It either warrants a caution, or it doesn't. What doesn't warrant a caution one second doesn't warrant a caution the next, and what will warrant a caution 10 seconds down the road warrants a caution now.
You cannot logically argue that an on-track hazard is any more dangerous one second than it is any other.
High school flaggers at most local kiddie go-kart tracks have this concept down better than IndyCar seems to, because it boils down to a basic safety standard.
And if the whole "let the pit cycle play out" argument was actually as important as it seemed, IndyCar would have changed the rule years ago, to allow the pits to remain open for a lap after the caution flag flies. That, of course, hasn't happened, because everybody knows pit strategy is a part of racing.
But even completely ignoring the competitive side of the argument and the race manipulation aspect, the blatant disregard for human life is abhorrent. Maybe we can get Kevin Harlan to join the usual trio in the booth – all of whom were also disgusted by the decision – the next time IndyCar pulls such nonsense, just to recite that famous quote. Because it'll probably happen again.
IndyCar seems to think leaving a driver stranded in the middle of the front straightaway at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is acceptable. Or worse yet, allowing that driver to get out of his race car as 24 other cars scream past in excess of 170 miles per hour, even under local yellow conditions.
For the same reason you don't wait to see what the outcome of the play is before throwing the penalty flag in football, you don't wait to see who is running where in an IndyCar race to decide when a danger becomes a danger. Except that's unfortunately exactly what Race Control has made a habit of doing.
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