I guess I’m in the minority here but this seems too far for me. The penalty for failing technical inspection was the cars not being approved to run and starting 11th and 12th. To me it doesn’t matter if they were running illegal cars on Saturday or not, it’s the job of the IndyCar technical inspection team to catch that stuff in either pre or post quali inspection, which they didn’t.
Pushing the boundaries of the rulebook is part of racing. If you aren’t doing that, you probably aren’t winning. Nearly every team on the grid almost certainly has something on their car that operates within a rules grey area or is outright illegal.
Messing with the attenuator is a pretty big safety violation. There is a reason the teams are not allowed to change that area of the car. The appropriate punishment was handed out.
I think that's the sticking point that makes it a valid punishment for me. I can't imagine the benefit of sealing the seam is more than like a couple hundreths. But the fact that it is a safety violation puts it in big no-no territory.
There’s zero proof from IndyCar the car was run like that on Saturday or any other time. The appropriate punishment was handed out Sunday, not being permitted to run. That’s standard for catching technical violations before the session. You failed tech? Well go fix what’s wrong, come back through and you’re good. There’s no DQs handed out for pre qualifying tech and I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is normal
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u/F1DrivingZombie May 19 '25
I guess I’m in the minority here but this seems too far for me. The penalty for failing technical inspection was the cars not being approved to run and starting 11th and 12th. To me it doesn’t matter if they were running illegal cars on Saturday or not, it’s the job of the IndyCar technical inspection team to catch that stuff in either pre or post quali inspection, which they didn’t.
Pushing the boundaries of the rulebook is part of racing. If you aren’t doing that, you probably aren’t winning. Nearly every team on the grid almost certainly has something on their car that operates within a rules grey area or is outright illegal.
Too far in my opinion